Left Realist Theories

Abstract

Left realism emerged in opposition to radical theory's left idealism that celebrated the offender as a primitive revolutionary. Left realists found left idealism to be an overly romanticized version of the predatory offender who creates so much real fear among the relatively poor populations in many urban environments. Instead, left realists focus on the reality and seriousness of harmful street crime that is created by impoverished working-class neighbors upon their own kind. In some ways, left realism is similar to strain theory in its emphasis on the polarizing effects of capitalist inequality and the resulting problems of relative deprivation and exclusion. Yet, left realism differs from strain theory in that it is more critical of capitalism as a system of inequality and that it advocates socialism as a long-term objective. In other ways left realism is similar to radical theory, and in recent years it has shared a feminist critique, criticizing patriarchy as another form of inequality and exclusion.