Criminality and economic conditions

In the chapter, “Die degenerirenden Einwirkungen des Kapitalismus”, this author treats of the question of criminality and its relation with present economic conditions.

“The property-holders, those who enjoy the benefits of all the political and social institutions, alone have the right to exist. Those without possessions do not have this right, despite the fiction of the Prussian code with regard to the matter. The simple instinct of self-preservation causes them to engage in a continual attack upon a legal system that protects only the stronger. It is this attack which those who are in possession of power, those who have drawn up the laws for the purpose of protecting their power, characterize as a breach of the law, as crime.… This is the simplest relationship between the form of society and crime. Naturally, complications come in.… The stronger those without property, the outlawed, themselves become through some chance, the more do they modify the law that was set up by those who were formerly stronger, the more do complications arise in the primitively simple right of property, the right to the protection of social institutions, and the law of marriage, and the greater and more complicated becomes the circle of crimes.”26 [238]

After having next spoken briefly of free will, and having shown that it is incorrect to connect criminality with a single social phenomenon alone, since the social mechanism is too complicated, the author begins to treat of the crimes against property. In the first place he gives the following tables:

Finally, Dr. Lux cites some statistics from Kolb’s “Handbuch der vergleichenden Statistik”, which show the close connection between crimes against property and economic conditions.

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 [239]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.”28

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.”29

However, there act in man as counter-determinants, combating [240]the factors called criminogenous, the ethical factors (“ethische Hemmungsvorstellungen”), which are determined by education, character, the fear of punishment, etc. Those who do not wish to investigate the deepest causes of criminality, are of the opinion that the best way to combat crime is by increasing the penalties. The persons who speak thus forget that the so-called ethical factors have no longer any effect when the conditions have reached a certain degree of seriousness.

Crimes against persons. It is the industrial workers who form the greatest contingent of criminals against persons. “The continually changing conditions of earning a living, the desire for drink, the slight influence of the family, the being crowded together with persons of defective education and little training … these all necessarily breed crimes of violence; entirely aside from the habitual rowdyism of the bully [“Zuhälter”], which is to be regarded as the consequence of prostitution.30

Besides the external conditions named above, the person of the criminal is also to be noticed. We may consider it as proved that in some cases of crime one of the causes is a mental perturbation (for example, that caused by drunkenness). These perturbations play a great part in sexual crimes (perverted instincts). What characterizes most of these mental anomalies is that they blunt the social instincts. But there is another cause of psychic degeneracy. “It is a universally valid psycho-physical law that man, ‘the more he depends upon an agreeable stimulation for the satisfaction of his senses, demands ever stronger stimuli, even to secure the same degree of pleasure.’ Pleasures, especially sensual pleasures, must always become more intense, more titillating, in order to afford satisfaction, but the more their intensity increases, the more do the nerves become irritated and exhausted, and the more quickly is the ground prepared for mental diseases either in the individual himself or in his descendants.—It must be emphasized, however, that such an increase in the stimulus is only possible to the rich, and accordingly it is with reference to them chiefly that these sources of mental disturbances are to be taken into consideration.”31

After having called attention to the great amount of recidivism among female delinquents, to the great increase of crime in our own day, and to the great percentage of young people among the criminals, the author closes with the following words: “Crime belongs in a society founded upon capitalism just as necessarily as do prostitution, [241]the destruction of countless human lives through economic exploitation, etc.”