The Production of Deviance in Capitalist Society

1. The Production of Deviance in Capitalist Society Ch. 5, Steven Spitzer

2. Deviance within capitalist society • the capitalist mode of production has two key features: • it forms the foundation or infrastructure of society • it contains internal contradictions • Marxist theory illustrates the relationship between specific contradictions, the problems of capitalist development, and the production of a “deviant class”

3. Infrastructure & Superstructure • superstructure: the ideologies that dominate a particular era, all that "men say, imagine, conceive," including such things as "politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc." • emerges from and reflects the ongoing development of economic forces (infrastructure) • in class societies, the superstructure preserves the hegemony of the ruling class through a system of class controls, which are institutionalized in: • family, church, private associations, media, schools & the state • key function of the superstructure is the regulation and management of “problem populations”

4. Problem populations become eligible for management as deviant when they disturb, hinder, or call into question: • capitalist modes of appropriation • social conditions of production • patterns of distribution & consumption • capitalist socialization processes • ideology which supports capitalism

5. problem populations • tend to share social characteristics • most important is the fact that their behavior, personal qualities, and/or position threaten the social relations of production in capitalist societies • are not synonymous w/deviant populations • some members of problem populations are successfully transformed into supporters it capitalist order; the rest are “candidates for deviance processing” (68)

6. Problem populations are created in 2 ways • directly, as a product of the contradictions of capitalism • by creating a “relative surplus population,” i.e., people who are unemployed and disposable, whose labor is not required for the system • indirectly, through disturbances in the system of class rule • when institutions, e.g., mass education, fails to promote the values of bourgeois/capitalist society

7. Official social control creates two kinds of problem populations • social junk • social dynamite

8. social junk • a group that fails to participate in the roles supportive of capitalist society • they are viewed as costly yet relatively harmless by the dominant class • e.g., the officially administered aged, the handicapped, the mentally ill and mentally disabled • social control is managed by the therapeutic & welfare state, i.e., programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid

9. social dynamite • a group with the potential to call into question established relationships, esp. relations of production and domination • poses a more acute problem that requires rapid and focused expenditures • tends to be more youthful, alienated, and politically more volatile than social junk • Social control is handled by the legal/criminal justice system

10. Ch. 4: Blowing Smoke: Status Politics and the Shasta County Smoking Ban Ch. 4, Justin L. Tuggle and Malcom D. Holmes, pp. 53-66.

11. Is the association of tobacco with lower-status persons a factor in the crusade against smoking in public places? • Historically, attempts to control psychoactive substances have linked their use to categories of relatively powerless people: • marijuana & Mexican Americans • opiates & Asians • alcohol & immigrant Catholics • Recent evidence has shown that occupational status, education, and family income are related negatively to current smoking • Relationship of occupation & education to smoking have become stronger

12. Moral entrepreneurs vs status quo defenders • Moral entrepreneurs crusading for ban argued that secondhand smoke damages public health and that people have a right to a smoke-free environment • Status quo defenders countered that smokers have a constitutional right to indulge wherever and whenever they see fit

13. Differential Punishing of African Americans and Whites Who Possess Drugs: A Just Policy or a Continuation of the Past? Ch. 10, Rudolph Alexander, Jr. and Jacquelyn Gyamerah

14. The origins & course of differential punishing of African Americans • Under slavery in the US, controlling slaves required slave owners to subject slaves to sanctions for behaviors that were not offenses if committed by Whites, e.g., • leaving the plantation without a pass • being out of one’s quarters after curfew • being in a group of more than 5 slaves without a White man present • owning firearms or animals, buying alcohol, giving medicine to Whites, working in a drugstore, working in a print shop

15. Differential punishing, post-Slavery • Wanting to increase the #s of Africans in prisons in order to control them more effectively, Southern states enacted a series of laws, e.g., • several states increased penalties for stealing livestock, making it grand larceny • To counter this trend, Congress passed the 14th Amendment, specifically, its “equal protection clause” • adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments • Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction • basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Supreme Court decision that precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in US • also contains a Citizenship Clause and Due Process Clause • But differential punishing continued