Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
What Professor Tarde means in speaking of “the advancement of
manufacturing and its reorganization upon a vaster and better conceived
plan”, is not clear. But it is certain that the final observation that
there must be “an individual organization of wants”, is purely Utopian.
For it is one of the characteristic phenomena of our present society
that it has strongly excited the cupidity of men, and that this will
disappear only when its cause has ceased to exist.
All Professor Tarde’s works upon criminality convince us of the great
knowledge of their author. The report of which I have been speaking
contains also ideas that are often very original, but this does not
prevent the necessity of confessing that it does not contribute much to
the solution of the problem that it treats.—
III.
A. CORRE.
In the third book of his “Crime et suicide” the author treats of the
influence of economic conditions upon criminality, beginning with
“labor, wages, and needs.”
Dr. Corre notes first the true condition of the free workman. No one is
obliged to give him work or bread, and it is forbidden to beg or even
to be idle. “There is no opinion more monstrous, more revolting, and
more cowardly. It is a social crime as well as the most dangerous of
follies. For it is necessary to be logical. If you oblige a man under
all circumstances to live by his own means, in the midst of a limited
circle, where the places are distributed in advance, the land divided
to the smallest fragments, if you refuse him the right to alms after
having refused him work ... you drive him to suicide or crime.” [155]
We must give work to everyone who wants to work, in order that he may
support himself and his family, and help must be given to those to whom
work cannot be given, as in the case of workmen not longer able to work
because of sickness or old age. On the other hand idleness must be
punished as well as professional crime. Wages must be so high that they
are sufficient not only for the strict necessities, but for others as
well; for example, for a progressive education, without, however,
arousing in the laboring class the desire for luxury that always
corrupts morals. Though naming a single exception, Dr. Corre is of the
opinion that wages are in general very insufficient, especially if we
take into account the fact that there are times of unemployment,
sickness, etc., during which nothing is earned. The question of wages
is one of great importance, then, for the etiology of criminality.
Nevertheless all the improvement of the material condition of the
working class will accomplish nothing unless there is at the same time
a moral improvement.
As other authors have already proved, the price of bread also has an
influence upon the course of criminality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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