7- THE CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Presented by:
Lucas Espinoza, MS, MA
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
The critical perspective stems from the Marxist tradition.
Crises, turbulence, and upheaval seem to be common
occurrences in modern, urban, industrial societies.
Foundational understanding toward the perpetuation of
social problems.
Encompasses other theories and perspectives within this
framework.
Social problems derive from the exploitation of the working
class.

ECONOMIC INSTITUTION AS DOMINANT
Info from all other institutions (government, legal
systems, law enforcement, education, family ... )
Transition: tribal societies-slavery- feudalism--
capitalism-socialism
Marxism: class conflict between bourgeoisie
(capitalists) and proletariat (workers)
Central struggle of power
Social problems reside in class dominance in the
conflict: the "haves" hold on to what they have and
maintain what they have at the continued expense
of the have-nots.
SOCIOLOGISTS
Germany, Great Britain, and the United States
found that crises in their particular societies were
experiencing called into question the adequacy of
the dominant social problems perspectives of the
day.
WITHIN THIS PERSPECTIVE
Sociology takes a critical stance against status quo:
examines the relationship between capitalism and crime.
Capitalism-imposed social organization; hierarchy
between privileged and marginalized classes
The working class experiences such miseries as poverty,
unemployment, shorter life expectancy, poor physical and
mental health, alcoholism, and high rates of crime against
persons, and property.
THE PROCESS
Ultimately the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer.
The only solution to the assortment of social
problems that are common to advanced capitalist
societies is for the working class to win the class
struggle and usher in true socialism, which will lead
to a classless society.

CAPITALISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF
CLASS, RACE, AND GENDER
Allan G. J ohnson
ECONOMIC INSTITUTION
Exerts more influence on human life than any other
institution.
Sociologists see the economy generating a two-
class system, being the cause of most of the
society's social problems.
Johnson describes a number of these problems,
and shows how capitalism feeds into racial and
gender inequalities in the differential distribution of
wealth, power and respect
The unequal distribution of wealth and human
suffering.
The "American Dream" aside, most people also
have relatively little power to improve their class
position.
CAPITALISM, DIFFERENCE, AND
PRIVILEGE: RACE
It connects to white racism in ways that are both direct and
indirect.
In the history of the United States, the direct connection is
most apparent in the enslavement of millions of Africans as
a source of cheap labor on cotton and tobacco plantations
in the South.
The number of enslaved blacks in the United States
jumped from 1 million in 1800 to almost 4 million in 1860,
just before the start of the Civil War.

CHEAP LABOR?
Following the Civil War, the capitalist appetite for
cheap agricultural labor was no less than before,
and freed blacks were held in a new form of
bondage by an oppressive system of tenant farming
that kept them perpetually in debt.
Whites developed the idea of whiteness to define a
privileged social category elevated above everyone
who wasn't included in it.
PROGRAMS
The controversy and conflict over affirmative action
programs, for example, as well as the influx of
immigrant workers from Mexico and Asia reflect an
underlying belief that the greatest challenge facing
white workers is unfair competition from people of
color.
CAPITALISM, DIFFERENCE, AND PRIVILEGE:
GENDER
Capitalism also shapes and makes use of gender
inequality.
Cultural devaluing of women, for example, has long
been used as an excuse to pay them less and
exploit them as a source of cheap labor.
Corporate secretarial pool in New York or garment
sweatshops in Los Angeles or electronics industry
assembly plants in Asia.
WOMEN
Capitalism couldn't function without the army of
women who do the shopping for households (which
is how most goods are purchased)
Do the labor through which those goods are
consumed: cooking the meals, making the bed with
the new set of sheets, and so on
WOMEN
Ones who nurture and raise each new generation
of workers on which capitalism depends, and this
vital service is provided without anyone's having to
pay wages or provide health and retirement
benefits.
The reading states women do it for free- even when
they also work outside the home.
CAPITALISM
Provides an important social context for the trouble
around privilege and difference.
The class dynamics that arise from capitalism
interact with that trouble in powerful ways that both
protect capitalism and class privilege and
perpetuate privilege and oppression based on
difference.
THE CASE OF A STATE-
CORPORATE CRIME
J udy Root Aulette and Raymond Michalowski
THE AUTHORS
Show how a commitment to capitalist values
established the conditions for a fire in Hamlet that
cost the lives of twenty-five people.
A case of state-corporate crime.
A faltering economy forced a coalition of federal,
state, and local agencies and the Imperial Food
Products plant to cut costs.
WHAT HAPPENED?
In Sept 1991, an explosion and fire at Imperial Foods
Product Chicken Plant in Hamlet NC.
25 died mostly to smoke inhalation, 1 died to extreme
burns and 56 were injured.
Negligent oversight by the Federal Agencies- OSHA
(Occupational and Safety Health Administration) and
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)- state
and local agencies contributed to the unsafe conditions
in which management locked employees in their
workplace leading to them being trapped in the fire.
The illegal socially injurious action resulted from the
interaction of public and private institutions pursuing
their own means and goals
ISSUE
In looking at the media coverage, the newspaper
coverage accounted the deaths to the lax
enforcement of safety regulations and did not
address their deaths as a crime.
The notion of the state-corporate crime continues to
be met with resistance.
CONCLUSION
The deaths in Hamlet, NC are clear evidence that
Jaws (Reporting) alone are not sufficient to protect
worker safety.
They require political will for their effective
enforcement.
The Hamlet fire constitutes a clear instance of
state-corporate crime precisely because it was the
absence of this political will and the omissions on
the part of politically constituted agencies that
enabled the management to continue violating
basic safety requirements at the plant in its pursuit
of private profit.
EVALUATING THE CRITICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Marshall B. Clinard and Robert F. Meier
CP CONFLICT
Critical perspective regards deviance as conflict,
generally as a rational adjustment to the
contradictions of the capitalist social and economic
system.
Focuses attention on how political, economic, and
social structures shape legal definitions of crime
and deviance.

INVERSE RELATIONSHIP
Between power and punishment- those who
commit conventional crimes (generally lower-class)
are much more likely to be arrested, convicted, and
sentenced to longer prison terms titan those who
commit white-collar and corporate crimes
Adds validity to the critical perspective.

WEAKNESSES
There are many more sources of conflict than
political or economic ones, that laws benefit all
classes (not just the ruling or powerful class) and
do not cause criminal or deviant behavior by
themselves.
Few empirical studies support the claims of the
critical perspective, and that the perspective makes
more sense as an ideology than as a theory.
CONCLUSION
The elimination of deviation and crime through the
dissolution of capitalism and the transition to
socialism is perceived to be too costly, however, the
appeal of the conflict view diminishes.
It is not sufficient merely to analyze the conditions
under which deviance develops; one must also be
willing to change those conditions.