Generating Uncertainty: Globalized Punishment and Crime

Abstract

In the Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein writes, “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”¹ At the midpoint of the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes surveyed his world and found that the newly released economic forces had brought substantial disruption and disquiet in addition to substantial economic gain for some. In response to those disruptions, Hobbes sought to recreate the peace and quiet that preceded the rise of revolutionary economic and political forces. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are again confronted with a world in which economic forces have brought disturbance and disquiet to many. But this time, the markets have chosen not to leave the reestablishment of peace and quiet to the philosophers or even to the political forces that may or may not listen to philosophers. Instead, the global markets themselves will impose their own order, their own discipline, and in their own way, as the governments and the peoples of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and the ASEAN block can attest. As a result of these developments and decisions, crime and punishment have taken on new meanings. In a context of growing uncertainty—in which the old rules of the game are no longer valid and in which players are not always sure what behavior will bring about punishment or reward—the meaning of crime and punishment has changed.