Capitalism and Crime

Whether going out at night time in Phnom Penh, the capital city of the gradually developed country Cambodia, or in Washington D.C., the capital city of the highly-developed United States of America, it is not very safe for an ordinary person. This is because crime—robbery, theft, rape, murder, or assault—can happen at any time. Crime exists in all societies regardless of how underdeveloped or developed a society can be. And the existence of crime is said by the conflict perspective to arise, to a great extent, from society’s materialistic values, which is one of the features of capitalism—the hypothesis that is more true than false. This essay will look at how capitalism plays a contributory cause of crime.

Capitalism in a society inspires to the existence of social class, which is deemed as the breeding grounds for poverty. In capitalist economy, power is in the hand of private sectors. This factor, together with scarcity of available resources, invites competition and fight for resources to satisfy ones’ needs and wants. In competition, as there will be winners and losers, some will manage to receive and consume more resources, leaving very little for others. In this regard, some people in one society become better off than others of that same group, resulting in the creation of the upper-class, the middle-class, and the lower- or working-class—also referred to as the poor. What's more, the practice of capitalism “privatizes and increases exploitation” and oppression of the working class, as indicated by what happened in the 19^th century industrial revolution in England (Gluckstein, 2007). Back then, people came to London for employment and resorted to being given inhumane amount of work by those who own the means of production, in exchange for very low wages to support their survival. This signifies poverty of the lower-class people, and poverty further leads to various criminal acts in the society.

Indeed, oppressed, exploited and destitute, some financially-challenged citizens either are forced to commit crime or are more vulnerable to unlawful behavior than others. When one is so poor that they do not even have anything to satisfy his/her hunger, it is very likely that that person resort to, for example, stealing bread from the bakery, rather than doing nothing and waiting for death from starvation. Besides, in cases like juvenile delinquency of young children sniffing glue and doing drugs, that particular circumstances force them to is not only the point; their high vulnerability to such acts is also. For instance, a 10-year-old boy whose family is so deprived that he can neither go to school nor do anything a boy of his age is supposed to do. Every day, from early in the morning until 8 or 9 at night, he is out from his house in slump and goes to scavenge with a group of children who are in no better situation than him. Uneducated and given very little care to, after some time with his scavenger friends, he once tried glue-sniffing and became addicted, which is another form of illegal acts. Although invented, this story is no-where far different from the reality of life of boys of such kind in Cambodia. Poverty exposes them a great deal to the world prone to wrongdoings and delinquency.

In addition, it is said that in capitalist societies delinquency cannot be effectively controlled because “it is in the state’s best interest to have a large number of deviant youths”. (Merchant, n.d.). According to the same source, when delinquents keeps on doing what they do, the society can be assured that there is enough cheap labour to use in the production of quality goods and services that the upper-class need and want. This is because it is usual that those who have the history of committing crime are not bound to receive highly-paid jobs or achieve high statuses in their societies, giving them no alternatives better than to work in bad conditions for meager payment in order for the benefits of the capitalist.

However, to pass judgment that capitalism is the MERE cause of criminal occurrences in human societies is not appropriate at all; many other factors play a part—from individuals’ personal indulgence in misconduct to ineffective governance.  In fact, a type of economic and political system, capitalism also, as functionalist perspective argues, bears with itself a certain degree of positivity that no-one can possibly refute. It does encourage more freedom, liberty, and competitiveness among citizens, which really make a point in societies’ development. But, along with its unquestionable goodness, one undeniably negative aspect of it is the fact that capitalism, along with its materialistic values, does contribute to the continuation of crime in human societies.

In summary, the supposition that says materialism in the capitalistic society is really responsible for crime makes such a reasonable point that I cannot disapprove of. Due to their values on gaining wealth, the capitalist have made everything very inviting and convenient for crime to keep breeding itself and sustain its continuation in the society. Nevertheless, no matter how true this criticism against capitalism is, one should never overlook its bright side. In my book, capitalism is, to a good extent, desirable, and crime is the price the society that benefits from this desirability must pay.

Bibliography

Gluckstein, D. (2007, January). Crime: capital’s punishment. Retrieved November 18, 2008, from Socialist Review website: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9918

Merchant, M. (n.d.). Class, state, and crime: Social conflict perspective. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://wowessays.com/dbase/af5/mrh79.shtml

O'Connor, T. (2006, Nov 30). Conflict criminology. Retrieved November 11, 2008, from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/crim/crimtheory15.htm

Reid, S. T. (2000). Crime and criminology (9^th ed.). USA: McGraw-Hill.