SOC225 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Marxism, Structural Marxism, Advanced Capitalism

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC225
• Professor: Springer, Sharon

Document Summary

American society is based on an advanced capitalist economy. The state is organized to serve the interests of the dominant economic class. Criminal law is an instrument of the state and ruling class to maintain and perpetuate the existing social and economic order. Crime control in capitalist society is realized through institutions and agencies controlled by political elite, representing ruling class interests. The contradictions of advanced capitalism require that the subordinate classes remain oppressed by whatever means necessary, esp. through the legal system. Only with the collapse of capitalist society and the creation of a new society, based on socialist principles, will there be a solution to crime. Quinney"s position evolved once again, and began to take on a more structural marxist perspective: saw social outcomes as owing directly to dynamics of economic system stressed marx"s argument that capitalism generated a superfluous labour source.