Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
“Economic phenomena may be regarded from three points of view: first,
from the point of view of their repetition, which has to do chiefly
with the propagation of habits of consumption, called needs, and of the
corresponding habits of labor; second, from the point of view of their
opposition, which includes principally the contests of producers among
themselves by acute or chronic competition, during strikes, or crises
of overproduction,—or contests of consumers among themselves, through
sumptuary laws, aristocratic or democratic, or monopolies of
consumption over which they dispute in a thousand ways, in time of
famine, or scarcity, or any form of underproduction,—or contests of
producers with consumers, through their attempts to exploit one
another, monopolize prices, or laws regulating the maximum price,
municipal tariffs, or protectionist rights, etc.; third, finally from
the point of view of their adaptation, always being renewed and always
incomplete, which embraces the series of successful inventions,
fortunate associations of ideas from which proceed all fruitful
associations of men, from the division of labor and of commerce, an
association spontaneous and implicit, to industrial, commercial,
financial, and syndical societies, etc.” [151]
It is through the second aspect that the economic life can give a
direct explanation of crime; that which is given by the other two is
only an indirect explanation. That is to say, each invention gives rise
to a contest among producers, and the progress of manufacturing creates
the possibility of satisfying needs, but at the same time makes those
who for want of the means cannot satisfy them, feel their needs all the
more strongly.
Every individual must satisfy a certain number of needs which have
their marked recurrences. A peaceful and honest society will be one in
which the great majority of the persons who compose it have, in
measure, the means of satisfying these needs. “Regular habits of
consumption and production form the first condition for good moral
health whether individual or collective, just as regular digestion is
the foundation of good physical health. Those who are irregular become
easily the ‘déclassés.’ Nothing is more contagious than disorder.”
[152]
Hence, then, comes the importance for criminality of social crises,
since during these production and consumption are deranged.
According to Professor Tarde, the social contradictions, which are the
chronic crises of societies, can be the sole causes of criminality. If
a society succeeds in avoiding every internal contradiction there can
hardly be any further question of crime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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