Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

First. The opportunity for committing them presented itself more often formerly, since the means of communication were very primitive, travelers had to traverse uninhabited countries, etc., and in addition the states were not so well organized as at present, and had not the means of suppressing bands of brigands vigorously.

Second. While the opportunity to commit violent economic crimes successfully was diminishing, there was a constantly increasing opportunity to commit other economic crimes, such as theft, embezzlement, and fraud. The accumulation of great wealth in the cities, the development of credit, in short, the enormous extension of capitalism, has multiplied the opportunity for economic crimes without violence.

Third. One of the consequences of the development of society has been the gradual diminution of the importance of the rôle played by violence, and, since criminality presents itself always and everywhere under the same forms as the normal life, violent economic criminality has also commenced to form a smaller and smaller part in the totality of economic crimes. The assertion that violence has lost the importance of its rôle upon the human stage might surprise one, and appear ironical in times like ours when war is the chronic condition, when the military preparations of all the states have reached a degree hitherto unknown. Violence, however, has decreased in so far as it is exercised by the individual as such. The greater becomes the centralization of the state, the more it claims for itself the exclusive right to use violence in the cases where it judges it necessary, and the more it prohibits individual acts of violence.

It is not the development of the state that is alone to be considered in this regard; the economic system enters in also. Under capitalism [[591]]violence is of no use; he who is master of the means of production attains his end, i.e. makes a profit, without the use of violence. Where it is necessary, however, modern man does not recoil from it, as the wars of expansion prove.

Fourth. Civilization (in the proper sense of the word) has become more general. Formerly the privilege of a few only, it now extends to a greater number. The great mass are still deprived of it, but primary instruction contributes to its development.

When we consider the gradual diminution in the number of economic crimes committed with violence, it clearly appears how false is the notion that anyone committing such a crime is for that reason a biologically abnormal being. Will anyone claim that the number of biologically abnormal persons has constantly diminished? The contrary is much more likely.

We need not concern ourselves with the details of this question, since it has already been thoroughly treated by Professor Manouvrier (see Pt. I of this work, pp. 168–171). He who uses violence to attain an economic end may perhaps, physiologically considered, be a perfectly normal man. How many children are there who do not use force to take a toy from a weaker child? Must we class them as abnormal on that account? And are those who voluntarily take part in a war abnormal? Certainly there is a great difference between those who take part in a war, and those who, for economic reasons, commit a crime, but this difference is of a social nature. Our ideas of war and homicide are not the same, but the act of killing one’s neighbor remains identical. If homicide were the evident proof of biological abnormality the soldier also would be abnormal.

Scientific questions can be solved by reason alone, and not by sentiment. We who experience a profound repulsion at the thought of a murderer, hold him for a being apart, since we feel ourselves so remote from him. Scientific research tells us that this feeling is not innate but acquired, for we detest such acts because the environment in which we live has accustomed us to hate them. If our environment were different, our feelings would likewise be different. Besides, war proves that these feelings are not innate, by hardening the mildest persons in a very brief time.

With time the number of persons who have a horror of violence has increased. Does this prove that men have become better, or simply that they feel a repugnance to the act only and not to its effect? J. J. Rousseau once said: “If, in order to fall heir to the property of a rich mandarin living at the farthest confines of China, whom one had [[592]]never seen or heard spoken of, it were enough to push a button to make him die, which of us would not push that button?”

It is certain that beside a great number of persons who would not wish to charge their consciences with such a crime, there would also be plenty who would commit it, and their number would be great enough to make the order of mandarins pass into legendary history. There is no reason to suppose that there are fewer persons in our day who would commit such acts, than formerly; if men are no longer as violent as they once were, they do not recoil any more than formerly when it is a question of suppressing, through the agency of a third party, those who oppose them; as witness the wars of expansion.