Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat” (Marx and Engels 1848). Social class, therefore, is based upon economic criteria and conflict occurs between those who own the means of production (bourgeoisie) and the wage-labourers (proletariat). As well as having economic control over the proletariat, the bourgeoisie also have the power to determine the superstructure; the ruling class can distort perceptions of the world and hide the true nature of social relationships and the exploitation of the proletariat and, above all, promote bourgeoisie interests. Marx defines production as workers selling their labour for wages in order to exchange money for commodities that will meet their most basic needs. As Marx
Poverty may mean that crime is the only way that the working class can survive, as crime may e the only way that they can obtain the consumer goods encouraged by the capitalist advertising, resulting in utilitarian crimes such as theft. However, it isn’t always utilitarian crime that the working class commit as sometimes the alienation and lack of control over their lives may lead to frustration and aggression which results in non-utilitarian crimes such as vandalism and violence. Marxist’s sometimes argue the state and law-making are a cause of crime because they believe that all laws serve the ruling class, most law is based on protecting private property. The crimes of the working class and ethnic minorities are punished harshly while crimes of the powerful go unnoticed. The ruling class also have the power to prevent the introduction of laws that would threaten their interests.
Functionalism, Marxism and Feminism are all sociological theories that all take a structuralist approach to society. They all agree that society shapes us. However, their views on how this is achieved are very different. Functionalism is a consensus approach and focusses on everyone agreeing on the same shared values and functional prerequisites. On the other hand, Marxism and Feminism are both conflict approaches and believe not everyone agrees or has the same shared values, but that they are forced upon us.
It is the universal whore, the pander between men and peoples.’ Karl Marx, ‘the economic and philosophical manuscripts’ (1844). This is saying that money makes society function, it not only binds us together, but separates those who have it and those who don’t. - The issue of storytelling, how stories are received, who they serve, is an important theme in Othello - Individuals create stories about themselves to establish an identity  sometimes our stories are imposed on us - Othello states he ‘Saw the handkerchief’ (Act 5, Sc2, Ln66), but what he really saw was a mute fact – facts are meaningless until placed into context – Othello used the wrong story to interpret what he saw. He takes Iago’s lies as facts, believes everything else - Marxism emphasizes the link between power  storytelling  economics. Eg.
Assess the usefulness of Marxist approaches to an understanding of crime and deviance in contemporary society Marxist criminologists argue that the state passes laws which support ruling-class interests, and maintain its control and power over the subject class. They put forward the view that laws do not reflect value consensus, but instead reflect the values of ruling class ideology. Therefore, laws work towards false class consciousness, as laws only benefit the ruling minority. Many Marxists also argue that there are a vast number of laws protecting property, and Snider (1993) argued the state is often reluctant to pass laws which might threaten profitability. She also argued capitalist states often pour large amounts of money into attracting business; for example offering new investors tax concessions and grants.
There are similar other example of how the women in the stories are just as double-crossing as the Queen of Shahriyar’s and Shahzaman’s, one of them being "the Tale of the Enchanted King". The queen drugs the king and goes out of her way to have a dishonest affair. However, these two cases are alike; it is the differences that serve why Shahrazad’s had chosen this particular story to tell the King. Not all the women of Shahrazad's stories are wicked or treacherous at heart. For example, Ma’aruf second wife, she was loving and loyal to her husband after he told her the truth about
It is also a means to find equality among the different members of society. In criticism of Realism, Artifactualism states the Realists are too individualistic of their analyses of law and are too sensitive in regards to the constitutive law. In regards to the multiple theories discussed in part III of the article entitled “Mapping Legal Theory” by Richard F. Devlin from the Alberta Law Review, I believe the Marxist theory holds the same semblance to Artifactualism in terms of its interpretation of law. Marxist’s hold a belief that society revolves around the production of goods and the quality of society is determined by the how the relations are between the two classes within the production system. These two classes are the proletariats, who are
Marxists also believe that the capitalist system creates laws that are seen to favour the working class and make them think the system is fair and just, however, these are only put in place to appease the subject class and give the appearance of fairness. Marxists also recognise that crime happens across all social sections, and they challenge the view that crime is a working class phenomenon. This take on crime can be criticised because there is too much emphasis on class inequalities in policing and law enforcement, they fail to recognise racial discrimination within crime. In addition this theory is also very deterministic, believing that criminals are driven to crime as victims of the capitalist system, and for also believing that all the working class in a capitalist society commits crime, for example Japan is a capitalist society but they have very low crime rates, this opposes the view of the Marxists. Further criticisms come from the Left Realists, they say that most of the working class crime is not committed against the state as the
This is an age old legal dilemma and is what is effectively meant by ‘balancing conflicting interests.’ In the nineteenth century, von Jhering recognised law as a means of ordering society in a situation where there were many competing interests, not all being economic; as he believed utilitarianism views he was concerned with social aims and results over individuals. His view was that legal developments were driven by the constant tussle between individuals and groups within society to have their interests portrayed and supported by the law. As a result the law acts to determine the true balance between different interests by examining the value of each. Roscoe Pound identified 2 categories of interests in the law. Firstly is social interest, such as health and safety and public order, whilst individual interests include privacy and domestic relations.
Marxism is the belief that the bourgeoisie’s position is implemented to minimalise class conflict and legitimise inequality. The ruling classes manipulate these ideas in every corner of society, even art, law and education. This view is outlined in “The Communist Manifesto”, written by Karl Marx. They believe that by removing class inequality, a society without poverty, crime and all of the problems in modern society will no longer be a problem, allowing everybody to share and co-exist. Under Mannheim’s definition of an ideology, Marxism would be seen as a utopian ideology.