What do Thrasymachus, Marx and Clarence Darrow have in common?

When I am asked what I regard as the fundamental starting point for an understanding of politics I reply that, from my experience, in the real everyday world of human interaction, two concepts stand out as self-evident, the first is the observation of the Greek Sophist Thrasymachus in the fifth century BC that justice is the interests of the strongest, and the second is Marx’s observation that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Two thousand years separate these two observations, but they are completely complimentary and seamlessly merge into what I consider the reality of politics throughout those two thousand years. Politics is a living social experience and therefore must be understood within the real social and political world within which they are taking place. Thus, theorising about democracy, morality, justice, the rule of law etc. becomes a sterile pursuit if the two concepts are either neglected, or worse, deliberately ignored, and, if any society graphically illustrates those concepts, it is the British, despite their loftily acclaimed virtues of democracy, fairness and opportunity. Every minute of every day in the United Kingdom demonstrates the truism that justice is the interests of the strongest and that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. For example, in 1922, the famous American lawyer, Clarence Darrow, argued that his 40 years experience in the law had led him to the conclusion that civilised society should have a fundamental rethink as to the nature of crime and what it is to be called a criminal. He wrote that

"Judging from the kind of men sent to the State legislatures and to Congress, the fact that certain things are forbidden does not mean that these things are necessarily evil; but rather, that politicians believe there is a demand for such legislation from the class of society that is most powerful in political action. No one who examines the question can be satisfied that a thing is intrinsically wrong because it is forbidden by a legislative body".

This essentially supports the positions taken above by Marx and Thrasymachus. What we have is a situation whereby Thrasymachus, Marx and Clarence Darrow, a Greek, a German and an American all come to the opinion from hugely different eras, cultures and social environments, that the dominant thinking in any society is fundamentally class thinking and is a function of the power structures that prevail in society. Within the tragedy that passes for the United Kingdom at this time we are witnessing this phenomenon being played out daily as the ruling elite are involved in an internal struggle over the future of Britain with respect to the EU and over such matters as immigration. In all of this so-called crisis, the British public are largely spectators who are expected to fall in behind their appointed champions. But if I can use the subject of crime to highlight this matter, it can best show us how we become programmed to follow the ideas and whims of the power elite. Even a casual study of crime shows us that notions of crime never appear to be fixed or universal. Crime is a relative phenomenon and what one society deems criminal behaviour is often morally and lawfully acceptable in another.

Similarly, in any one society what is defined as ‘criminal’ is likely to change over time. For example, witchcraft was one of the most heinous of crimes in medieval England, and while it now may continue to viewed (by some) as morally reprehensible, it is not subject to legal sanction. What counts as crime is therefore subject to historical contingency. It never appears to be immutable, but is contingent on particular social, economic, legal and ideological circumstances. Very few people ever stop to ponder why certain behaviours have come to be subject to criminal sanction and others not. We are therefore entitled to ask the fundamental question of who has the power to decide that certain behaviours and events should be criminalised, whilst others are condoned or ignored, why a teenage boy who steals a bottle of water from a supermarket gets six months in prison whilst the CEO of a major bank who has defrauded his customers and by criminal mismanagement has brought the bank to the point of bankruptcy is awarded a massive bonus and a huge pension for the rest of his life? The identification of ‘crime’ often assumes a consensus of public opinion whereas in reality it simply reflects the position that some sections of society are able to pass laws which protect their own self-interest and to divert attention away from underlying social inequalities and conflicts in the social order. Thus, it is legitimate for us to discuss the relationship between crime and relations of power, and to identify not only those who have the power to criminalise, but also those who have the power to escape criminalisation. In addition, we will find that crime is a feature of the social, political and economic structures and arrangements that prevail in different societies. As early as 1842, the French moral statistician Quetelet wrote that

“Society includes within itself the germs of all crime committed, and at the same time the necessary facilities for their development. It is the social state, in some measure, which prepares these crimes, and the criminal is merely the instrument to execute them. Every social state supposes, then, a certain number and a certain order of crimes, these being merely the necessary consequences of its organisation."

This is of course a massive topic, but my motivation in highlighting it is to show how the ruling elites in both Britain and America are successfully steering the dominant narratives within these societies by demonising certain groups and themes such as the EU, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, the disabled, people on benefits etc. and labelling them undesirable and tending towards the criminal for the purpose of deflecting our attention away from the real criminals, the elite themselves. As Lincoln warned us, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. What we must do is try to avoid belonging to either of these groups all of the time. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat