Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

And then it has not been proved that murder and theft were habitual with our ancestors; they had recourse to them only under stress of circumstances, quite like any normal man of today. Considered from an anatomical point of view our means of injuring our fellows have decreased; on the other hand we have now other means at our disposal (firearms, etc.). “As to the need of pleasure and of [[168]]life, this can only have increased, and never can cupidity have been more aroused than in our civilized society. Never have the temptations to appropriate the goods of others been stronger and more frequent. Civilization tends to develop wants and appetites, whence there comes this colossal extension of the means of repression and of coercion employed to make criminal attempts dangerous, in order that crime may not be too easy a means of acquiring fortune. Except for purely pathological cases, the criminal is moved by his wants, by wants that have nothing extraordinary about them; when a man has an interest, or thinks he has an interest in committing a crime, he brings into play muscular and cerebral aptitudes which every normal man possesses, the same elementary aptitudes as those he might have made use of, under other circumstances, to pursue and punish a criminal.”[31]

Some biological facts are to be explained by atavism; their explanation nevertheless remains mysterious. But atavism loses all its importance as a means of explanation as soon as we know how to explain a fact by actually existing causes, as is the case with crime. “We should understand that it would be a question of atavistic tendencies if assassins killed for the sole pleasure of killing, if thieves stole for the pleasure of stealing. Now we know well that theft and murder are only means, and that their use is called ‘work’ by professional criminals. If they prefer this kind of work it is because it is quicker and less painful than regular work.”[32]

It might be objected here that the horror of blood being natural to most men it would be necessary just the same to have recourse to atavism to explain murder. This horror of blood is assuredly found in most men, but only so far as their interest requires. Not a single surgeon or butcher pursues his bloody trade through atavism, but only because forced to it by his interests. More than one born-bourgeois thinks that he would never eat meat rather than have to kill cattle himself, but this is only pure illusion or an unconscious hypocrisy. For he would do it without any doubt if he could not gain his livelihood in any other way. Do not the bourgeoisie shoot their inoffensive fellow citizens who revolt against a social condition that no one would dare to call ideal? Do they not mow down savages with machine guns in order to divide up their country? Or do they not make war against other states in order to protect their own commercial interests? It will be objected that these things are not crimes; this is a question of definition, but assuredly they are similar to crime. [[169]]

“It is not only in the prisons that we find born-criminals; but we are all such, if we understand by this abusive expression the possession of hereditary tendencies to enjoy things ourselves, in case of need, to the detriment of our fellows. The human crimes to which I have just alluded indicate chiefly the cruelty and ferocity of the species, and of ethnic collectivities, social or otherwise. As to the individual equivalents of crime, I will recall further that they are not difficult to discover in the conduct of honest men, most of whom do not trouble themselves to make use of means as harmful and immoral as those which criminals do. The equivalents of crime among honest men present, it is true, the great advantage of remaining more or less unperceived by the penal code, by the police at least, and the psychologists of the New School; but they are nevertheless recognized as immoral and harmful by those who have recourse to them, and they suffice to show in what way honest men would conduct themselves if the conditions in which they live and have lived had not driven them away from crime, legally so-called, with as much force as the opposite environmental conditions have driven others to it.”[33]

Having made fuller remarks to the effect that the cruel and repugnant professions referred to above are not practiced because of atavistic tendencies, but solely from necessity, the author ends this part of his article as follows: “There nevertheless remains a tremendous difference between the killing of an animal and the killing of a man, from a moral point of view, of course, but also from the point of view of the motives generally fitted to prevent the killing. But it must be remarked that these motives are connected with environmental influences which are exceedingly variable, and which, for too many persons, are considerably diminished and at the same time replaced by influences of the opposite environment. Most assassins have received a certain culture appropriate to the conception of murder and to its realization, and this is simply facilitated by their conformation, which is in no wise exceptional. If we had only to twirl our thumb to get rid of an enemy we should have to put forth all our efforts to harm no one. Already too many respectable men can order murders that they would not be courageous enough to execute. Let us congratulate ourselves that self-interest more often deters men from murder than drives them to it, for every normal man possesses the cerebral and muscular qualities necessary to conceive, prepare, and execute the crime. It is not necessary to call in the return to animal instincts through atavism. The continuity of man and the animals is much [[170]]more perfect than the atavistic school pretends. Man is always an animal; the most dangerous of all because he is the most intelligent and because he can utilize his faculties in all sorts of ways, harmful or useful to his fellows according to his own interest. The formula to be applied is to arrange things so that every man will find more advantage in being useful to his fellows than in injuring them. Progress in this regard would be more rapid without this unfortunate predilection for occult causes, which leads so many excellent minds to seek in the clouds for explanations that lie under their noses, but which have to be found just where they are.

“Those ferocious instincts which seem the return of another world, in brawls or in times of revolution, are not returning at all, because they have never disappeared. During a certain time they do not manifest themselves in the individual or the family, because there is no need that they should; or possibly they manifest themselves in ways less dangerous, in connection with ordinary circumstances and relatively favorable to tranquillity. But let there arise any need, no matter what, of a “mobilization of the offensive and defensive forces”, then the mobilization takes place, and the most civilized man appears under the form of the dangerous animal he has never ceased to be, happily for himself and his species. This man whom you take for an atavistic throw-back, appears such to you only because you have failed to recognize in their mild form, in yourself and in others, the fundamental brutality and egoism of the human species. Notwithstanding the civilizing influences in the midst of which you have lived, notwithstanding the peaceable habits that you have contracted, and all the horror with which you are inspired by the contrary habits of which you fear to fall the victim, it is enough that you should be worked upon rather strongly by a combination of annoying circumstances, that even you should become a dangerous individual. When we wish to study crime as anthropologists or as psychologists, we must not be afraid to look the truth in the face, and it is important to clear our minds beforehand, as far as possible, of the illusions of self-love, and of deceptive conventions.”[34]

Then Professor Manouvrier criticises in a manner as just as it is witty, the hypothesis of the “delinquent man.” He demonstrates that, according to the method of the New School, a work could be written upon the “hunting man” also, full of scientific observations upon his argot, his boasting, etc., etc., upon all sorts of signs, in short, which go to show that a taste for hunting is an atavistic phenomenon. [[171]]The explanation of crime by atavism is no more true than this other, for both can be explained by the environment.

If we hold absolutely to the expression: “born-criminal”, every man is one, just as every dog is a born-swimmer. Every dog knows how to swim very well, but this does not prevent a number of dogs from never swimming, since ordinarily there are more convenient ways of crossing the water. In the same way every man is a born-criminal, but most men refrain from becoming actual criminals, since that course is more advantageous to them than the other.

“No one is ignorant that the educational influences to which one is subjected during his whole life and especially during infancy, and the solicitations of self-interest, are exceedingly variable under different circumstances and for different individuals; and that the educational influences and the solicitations of self-interest unite very generally to furnish the motive for criminal conduct and for honest conduct as well. And it is this that governs every man’s manner of acting in his relations with others; and it must not be forgotten in treating of anthropology, whether anatomical, physio-psychological, or sociological. It is never forgotten in practical life.

“We all know that, whatever our fundamental character may be and the honest habits that we have been able to form, our manner of conducting ourselves may vary considerably under the influence of changes in our environment, and in proportion to those changes. It is a temptation to which the most austere man would greatly dread to be exposed, and to which he would never voluntarily expose himself, because he knows that the tendencies imputed to criminals (said to be atavistic, but all simply human) are not lacking in himself. These tendencies, when they have found abundant and honorable means of satisfaction during long years, become so much the more to be dreaded on this account, and run great danger of becoming criminal as soon the legal means of satisfaction disappear. The man who comes to lack these means finds himself in a much more dangerous situation as far as the likelihood of his becoming a criminal is concerned, than one who had become accustomed to privations.”[35]