Karl Marx and the Death Penalty

Abstract

This study is a Marxist analysis of capital punishment or the death penalty. The only detailed treatment of the subject by Marx appeared in an article published in the New York Daily Tribune, February 18, 1853, and that treatment was only a sketch. Thus, the following study is an attempt to suggest what a reading of Marx may contribute to an understanding of capital punishment. I conclude that abolition of the death penalty does not need a Marxist justification, but a Marxist justification adds to the many arguments for that course of action.