Is Gender Subordinate to Class? An Empirical Assessment of Colvin and Pauly's Structural Marxist Theory of Delinquency

Abstract

For Karl Marx, the problem of crime in capitalist societies was linked to the material forces of capitalism and domination.' Although Marx did not extensively discuss the problem, he did remark that criminality seemed to be concentrated in the dangerous classes.2 The lumenproletariat, or parasitic class of criminals, consisted of unproductive, unorganized labor whose criminal activity victimized capitalists and productive labor alike.3 Neither Marx nor Friedrich Engels noted the gender regularity of criminality. Over the years, Marxist and neo-Marxist scholars have replicated this omission, and it appears to have become a legacy of criminological Marxism. Scholars have noted racial differences among the criminal population. For instance, David Gordon contends that crime is a rational response to the pressures of class, society, and the competition manifest in capitalist systems.4 Racial division in the working benefits capitalism, because the competition between excluded minorities and