NCJ Number
70690
Date Published
1980
Length
224 pages
Annotation
Crime and criminology are examined from a libertarian perspective in this work which links the issues of social harm and punishment to scarcity and the basic human struggle to be free. The book includes a critique of the institutions of law and the State and social administrative systems.
Abstract
Traditionally, criminology has been based on the presumption of a State that defines criminality and constructs coercive and generally dehumanizing means of restraining and punishing those who offend the State's laws. The anarchist views criminality without reference to a concrete political/socioeconomic structure. Anarchism is the moral principle of self-rule, nonviolence, a continuous search after perfection, personal responsibility, and social welfare. The social organization of the moral principle may be a commune, councils, syndicates, or any form in which people live and work within a social dynamic of mutual aid. The social organization must be self-contained such that all life-sustaining interactions are face-to-face. Anarchism is prefaced on a spiritual rejuvenation based on the internalization of an ethic of nonownership of property and a commitment to develop talents for the emotional and survival benefit of others in the society. There are no laws or external coercion. The community life flows from internalized moral principles that express the human need to act and relate in a society of mutual aid. The assumption is that those who are born into and develop in such a society will reflect the pattern of life that exists, because the society will meet their essential emotional and physical needs, such that other behaviors will have no meaning or enticement. Notes and selected readings are provided.