Political crimes. “In the case of crimes against the State, public order, and religion, the dependence upon the form of society is immediately apparent. The ‘classes’, i.e. the property-owners as a whole, see in the institutions that they have set up, the strongest support of the capitalistic system, which must be maintained at any cost. The property-owners have the power to uphold their unique position by laws directed against those who would break down that power. And if the laws are no longer sufficient, their place is taken by judicial interpretations in the interests of the classes. This is only the logical consequence of the whole spirit and aim of legislation. The greater become the rights founded upon property, the more do those without property feel themselves to be deprived of their rights,—in the fullest sense of the word—in jeopardy as to their existence, their full life; the more energetic is the reaction against the laws, which are felt as despotism; and the more serious is the attack upon those laws,—a characteristic phenomenon of all periods of transition as to the form of society.” [256] The question which presents itself now is this: how far are these factors connected with existing economic conditions? But before entering upon this the author calls attention to the environment in which the children of the proletariat live, and especially of the lower proletariat, an environment in which misery and vice contend for the preëminence. There it is nearly out of the question to learn ethical conceptions. Whence it comes also that in our days criminality among the young has greatly increased. However, alcoholism must also be named as one of the most important causes of psychical perturbations. It is not only the non-possessors, but also the possessors who are driven to commit crimes as a consequence of existing economic conditions. “But not only for those without property, for the proletariat, does capitalism furnish the psychically prerequisite conditions for crime ... but for the property-holders themselves. Entirely aside from business practices and tricks of the trade, which stand upon the hairline between right and wrong, apart from the frauds, forgeries, etc. that are evoked by too tempting opportunity, there are more general effects of the capitalistic system. The hurried chase for gain, the accelerating of commerce by railroad, steamship, telegraph, and telephone, the multiplication of commercial crises, which earlier came at intervals, but now are a permanent accompaniment of the social life, bring about a nervousness running through all circles of society, that is continually increasing, and is the forerunner of more serious psychoses. The terrible increase of cases of insanity (in Prussia, to the 10,000 of the population, in 1871, 5.94 cases; in 1875, 7.28; in 1880, 9.87), appears to be thus directly caused by capitalistic society.” [257]