When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call that deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call this deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or the bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live - forces them ... to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence - knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual ...
Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845 [1967]), p. 126 (Panther Press)
Thursday, 19 December 2013
Engels on 'Social Murder'
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4 comments:
Thanks - that's a keeper! I take it '1845' is 'The condition of the working class in England'?
Gah! Yes, it is. How remiss of me. Corrected.
How would a sociologist define a crime?
In our society it is a crime for a desperate and hungry poor person to steal food or property from a very very wealthy person. But it isn't a crime for a person to live in stupendous wealth while another lives in terrible poverty.
But it also seems to me that the people in society accept the definitions of that society, so they agree that stealing from the stinking rich is a crime and believe those that commit crime only ever have themselves to blame.
I take issue with the individuals in society!
Full quotation is better, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch07.htm
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