Crime

9 Pages 2220 Words

industrial culture is between the owners of the means of production and the proletarians. The political and economic belief of the dominate class influences all aspects of life in that workers bend to the whims of the capitalist system. Thus, the economic system controls all aspects of human life, and these lives are left to revolve around the means of production. Marx believed the system contained the seeds of it’s own destruction in that capitalists are constantly competing to produce goods more efficiently and cheaper. When wages are cut so low that the laboring class is unable to purchase the goods produced there will be an economic crisis. Then when conditions are bad enough the oppressed will rise up against the owners and capitalism will have destroyed itself. The primary goal of Social Conflict is to examine the relationship between the ruling class and the process by which deviance is defined and controlled in capitalist society. The government creates laws and rules to maintain the power and position for the power elite. Centering around a view of society in which the elite class uses the criminal justice system as a means of controlling threats to its status. The ruling elite extends the definition of illegal or criminal behavior to encompass those whom might threaten the status quo. The rules draw the lower middle class into this pattern of control, leading the have-nots to believe they hold a stake in the status quo. Conflict theorists do not argue that the poor commit more crimes than the rich, but they are certainly arrested and punished more often. A natural frustration exists in society in which a high value is placed on being rich and attaining the American dream, but this dream is unattainable for the majority of the citizens. A deep hostility develops among the lower class toward a social order that they can not participate unless it’s by illegal means. Thus, the legal system is designed to guard the position of ...