[lbo-talk] violent crime up

[andie nachgeborenen]

A difficult question. As Michael Moore points out in
Bowling for Columbine, Canada has as many guns per
capita, pretty much, but a far lower violent crime.
esp. murder rate. One speculation is cultural: this
country developed a frontier macho ethic, no duty to
retreat, shootout at the OK Corral -- nor just
representations, but the sense of right of self-help,
as one might put it, in dealing with conflict by
force.  Probably combined with that are disparities of
wealth and the absence of social democratic safety net
protections, in particular extreme poverty, that
enhances frustrations and makes that ethic more likely
to be put into action. The drug war and
criminalization of drugs doesn't help -- drug crime
promotes violence like all prohibitions. But I guess
Canada and most W. Europ countries also prohibit hard
drugs. 

And at the risk of sounding like Woj here, it does
seem -- at least superficially, and without being
acquainted with any studies -- that there is an
underclass that's pretty nihilistic.  This is nothing
new and it's only recently racialized; the 19th
century gangs of New York celebrated in the rather bad
Scorsese flick were Irish and white trash Anglo-Saxon;
Italians, Jews, Chinese and other immigrant groups in
the first generation or so were pretty rough, although
(leaving aside bootlegging, extortion, racketeering,
knee breaking, corruption of unions, etc.) they "only
shot each other," as Buggsy (oops, pardon me,
Benjamin) Siegel once put it. (My ancestors and my
wife's include any number of low and medium grade
hoods, one was actually important enough to get called
before the Kefauver Committee). There does seem to
have been a deterioration of standards: the newer
gangs are far less discriminating in w whom they kill,
possibly because their members don't necessarily
expect to live long enough to enjoy the fruits of the
illicit labors -- a pure speculation on my part.

Trapping people in a slum environment without hope,
but with lots of drugs and guns does seem to be a
recipe for violent crime, not just here. See e.g., the
Rio slums of City of God, or much of modern Russia.  

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> 
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 10:31 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski
> wrote:
> 
> > I think that US-ers
> > are not necessarily more violent than other
> nations in terms of  
> > engaging in
> > actual physical acts of violence.  They are more
> infatuated with
> > *representations* of violence
> 
> So why is our murder rate so much higher than other
> countries, and  
> why do we love guns so much? There's plenty of
> violence in the media  
> elsewhere.
> 
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

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