"A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we take a closer look at the connection between the latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crime but also criminal law, and with this also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures on to the general market as 'commodities'... The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constable, judges, hangmen, juries, et. and all these different lines of business, which form just as many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human mind, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them... The criminal produces an impression, partly moral and partly tragic, as the case may be, and in this way renders a 'service' by arousing the moral and aesthetic feelings of the public. He produces not only compendia on Criminal Law, not only penal codes and along with them legislators in this field, but also art, belles-lettres, novels, and even tragedies.... The effects of the criminal on he development of productive power can be shown in detail. Would locks ever have reached their present degree of excellence had there been no thieves? Would the making of banknotes have reached its present perfection had there been no forgers? ... And if one leaves the sphere of private crime, would the world market ever have come into being but for national crime? Indeed, would even the nations have arisen? And has not the Tree of Sin been at the same time the Tree of Knowledge ever since the time of Adam?"
Wheen says that this stands comparison with Swift's proposal for curing the misery of Ireland by persuading the starving poor to eat their surplus babies. Indeed, but there is a much closer parallel with another eighteenth century writer, namely Bernard Mandeville. In his Fable of the Bees - which bears the subtitle "Private Vices, Public Benefits" Mandeville takes the very same view of criminality as does Marx, namely that it is a very considerable branch of industry, and that well-meaning efforts to rid society of it run counter to the dynamic of resourcefulness and inventiveness upon which selfish, consumerist market-driven society relies.
Of course Mandeville, no more than Marx, is not advocating carte blanche for criminality - but he is performing the useful service of pointing out that you can't simultaneously have incompatible things. The Christian virtues of self denial are fundamentally incompatible with market society - or capitalism as they called it later. The buzzing, productive hive of bees will become a sterile colony of drones if self denial and strict morality prevails.
Mandeville's insight is as apropos now as it was 200 years ago. We still hanker after incompatible things - exponential economic growth at the same time as prudent stewardship of the earth's resources or care for the welfare of future generations Common sense tells us this, but politicians don't. Or won't. Or can't. Which suggests that we should rely less on politicians, and more on common sense.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. It's a 19th century quotation (Alphonse Karr in Les Guepes, 1849) but an eighteenth century sentiment.
