Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

It is easily understood why those who inhabit the regions of Siberia covered with snow have not become agriculturists; and why Holland, without mines of iron and coal has not become a great manufacturing country, but instead, situated upon the sea and traversed by great rivers, has become commercial. But these physical factors have remained constant or nearly constant during historical periods, while the organization of society has undergone changes that have great effects. We cannot explain these changes by a constant factor.

Plechanow formulates this very well in his “Beiträge der Geschichte des Materialismus.” He says: “The character of man’s natural environment determines the character of his productive activity, of his means of production. The means of production, however, determines the reciprocal relationships of men in the process of production as inevitably as the equipment of an army determines its entire organization, and all the relationships of the individuals of which it is made up. Now the reciprocal relations of men in the social process of production determine the entire structure of society. The influence of the natural environment upon this structure is therefore incontestable. The character of the natural environment determines that of the social environment. For example: ‘The necessity of computing the time of the rising of the Nile, created Egyptian astronomy and with it the domination of the priestly caste as guides in agriculture.’

“But this is only one side of the matter. Another side must also be considered if one is not to draw entirely false conclusions. The circumstances of production are the result, the productive forces are the cause. But the effect becomes a cause in its turn; the circumstances of production become a new source of the development of the productive forces. This leads to a double result.

“1. The mutual influence of the circumstances of production and the productive forces causes a social movement, which has its own logic and a law of its own, independent of the natural environment. [[108]]For example: Private property in the primitive phase of its development is always the fruit of the labor of the property-holder himself, as may be very well observed in the Russian villages. There necessarily comes a time, however, when it becomes the reverse of what it was before: it supposes the work of another, and becomes capitalistic private property, as we can likewise see any day in the Russian villages. This phenomenon is the effect of the immanent law of the evolution of private property. All that the natural environment can accomplish in this case consists in accelerating this movement through favoring the development of the productive forces.

“2. Since the social evolution has its own logic, independent of any direct influence from the natural environment, it may happen that a people, though inhabiting the same land and retaining almost the same physical peculiarities, may have at different epochs of its history social and political institutions which are very little similar, or even totally different one from another.”[28]

Crime being a social phenomenon, and society being influenced, as we have seen, by the physical environment, one might say that this environment is a factor in criminality. He who reasons thus would have to grant that the physical environment is only an indirect factor, and therefore a very remote cause. It would be as fair to say that the invention of gunpowder was one of the causes of all murders committed with fire-arms. However, in reasoning thus I believe we forget that crime is an historic phenomenon, modifying itself according to the condition of society, and consequently regulated by laws that are independent of the physical environment. In other words, the environment is the reason why a people provides for its needs by working the material that nature has furnished; but the manner in which this work is done is independent of this environment. And it is upon this manner of working that criminality depends. An example taken from practice will make clear what I have been saying.

From the nature of the soil of Sicily it is possible to work sulphur mines there. The criminality of Sicily is very great, especially in the parts where the mines are found, and many murders particularly are committed there. We might be disposed to believe that here the physical factors came into play. Now it is true that the nature of the soil is the cause of the exploiting of the mines, but the criminality is dependent entirely upon the way in which the exploiting is done, and this has nothing to do with the physical environment. To particularize: these mines are exploited in the capitalistic fashion, i.e., [[109]]with the aim of getting as much profit as possible, which brings it about that the workers are untaught, demoralized and made degenerate by ill-paid labor, excessively severe, and carried on in an unwholesome atmosphere. Hence come the higher figures for criminality.[29]

Most authors who have concerned themselves with the influence of these physical factors, have only observed their direct influence upon man. Many of them have paid no attention to the importance that these factors may have for the character of society, and they have taken no account of the fact that society develops according to laws independent of the physical environment. Phenomena have been ascribed to the direct influence of the physical environment, which have no such relationship. It is a fact pretty generally recognized, for example, that the number of violent crimes is greater in the South than in the North. The cause frequently given is the obvious one that it is the difference of climate. But this overlooks the fact that the phase of social development reached in the southern countries is totally different from that in the northern countries, and this difference explains that of the criminality against persons. Upon this subject Professor Tarde says: “Statistics compiled in epochs when, civilization not having passed from the South to the North, the North was more barbarous, would certainly have shown that crimes of blood were more numerous in the northern climates, where now they are more rare, and would have induced the Quetelets of that day to formulate a law precisely the reverse of the one now stated. For example, if we divide Italy into three zones, Lombardy, Central, and Southern Italy, we shall find that at present there are in the first 3 homicides to the 100,000 inhabitants annually, in the second nearly 10, and in the third more than 16. But shall we estimate that in the palmy days of Grecia Major, when Crotona and Sybaris flourished in the south of a peninsula which, in the North, was totally peopled with brigands and barbarians, except for the Etruscans, the proportion of bloody crimes would not have been reversed? At present there are in Italy, in proportion to the population, sixteen times as many homicides as in England, nine times as many as in Belgium, and five times as many as in France. But we could swear that under the Roman Empire it was quite otherwise, and that the savage Britons, and even the Belgians and the Gauls surpassed the effeminate Romans in habitual ferocity of manners, in vindictive fury and bravery. [[110]]According to Maine the Scandinavian literature shows that homicide during the period of barbarism was a ‘daily accident’ with these peoples of the North, at present the mildest and most inoffensive in Europe.”[30]

It is plain from what has gone before that I have not wished to deny the direct influence of the physical environment upon man. Indeed, it is a fact which the whole world has observed. According to many persons, then—and a number of scientific researches have proved it—a high degree of criminality against persons proceeds from a hot temperature, while a low temperature, on the other hand, leads to many crimes against property. This implies not only that the kind of crime is different in hot countries from that in cold, but also that the change of the seasons with their variations in temperature have the corresponding effects.

I will not fatigue the reader by citing an unlimited number of examples to prove that the exceptions to this rule are very numerous. We cannot find a greater number of crimes against persons and a smaller number of crimes against property with each degree nearer the equator. If this were the case dishonesty would be unknown at the equator, and everyone there would be very violent. There are countries which, though in the same latitude, are very different as to crime, as there are others, much alike as to crime though situated far from each other, etc., etc.[31] The adherents of the theory of the “physical environment” explain these exceptions by saying that they are caused by the “social environment.” By so doing they recognize that the latter may entirely alter and even annihilate the influence of the former. Let us concern ourselves rather with the different kinds of crime, and investigate the influence which the physical environment exercises upon it.