Power and Crime by Ruggiero Vincenzo

Author:Ruggiero, Vincenzo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Conclusion

Political analysis may focus on rules, their consistency and their performance, namely on whether their faithful enactment results in expected rewards. Powerful individuals and groups, against this background, offend when they perceive that playing by the existing rules of the game turns out to be unrewarding (Rosenfeld and Messner, 2013). Instead, in this chapter the crimes of the powerful have been described as a ‘state of mind’ (Aristotle), as the result of the coexistence of good and evil (Augustine), as the outcome of human imperfection (Spinoza), as acceptable conducts within specific forms of social contract (Hobbes), and as legitimate tools against dissent (Rousseau). They have also been linked with the implicit violence or criminality of political power (Montaigne, Pascal, Vico), assimilated to ordinary acts of government (Montesquieu), and associated with usurpers generating admiration (Hume, Tocqueville). Traversing a variety of political theories, we have found that the crimes of the powerful, in fact, are too ambiguous to be treated as crime (Smith), that they are expressions of human ‘radical evil’ (Kant), that they are non-malicious wrongs (Hegel), that they are ingrained in capitalist exploitation (Marx), that they originate at the margins of social systems (Foucault), and that they take place when social reactions are selected and reduced (Luhmann). Finally, we have found their supreme manifestations in contemporary wars, which are the result of decisions made by bellicose elites for the preservation or intensification of international inequality.

The avalanche of interpretations we have encountered in political theory vindicates the opinion of Socrates who, retorting to Protagoras’ claim that he teaches the art of politics, argues that politics cannot be assimilated to other arts and, therefore, it is not teachable. Discussing how to build a house or a ship, he says, the opinions expressed by architects or engineers are received without any discussion. But if the subject is how to run a city, nobody can claim to know better than others.

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