Abstract
This chapter starts by considering the extensive debate as to whether or not Marx had a theory of justice. Although there are some good reasons for thinking that he did not, there are very powerful reasons for thinking that contemporary socialists do need a theory of justice. Over and above these, there are yet further reasons for anyone aspiring to develop a Marxist theory of criminology to make use of conceptions of justice, and, indeed, to have conceptions of criminal justice. These conceptions form a significant underpinning of the study of corporate and white-collar crime, which has been an area where Marxist criminologists have joined in a very important academic and public enterprise. They are also relevant to the issue of whether some more plebeian crimes can be regarded as forms of primitive rebellion, prefiguring more political activities. Finally there is the issue of whether trade union and socialist political activity has sometimes to engage in crime.
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Notes
Ibid., p. 70. Cf. G. A. Cohen, ‘Review of Allen Wood, Karl Marx’ in Mind, Vol. 92, 1983, p. 444.
The argument of this section basically follows that of Geras, ‘Bringing Marx to Justice’, pp. 66–9 and G. A. Cohen, If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich?, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, ch. 6.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 575–6.
For a lively standard account see Hazel Croall, Understanding White Collar Crime, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, second edition, 2001.
For arguments that white-collar criminals are punished severely see David Weisburd et al., Crimes of the Middle Classes: White Collar Offenders in the Federal Courts, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
See M. J. Lynch, D. McGurrin and M. Fenwick, ‘Disappearing Act: The Representation of Corporate Crime Research in Criminological Literature’, Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 32, No. 5, September 2004, pp. 389–98;
Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte, ‘Scrutinising the Powerful: Crime, Contemporary Political Economy and Critical Social Research’, in Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte (eds), Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful: Scrutinising States and Corporations, New York/London: Peter Lang, 2003. The latter piece starts with a table which surveys some leading British criminology journals and finds that only 3% of the thousand or so articles appearing between 1991 and 2000 concerned corporate crime.
Donald R. Cressey, Other People’s Money: A Study of the Social Psychology of Embezzlement, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1953.
M. B. Clinard and P. C. Yeager, Corporate Crime, Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005.
S. Box, Power, Crime and Mystification, London: Routledge, 1990 (new edition).
F. T. Cullen and W. J. Maakestad, Corporate Crime Under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond, Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing, 1983.
J. Braithwaite, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984.
S. Shapiro, Wayward Capitalists: Target of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1984.
J. Coleman, The Criminal Elite: Understanding White-Collar Crime, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1985.
T. G. Poveda, Rethinking White Collar Crime, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
M. Punch, Dirty Business: Exploring Corporate Misconduct: Analysis and Cases, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.
K. Schlegel and D. Weisburd, (eds), White-collar Crime Reconsidered, Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1992.
L. Snider and F. Pearce, Corporate Crime: Contemporary Debate, Toronto, ON: University of Toronto, 1992.
K. Calavita et al., Big Money Crime: Fraud and Politics in the Savings and Loans Crisis, Berkeley, CA; University of California Press, 1999.
S. Simpson, Corporate Crime, Law and Social Control, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
See the review by James Williams: Canadian Journal of Sociology Online, May–June, 2003 at: www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/corpcrime.html
S. M. Rosoff, H. N. Pontell and R. Tillman, Profit without Honour: White-Collar Crime and the Looting of America, fourth edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
K. R. Gray, L. A. Frieder and G. W. Clark, Corporate Scandals: The Many Faces of Greed, the Great Heist, Financial Bubbles, and the Absence of Virtue, St Paul, MN: Paragon Press, 2005.
Henry N. Pontell and Gilbert L. Geis, International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, New York: Springer, 2006.
For example, Gilbert Geis, White Collar and Corporate Crime, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Raymond Michalowski and Ronald C. Cramer, (eds), State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business and Government, Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
J. Stiglitz and L.J. Bilmes, The $3 Trillion War, London: Allen Lane, 2008, pp. 13–15 and n. 36, p. 243.
Laureen Snider, Bad Business: Corporate Crime in Canada, Scarborough, ON: Nelson, 1992;
Paul Palango, Above the Law: The Crooks, the Politicians, the Mounties, and Rod Stamler: The shocking but True Story of Corporate Crime and Political Corruption in Canada, Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 2004;
Prakash Talwar (ed.), Corporate Crime, New Delhi: Gyan, 2006;
Peter Grabosky and Adam Sutton, (eds), Stains on a White Collar: Fourteen Studies in Corporate Crime or Corporate Harm, Annandale, NSW: Federation Press, 1989.
For example Kathleen F. Brickey, Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials, fourth edition, Greenvale, NY: Panel Publishers, 2006;
James Gobert and Morris Punch, Rethinking Corporate Crime, London: Butterworth, 2003.
For example, Harry Glasbeek, Wealth by Stealth: Corporate Crime, Corporate Law, and the Perversion of Democracy, Toronto, ON: Between The Lines, 2004;
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack on Democracy, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1999;
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, On the Rampage: Corporations Plundering the Global Village, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004.
G. Slapper and S. Tombs, Corporate Crime, London: Pearson Education, 1999.
Ibid., pp. 68–78. This brief argument is massively substantiated in Steve Tombs, Dave White and Hazel Croall, Safety Crimes, Cullompton: Willan, 2007.
F. Pearce and S. Tombs, Toxic Capitalism: Corporate Crime and the Chemical Industry, Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1998.
Michael Levi, Regulating Fraud: White Collar Crime and the Criminal Process, London: Routledge, 1988;
Michael Levi, Fraud: Organisation, Motivation and Control, Vols 1 and 2, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1999;
Michael Levi, The Phantom Capitalists, second edition, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 2008;
Alan Doig, Fraud, Cullompton: Willan, 2006.
E. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974.
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© 2008 Mark Cowling
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Cowling, M. (2008). Marxism, Justice and Criminal Justice. In: Marxism and Criminological Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234710_11
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