Marxism and the critique of criminal justice

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to consider the nature of the Marxist critique of criminal justice. My conclusions are, first, that the combination of Marx and retributivism is an opportunist one that does not take account of the significance of historical materialism not only as a critique of social relations, but also of the genesis of ideologies, including moral ideologies, from such relations. An analysis of the juridical form that justice assumes in bourgeois society, and its basis in exchange relations, shows the specifically historical nature of bourgeois justice in a way that the analysis merely of its functions cannot. Second, a study of the economic basis of capitalism as the unity of relations of exchange and production, shows the essentially formalistic nature of justice within capitalism, and from this analysis is derived the critique of justice in general, and criminal justice in particular. From this point of view, the important contradiction within retributivism between criminal justice and social injustice can be seen as an inevitable consequence of the contrast between the spheres of exchange and production. Exchange relations give rise to a juridical conception of justice at the same time as production relations render this conception formalistic. The result is that in capitalist society the demand for criminal justice is always and unavoidably associated with a deficiency in social justice. The dichotomy between criminal and social justice is a necessary feature of capitalist society, and since retributive criminal justice requires for its validity a combination of the two, the theory is forever doomed in its practical application to self-contradiction.