All About Crime I

Make money! If possible do it honestly, if not, by any means, make money.

Over 2,000 years later, the bourgeoisie have made this Horace quotation their scripture, the indisputable word. Yet the ruling class, itself established on a system of legal organized theft, rants all the time about the so-called rise in the rate of crime! The press in their pay makes a big fuss about street gangs, bikers, and other petty thieves of the month. Appeals for stiffer social control and the repression of the dangerous classes become more urgent, the police apparatus and private security agencies become more and more powerful.

Community policing in Montreal, Targeted Policing in Toronto, V-COPS in New York, Street Watch in Birmingham in Great Britain, CSP in La Paz in Bolivia, CPLC in Karachi in Pakistan... Everywhere, the capitalist state is setting up ratlines, containment programs, citizen patrols - all under the pretext of eliminating crime. Now, most of us are aware that in several countries death squads are called on increasingly to eliminate the homeless suspected of minor infractions linked to their struggle to survive. So in this context, a recent series of unsolved murders of homeless people in the Toronto region is particularly disturbing... And what if this time the serial killer is none other than the state itself?

A serious study of the facts, (based on current legal notions of crime and theft in bourgeois society), goes a long way in unmasking the real criminals operating in this rotten system. So, although it's working class neighbourhoods that are watched and patrolled by the right-hand men of the dominant class, although prison cells are reserved for the working classes, the question is: Who in fact are the real crooks?

In her book “Bad Business: Corporate Crime in Canada” ⁽¹⁾, Laureen Snider points to those diplomatically dubbed “white collar criminals”. She writes that, although...

armed robberies in the United States netted $338 on average, white collar criminals convicted by federal law reaped profits averaging $300,000.

And that:

all the crimes committed by street people in the course of any given year in the United States cost an estimated 4 billion dollars, which is less than 5% of the average take by white collar criminals.

Most anti-trust infractions and tax evasions, the author states, transfer billions of dollars from the poor to the rich.

These “white collar criminals” are none other than the capitalists and their henchmen. They control the state apparatus and all its constituents: the army, the police, the courts, the parliament, the press, etc. As if all the profit they legally extort from our labour was not enough, they push the logic of the market to its ultimate goal - the “hand of God” of Adam Smith becoming then, the hand in the till... As they say: “the best way to rob a bank, is to own one”. The only effective campaign against theft, therefore, would be class struggle brought to its logical conclusion: the overthrow of the capitalist system that engenders and perpetuates it.

All About Crime II

Human sentiment lies outside the field of political economy and the absence of humanity lies within it (Marx).

A recurrent leitmotiv in the conductors' score of the bourgeois press is the 'rise in violence'. The front pages of the newspapers and e-media are all caught up in the miscellany of sordid murders, attacks -the major and minor crimes symptomatic of a sick society, but which the media and the political powers reduce to the cruelty or the pathology of destructive individuals. And if we are to believe them, these messed up individuals are always working class, (as published statistics on the social origin of those incarcerated or condemned to death, regularly show).

Here again, a serious look at the facts leads us to other conclusions, revealing an eminently more dangerous criminal. As author Laureen Snider says:

Even if industrial crime attracts far less media attention than assault, robbery, and the violations that most people think of when they hear the word “crime”, it causes more prejudice, is more costly, and ruins more lives than any of the other infractions. Industrial crime is a killer in the first degree, causing more deaths in a month than all the murders committed in a decade. Canadians are killed on the job by unsafe (and illegal) working conditions, injured by dangerous products put on the market before their safety has been demonstrated, disabled by industrial waste released into the atmosphere or dumped into lakes and rivers, and robbed by illegal conspiracies aimed at raising prices and limiting consumer choice... Canadians are twenty-eight times more likely to be injured at work than by an attacker... They run ten times the risk of being killed by their working conditions than being victims of a homicide... ⁽²⁾

The bourgeoisie is a class of murderers, capitalism a crime syndicate. But, like all sleazy gangsters, the rich have their pretensions of innocence and morality. The 'guilty' are set upon to throw us off track, far from the real scene of the crime. Leading us to ask where these sanctimonious campaigns against "violence, drugs and prostitution" are really coming from (as in South-Central Montreal).

The day is coming when the Neanderthals still holding sway over the planet will have to pay for their atrocities. The ruling class is so bloated with smug arrogance, that they can hardly control themselves any more. They expose their true nature every day. In “Capital”, Marx had this to say about the origins and realities of capitalism:

If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek”, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.

Comrades, consider the state of the world; take stock, and ask yourselves this question: Who profits from crime? Beyond superficial appearances, the essence of capitalism gives testimony to the catastrophic extent of its guilt...

The Bitter Fruits of Capitalism

The 160 states attending the second social summit of the United Nations, held in Geneva at the end of June, could only report on the tragedy of the world social situation. Capitalism's triumph of absolute global domination has taken a wretched toll. Three billion people now live on less than two dollars a day, 1.2 billion of those on less than one dollar. 150 million people are unemployed and another 750 million are under-employed. ⁽³⁾

800 million people have no access to health services, and 33 million are HIV positive or afflicted with full-blown AIDS. Finally, to top the whole thing off, add another 850 million human beings who are illiterate.

Yet not 5 years ago, just after the collapse of “communism” (in reality, the former Stalinist state capitalist regimes), the 117 participating States at the UN's first social summit in Copenhagen had made solemn promises to work towards the elimination of poverty. So far, these promises have done nothing to stop the advancement of misery and poverty.

In that context, the very inappropriately named “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs), those “critical” voices who speak in the name of “the citizens”, have proclaimed themselves spokespersons for “the poor”. These professional demagogues, largely subsidized by the various States, agitated for the Currency Transaction Tax, better known as the Tobin tax; a measure aimed at short-term speculative capital. To fully appreciate the “progressive” value of such a tax, keep in mind that these “non-governmental” reformists were only pushing what various imperialist states, had already proposed, Canada included! This is a sad echo of the current campaign led by the Quebec unions and the community establishment (the local NGO's) with the aim of convincing their friend, Premier Bouchard to back an anti-poverty law... Therefore, according to these complete idiots, after decades of suffering and privation, they've hit upon a magic solution to the problems of humanity. Why didn't we think of it before? We just needed to ask the class which exploits us, and whose State oppresses us, if they could please stop? Poverty, then, is not a structural problem but simply a legislative one. Phew! Ignorantia omnia vincit! ⁽⁴⁾

Hasn't it crossed the minds of our so-called reformists that present legislations such as unemployment insurance and welfare are regularly stripped, eroded, and amputated? Are we to believe that we could suddenly, by a simple plea, or by a petition to the National Assembly, touch the hearts of these parliamentarians and by the intervention of the Holy Ghost eliminate poverty by decree? Not surprisingly, many ministers say they are quite sensitive and interested in this approach. Marx was so right when he denounced:

the parliamentary cretinism that relegates to an imaginary world all those infected by it, by removing all memory and all understanding of the real outside world... ⁽⁵⁾

A revealing statement

Quite a few or our readers disagree with the severity of our critique of trade-unionism. Even if the actual practice of unions is more and more the object of workers' criticism, the great majority of our readership still sees the problem of the unions as one of leadership rather than a fundamental flaw. Thus for most of them, the task at hand remains one of reforming the unions. And so it goes, unfortunately, from generation to generation of militants, resulting in defeat after defeat.

Now, even though illusions in unions still persist in the militant milieu, the bosses and politicians make revealing comments which speak volumes on the real nature of unions and the class interests to which they are truly devoted. The Clinton administration's sustained efforts to boost the unions in his country are well known, as are those of the various employers' councils of the European States. Recently, it was Vice Premier of Quebec, Bernard Landry's turn to give his own revealing little speech.

In the Journal de Montreal, August 19th issue, Landry, a devoted apostle of capitalism, came to the unions' defence with the following question:

Without unions would we have had the industrial peace and the dialogue we have had for years?

His question holds the answer, obviously! With the unions, we've had fewer strikes, less conflict, a greater margin of manoeuvrability, and profits - all thanks to the class collaboration that unions practice all the time.

Is their treachery a simple question of bad leadership, or does it serve a social function? To internationalist communists, trade-unionism in its beginning was a bargaining tool to negotiate the going rate of our labour. It has never been a useful tool for the overthrow of capitalism. And in this imperialist era, it has plainly become an active agent in its preservation. Since 1947, our comrades of the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy have been saying this:

In the present phase of decadence in capitalist society, the union is called upon to be the essential tool in the politics of conserving capitalism, and therefore assumes the precise functions of a state organ.

That a vicious pit-bull of the bourgeoisie like Landry comes to the defence of the unions should suffice to condemn them. We invite our unionist comrade “critics” to think about that.

The return of the pawnshop

The spread of second-hand stores, most of them run by shylocks or pawnbrokers, has become a universal social fact in contemporary society. This shady commercial sector's vitality varies with the hazards of the economic situation. As capitalism and its crises push the working class deeper into poverty, more and more of these sordid businesses pop up in the poorest neighborhoods. These shylocks are bloody vampires, that quench their thirst with human distress, and are thus the object of a deepheld hatred by our class. Although the legal limit in Quebec is 60%, quite a scandalous rate in itself, these ghouls make loans at interest rates of over 300%!

Now, from statistics available for the Montreal Urban Community, we learn that the number of these types of businesses has increased from 50 to more than 350 in less than five years! The explosive growth of this mercantile sector refutes all current bourgeois propaganda on the so-called economic recovery and the decrease in poverty. Beyond the usual statistical distortion, claiming the unemployment rate has fallen during periods when it's the employment rate that has clearly fallen; beyond all boasting about this “new economy” where a growing number of workers find themselves under the officially recognized poverty line; this proliferation of the pawnshop in working class neighbourhoods is a real sign of the times.

Cannibal TV

Between 40 and 50 million people watched the last episode of American TV's summer cult program “Survivor”. For 13 weeks, sixteen participants on a desert island lived an experiment in Social Darwinism, progressively eliminating individuals from the island by tribal council. The final survivor won a million US dollars for it. The North American media presented the whole thing as a new social phenomena.

“Survivor” is a live illustration of the moral decrepitude into which capitalism has dragged humanity. It promotes the concept of the lone wolf, and the premise that lies, corruption, treachery, and cowardice are the principle requisites for human survival. As expected in the first episode, Sonya, a charming 62-year-old, just recovered from a bout with cancer, was eliminated by her group for having tripped during a raft race. The final survivor, (the “winner”) Richard Hatch, a Machiavellian character who clearly enjoyed the artificial and twisted dominance he imposed on the others, won by his sense of intrigue and duplicity. It's not surprising that in real life Richard Hatch is a labour relations consultant and management trainer for higher level personnel. After such a show of revolting savoir-faire, he will surely raise his consulting fees. This world's masters will always appreciate his particular “qualities”.

The deliberations of the tribal council in the last episode conclude with a speech eloquently summing up the substance of the affair and its veiled political message. Susan Hawk, a wretched harpy and pathological liar, speaking just before the announcement of the final choice, says,

On this island the only animals we've encountered have been either snakes or rats.

In her appeal to choose Richard Hatch, she points to the two final contestants saying,

What we have here is a rat and a snake. Let's respect the law of nature and may the strongest win. I say let the snake eat the rat!

It is rare to witness the ruling class exposing itself with such unbridled honesty. With this mirror image of itself, capitalism, through “Survivor”, shows the true nature of the society that it imposes on us - a society of cannibals. A powerful propaganda tool, “Survivor” worked all summer to tear down the values and essential qualities needed for humanity to finally fulfill itself. This political fresco sets us back socially, in fact, to before the cave drawings of the Paleolithic period. Unfortunately, this last chronicle of the prehistoric is quite contemporary.

(1) Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1993.

(2) Snider, Laureen, op. cit.

(3) This total of 900 million compiled by the International Labour Bureau represents a net increase of 80 million workers that are unemployed or under-employed as of its February 1995 report.

(4) “Ignorance conquers all!” At least that's the way these reformists hope to mislead us.

(5) The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.