Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful

Crit Crim (2010) 18:211–228 DOI 10.1007/s10612-010-9100-1

Scientiﬁc Method and the Crimes of the Powerful

Kristian Lasslett

Published online: 23 April 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Over the past six decades researchers interested in the crimes of the powerful have developed a respectable body of literature. Owing to the empirical and theoretical richness of these contributions, the crimes of the powerful sub-field is ready for critical interventions to be made on the plane of scientific method. Moreover, such interventions have become increasingly necessary owing to the disciplinary hegemony of an orthodox empiricist approach which erects a problematic boundary between empirical representations of the crimes of the powerful and theoretical explanation. To aid a critique of this approach, this paper will employ the scientific framework of classical Marxism to decipher the peculiar problems which flow out of the orthodoxy’s method. It will be concluded that while classical Marxism offers a more rigorous framework for penetrating analyses of the crimes of the powerful, orthodox scholars have nevertheless made significant contributions which should also be utilised in future research.

Introduction

Friedrichs (1996, p. 213) writes, ‘‘[e]very attempt at explanation explicitly or implicitly invokes certain metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality and being, and how we come to know and understand our world’’. Consequently he argues, ‘‘[i]t is important to understand that almost anything we might say … is rooted in our assumptions, whether explicit or implicit, concerning such questions’’ (Friedrichs 1996, p. 213). However, for a criminological sub-discipline such as the crimes of the powerful,1 which has had to struggle under unfavourable intellectual and material

1 For the purposes of this paper, ‘crimes of the powerful’ will be understood as a general category that captures criminal practices which have been authored by actors who are structurally situated in a privileged social position by lieu of their membership in organs that administer political rule or capital. To this end, it encompasses corporate crime, state crime, state-corporate crime, and white-collar crime. However, in saying

K. Lasslett (&) School of Criminology, Politics, and Social Policy, University of Ulster, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT37 0QB, UK e-mail: [email protected] 123 212 K. Lasslett conditions to validate and promote its critical research agenda, serious debates over these essential ‘‘assumptions’’ have been somewhat muted. There are, of course, good reasons for this, i.e. researchers examining the crimes of the powerful have been consumed with the important task of laying the foundations for this sub-discipline through cultivating a substantive body of conceptual, empirical and theoretical work. While funding and scholarly attention still remains disproportionately weighed in favour of conventional areas of criminological analysis (Snider 2000; Tombs and Whyte 2002, 2003), nevertheless, as a field the crimes of the powerful contains enough robust theoretical and empirical studies for penetrating interventions to be made on the fronts of philosophy and method. Such interventions, moreover, have become increasingly necessarily now that the study of the crimes of the powerful is facing definite explanatory limits, owing to the disciplinary hegemony of a scientific method which has been popularised in orthodox contributions to the field. By orthodox contributions, I refer to a definite tradition of scholarship on state and corporate crime whose proponents, while diverse in theoretical outlook, nevertheless operate under a number of common philosophical assumptions and methodological prin- ciples (see for example, Braithwaite 1984, 1989; Coleman 1987; Gross 1978a; Kramer et al. 2002; Mullins and Rothe 2008a; Vaughan 1983, 2002). Most fundamentally, the orthodoxy can be distinguished by their propensity to erect a problematic boundary between empirical research and theoretical explanation, so that the former process involves describing immediately perceived criminal practices, while the latter distinct task is devoted towards identifying their cause. As a result, orthodox scholars tend to fetishise the data of sense-perception, while the power of thought to illuminate less evident social realities is inverted and instead employed to generate general categories that are designed to locate the root ‘causes’ of crime.2 This approach to science has led to the development of numerous abstract empirical studies (i.e. ones that leave out important determinations), and a body of theory which is unable to orient the researcher to less evident, but extremely important social realities that inform the crimes of the powerful. In order to overcome the definite limits associated with the orthodoxy’s scientific method, it will be argued that classical Marxism must be taken seriously.3 However, for this to occur, it is not enough that we simply appropriate the concepts of classical Marxism. Without the right technique (i.e. method), these conceptual instruments are at best blunted and at worst entirely dangerous. Therefore, to facilitate both critique and disciplinary development this paper will begin by introducing classical Marxism’s scientific method, and the philosophical ‘‘assumptions’’ which have informed its character. This outline will then be employed to critically unpack the particular problems that flow both from the orthodoxy’s scientific method and the

Footnote 1 continued this I acknowledge that crime itself is a problematic category, which must be subjected to critical scrutiny if it is to operate as an adequate basis for scientific inquiry. Nevertheless, as this paper focuses upon ontology, epistemology and method, this is a discussion and debate I will leave for another occasion. 2 Sense-perception here refers to the process whereby empirical data enters the human mind via the sensory organs (on occasions with the aid of instruments), and is given certain meanings through the application of notions and concepts (Bukharin 2005, p. 43 and p. 97). For classical Marxists, the processes of sense- perception are the precondition for comprehending the concrete, yet in and of itself, sense-perception does not produce nuanced understandings, for reasons that will soon be made clear. 3 Classical Marxists are unified by a common aspiration to develop and apply the categories of Marxism using the dialectical method, in order to cultivate more penetrating analyses of capitalism which can guide the labouring classes in their struggle against exploitation and oppression. 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 213 philosophical assumptions it rests upon, in addition that is to being forwarded as a fruitful alternative vantage point from which to approach the crimes of the powerful.

Classical Marxism’s Ontology

For classical Marxists the world that is opened up to human beings through the medium of sense-perception, consists of a vast array of diverse phenomena which all exist in definite, evolving relationships (Lenin 1960, p. 109). These relationships, which range from the most simple to the more complex, connect in mediated ways to form interdependent wholes (Lukaćs 1971, p. 27).4 Therefore, from this philosophical vantage point, the natural world consists of more elementary relationships between phenomena at a molecular level, through to much more complex relations between sophisticated living organisms and their ecological environments.5 Similarly, man’s social world consists of more elementary relationships that mediate the production of wealth, through to more complex relations, such as the connection between sovereigns. It is these relationships, and the processes they generate, which inscribe phenomena with definite characteristics and modes of existence (Lukaćs 1974, p. 73; Ilyenkov 1982, p. 118; Marx 1971, p. 20; Marx and Engels 1968,p. 59).6 Thus Marx (1973, p. 265) observes, ‘‘[t]o be a slave, to be a citizen are social characteristics, relations between human beings A and B. Human being A, as such, is not a slave. He is a slave in and through society’’. However, a difficulty we face when attempting to approximate these substantive relationships and processes is that they only appear indirectly to sense-perception through the historical practices they generate, and the properties which they inscribe upon humans and the material world.7 For example, the special relationship that exists between diverse forms of labour when considered as a whole, in which lies the secret of value, cannot be witnessed from the vantage point of sense-perception.8 Nor can it be directly perceived how more complex relations mediate the flow of value, giving rise to the concrete forms, profit, rent and wages, which at first glance seem as disparate as ‘‘lawyer’s fees, beetroot and

4 A relationship, in this sense, refers to an objective connection that develops between differentiated phenomena, which in turn becomes a central component of their being i.e. the way they function and exist. A useful example is forwarded by Ilyenkov (1982, p. 90) ‘‘[t]he development of differences between once identical (and precisely for this reason indifferently coexisting) households is the development of mutual links between them, it is the process of their transformation into distinct and opposed elements of a single economic whole, an integral producing organism’’. 5 Complex in that their character ontologically presupposes more elementary relations and processes, without of course simply being a mechanical product of the latter. 6 ‘‘Each individual separately taken thing comprises its own essence potentially, only as an element of some concrete system of interacting things, rather than in the form of an actually given general feature’’ (Ilyenkov 1982, p. 130). 7 ‘‘A system of interacting things, a certain law-governed system of their relations (that is, ‘the concrete’) always appears in contemplation as a separate sensually perceived thing, but it appears only in some fragmentary, particular manifestation, that is, abstractly’’ (Ilyenkov 1982, p. 57). 8 ‘‘Within the exchange relation, one use-value is worth just as much as another, provided only that it is present in the appropriate quantity … As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can only differ in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value. If we then disregard the use-value of commodities, only one property remains, that of being products of labour … With the disappearance of the useful character of the products of labour, the useful character of the kinds of labour embodied in them also disappears … A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because abstract human labour is objectified or materialized in it’’ (Marx 1976, pp. 127–129). 123 214 K. Lasslett music’’ (Marx 1981, p. 953).9 Nevertheless, by critically using the data of sense-perception human beings can think about these substantive relations and processes. As Bukharin (2005, p. 94) observes: We cannot see ultraviolet rays, but we think about them in profound terms. We cannot directly sense…the infinite number of alpha, beta, gamma, and other rays, with their enormous velocities and so forth, but we think about them and their velocities … The point is that our senses are limited, but that our cognition as a process is boundless. [Italics added] However, before we explore just how classical Marxists harness this ‘‘boundless’’ process of cognition to comprehend less evident social realities it is important that we first understand why it is that human thought can extend our collective ‘vision’ so vastly.

Comprehension as Social Labour

From a classical Marxist perspective, consciousness cannot be examined in abstract isolation, rather it must be understood as a process which has actively developed out of man’s practical existence (Marx and Engels 1968, p. 36). Therefore, classical Marxists trace the origins of thought to ‘primitive’ human societies, where beings in possession of a sophisticated physiological apparatus, first began to actively appropriate nature in com- munity with each other (Engels 1934; Mikhailov 1980, p. 117). It is argued, that this process created the conditions in which complex ideal forms could develop that recorded in language individual experience, making it available to others. This ability to socialise and accumulate experience in ideal categories, in turn, historically electrified the human brain, making it a conduit through which individual humans could begin to appropriate the collective fruits of previous generations by engaging in ‘‘active intercourse with living, inimitable bearers of social culture’’ (Mikhailov 1980, p. 167). As a result of this process human beings have been able to collectively develop more sophisticated understandings of the empirical world. This knowledge has generated an ontological space between human beings as active subjects, and the phenomenal world as their object, which in turn allows the latter’s qualities to be isolated, scrutinised and manipulated to serve man’s social ends (Lukaćs 1980, p. 15). For classical Marxists this process of critical scrutinisation is in the first instance intimately tied to the labour process (Lukaćs 1980: 18), nevertheless, at a certain stage in the social development of human beings, knowledge production itself becomes an independent practice (always, however, tied by mediations to other social practices), empowered by unique scientific instruments, which aid the more precise interrogation of the objective world (Lukaćs 1974, p. 16; Lukaćs 1980, pp. 18–19). Science, in this sense, is marked by the fact that it takes up the raw materials of sense-perception and through the power of abstraction, begins to think about the deeper relations and processes that condition inor- ganic, organic and social existence (this process does not occur in a linear sense, it would closer resemble vast historical criss-crossing, zig zags).10 The fruits of scientific interrogation are similarly accumulated in social media i.e. concepts, which makes them available

9 ‘‘The forms of appearance are reproduced directly and spontaneously, as current and usual modes of thought: the essential relations must first be discovered by science’’ (Marx 1976, p. 681). 10 By abstraction, I mean the mind’s social ability to distinguish definite relations by analytically con- centrating on the historical connections that have developed between phenomena over time. 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 215 to future generations (Marx 1959, p. 97). The accumulated effect of this process on man’s consciousness can be profound: ‘‘From the primitive idea of the sun as a round, shining disc hanging from the firmament, people have advanced to a highly sophisticated understanding which reflects a huge and very diverse complex of objective properties of the objective body and of its relationships and mediations … ’’ (Bukharin 2005, p. 75). The methodological aim of classical Marxism, therefore, is to systematically articulate the techniques which humans have historically developed to decipher these more profound concrete realities, with a view to bringing them to bare upon the social realities that frame everyday life; a process, of course, that is designed to transform socialist practice in the same way knowledge has transformed labour practice.

The Dialectical Method

Clearly the classical Marxist method is not easily summarised, nevertheless, to begin we may observe that it operates under two presuppositions. First, it presupposes that social relationships and processes empirically exist, nevertheless they can only be perceived partially through their effects upon human beings and their environment (Bukharin 2005, pp. 59–62). Second, it presupposes that these effects are recorded and socialised by human beings over vast expanses of time; this provides the cumulative raw materials for scientific analysis (Ilyenkov 1982, pp. 44–45). With these descriptions of complex economic, political and cultural practices acting as our scientific foundation, the classical Marxist method looks to instrumentalise theoretical concepts and abstraction in order to identify within this mass of data the essential relations and processes which constitute the conditions of existence for everyday forms and exchanges. The mind’s power of abstraction, in this respect, enters into the process of comprehension as a tool that assists the individual thinker to analytically distinguish both the elementary relationships through which wealth is generated, and the more complex relations whose concrete character presupposes these elementary determinations. Hypothes- ising the mediated connection between elementary and more complex relations is a challenge that continually intersects with analysis. Aiding the scholar during this process are existing theoretical categories which help orient the thinker, with a certain degree of clarity, to the structures and processes that condition everyday social practices (Lukaćs 1978, p. 33). Theoretical categories in this respect are understood to be a vast cultural resource that contains definitions of particular relations and processes of varying nuance.11 These ‘‘thought experiments’’, as Lukaćs (1978, p. 33) calls them, in essence permit the scholar to break down social systems into pieces, and ontologically prioritise these pieces in a way that allows the mind to appropriate the concrete by moving from the most elementary relations and processes to the more complex. Hence it was only after a fatiguing process of empirical inquiry that Marx was able to finally begin Capital by first defining the basic relationship that exists between workers, which through further mediations generates wealth in its capitalist form (i.e. the labour theory of value). This, in turn, provided the foundations upon which more complex relations could be properly elucidated (e.g. the relationship between various forms of capital) (see Marx 1976, 1978, 1981).

11 This, as we shall see, departs substantively from the orthodox approach, where theoretical categories are employed to identify the general causes of criminogenesis within immediately contemplated phenomenal reality. 123 216 K. Lasslett

Therefore, when the power of abstraction is directed towards distinguishing in the correct order of priority, the particular connections and processes that have historically developed between differentiated human beings, it becomes a vehicle through which to realise its opposite, the concrete (Bukharin 2005, pp. 85–86; Ilyenkov 1982, pp. 47–48; Lukaćs 1971, p. 162).12 While existing theoretical categories mediate this rise, providing a vast, socially developed resource which orients the individual thinker, with a specific degree of clarity, to the concrete determinations under study. By making more apparent the dialectical method, the classical Marxist framework thus allows the individual thinker to master the instruments (abstraction, theory) and processes (induction, deduction,13 analysis, synthesis14) that structure comprehension, so that they may develop more penetrating analyses of social reality, which can better guide practice. To this end, the theoretical categories of classical Marxism, which define specific historical connections and processes, are designed as tools which if applied with the right technique, help us to consciously appropriate the concrete. However, here a word of warning is required, when attempting to make sense of particular crimes, or indeed crime control systems, nothing can replace the arduous task of critical, empirical inquiry.15 Consequently authors who have applied Marxist categories to the data of sense-perception in order to explain the crime of the powerful, without having first mediated this data through a process of dialectical inquiry, have led criminology down problematic paths. Quinney (1974, 1980) and Michalowski (1985), for example, both take theoretical categories which Marx developed at a high level of abstraction in volume one of Capital16

12 ‘‘The movement of cognition to the object can always only proceed dialectically: to retreat in order to hit more surely’’ (Lenin 1960, p.279). ‘‘Essentially, Hegel is completely right as opposed to Kant. Thought proceeding form the concrete to the abstract – provided it is correct … does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, of a law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstraction reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely’’ (Lenin 1960, p. 171). 13 Classical Marxists conceptualise induction and deduction in a way that departs significantly from the empiricist traditions of science (see Ilyenkov 1982). Deduction occurs when existing theoretical concepts are utilised to orient the thinker to specific relations and processes only partially observed in the data of sense-perception, while induction is a process whereby the scientist modifies existing concepts to capture more correctly these relations and processes as a totality. In the empiricist traditions of science, on the other hand, deduction generally involves applying existing theoretical categories to assist identify those sensually perceived causal moments that help explain immediately contemplated phenomena (e.g., human behaviour is motivated by self-interest and rational calculation), while induction is a process whereby the thinker extracts from diverse empirical case studies etc., new or more sophisticated causal complexes (e.g., culture mediates self-interest and rational calculation), which are then posited in a theoretical form that is not biased to a specific empirical example, thereby expanding the existing body of theory available on the subject (see, for example, Vaughan 1998). 14 Analysis and synthesis occurs jointly, i.e. specific connections and processes are examined, and their fit within a broader totality hypothesised. 15 Lenin, for instance, did not guide the Bolsheviks with Capital, rather the conceptual apparatus contained in Capital informed Lenin’s analytically developed understanding of the particular (Russia) and general (world capitalism) conjunctures in which he was operating. It was this understanding, which Lenin forged through much analytical sweat, that informed his political strategy. 16 Volume one of Capital defines a number of essential relationships and processes fundamental to the functioning of the capitalist mode of production. However, through the progressive addition of further theoretical categories in volume two and three of Capital, which define more complex intersections of relationships, the processes outlined in volume one are modified as Marx moves towards the concrete i.e., capitalism as a social whole. Of course, at the time of Marx’s death, his theoretical work remained unfinished. Thus, classical Marxists have extended his project both by defining more concrete determinations, and through constructing categories that can capture the peculiar specificities of capitalist development within particular nations and regions. 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 217

(i.e. elementary categories), and directly apply them to explain the immediately perceived, everyday practices of corporations and states. In so doing, they fail to concretise these elementary abstractions by reading them as part of a broader system of production which Marx conceptualised in the more concrete categories deposited in volume two and three of Capital. Furthermore, Quinney and Michalowski also fail to apply these categories dialectically—i.e. via a process of critical abstraction—in order to illuminate the peculiar historical way in which the relations and processes of the capitalist mode of production have taken shape within specific social conjunctures to provoke certain forms of state/ corporate criminality.17 Engels was scathing in his critique of such scholars: …[O]ur conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for con- struction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined in detail … Up to now but little has been done here because only a few people have got down to it seriously … too many of the younger Germans simply make use of the phrase historical materialism (and everything can be turned into a phrase) only in order to get their own relatively scanty historical knowledge — for economic history is still as yet in its swaddling clothes! — constructed into a neat system as quickly as possible, and they then deem themselves something very tremendous (Marx and Engels 1982, pp. 393–394; see also Banaji 1977, p. 2 and p. 11). Indeed classical Marxism offers no easy answers, it supplies a method and categories, which if mastered provide a rewarding scientific framework. Nevertheless, nothing can replace the task of rigorous empirical inquiry. Thus, it is only when classical Marxism’s rich body of theory18 is dialectically applied by the criminologist to make sense of capitalist social relations as they have developed within specific spatio-temporal conjunctures,19 can we hope to produce more convincing accounts of the crimes of powerful that can act as a resource through which to guide practice. With this particular appreciation of theory, method and practice in mind we will now proceed to analyse the orthodoxy’s scientific method, using classical Marxism as a vantage point from which to critically intervene.

17 This problematically leads Quinney (1980) to develop a teleological appreciation of history (i.e., one that views history as inevitably leading towards the emancipation of the proletariat), a functionalist analysis of the state (i.e., the modern state was developed in order to protect the interests of capital), and an instru- mentalist view of crime and criminal justice (i.e., crime is employed to either oppress, proﬁt, or resist). The correct method would have been to instrumentalise the theoretical categories of Marxism in a process of methodical empirical inquiry directed towards understanding how the relations of capitalism unevenly developed in the United States (for example), within the context of a broader world economy and inter-state system, giving rise to particular regimes of capital accumulation, forms of bourgeoisie citizenship, political- economic regions, and types of social struggle, out of which arose a diverse criminal justice system and particular ﬂows of criminality and crime control. The end result would be a sophisticated and broad historical appreciation of concrete social development in the United States and its connection with everyday crime/crime control. 18 Though theory, of course, is an evolving cultural form: ‘‘The Concept – is not a closed circle, but a loop, one end of which moves into the past, the other – into the future’’ (Trotsky 1986, p. 78). 19 ‘‘Dialectical thinking … [emphasises] not capitalism in general, but a given capitalism at a given stage of development’’ (Trotsky 1965, p. 50). 123 218 K. Lasslett

The Orthodox Outlook and Method

Initially, what is most striking about the orthodox scholarship is that the presentation of empirical reality is detached from theoretical approximation, so that the former is simply the act of describing, through the cultural medium of language, the sensually perceived actors, processes and exchanges involved in an instance of criminogenesis, while the latter process involves identifying within this perceived reality the central ‘causes’ of crime. For example, in a recent contribution directed towards explaining violations of international criminal law in Africa, Mullins and Rothe (2008a, p. 191) observe: By exploring the sociohistorical context and the enactment patterns of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the 20-year war between the Museveni government and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, the complete collapse of social order following the Second Congolese War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Darfur genocide in the Sudan, we have provided rich narratives of atrocity-producing events. Although the descriptions have value in and of itself, the main drive for examining the four cases in this volume is the attempt to build a criminological theory that is capable of explaining the phenomena (see also Braithwaite 1984; Bruce and Becker 2007; Vaughan 1983). By setting up a false dichotomy between ‘descriptions’ of empirical reality and theoretical explanation, as is done here, two obvious problems arise. First, ‘descriptions’ of empirical reality written from the vantage point of sense-perception are not problematised. Second, the power of cognition to deepen our comprehension of elusive empirical processes is overlooked. This problematic scientific stance would seem to be motivated in part by a ‘‘naı¨ve ontologism’’ which attributes the concrete properties particular phenomena obtain from the broader relations and processes they are a part of, to the ‘‘individual things’’ themselves (e.g. agents, organisations, etc.), and to ‘‘easily perceivable surface relationships’’ (e.g. market exchange, competition, geopolitical struggle, etc.) (Lukaćs 1978, p. 19). Of course, this ontological vantage point is not explicitly acknowledged in the orthodox literature, nevertheless, it is evidenced implicitly by the way orthodox scholars analyse the crimes of the powerful. For instance, in the corporate crime literature the criminogenic role played by the profit motive has been scrutinised on a number of occasions (see Barnett 1981; Braithwaite 1988; Coleman 1987; Jenkins and Braithwaite 1993; Vaughan 1983). Barnett (1981, p. 5), for example, argues: [US] corporations pursue goals of profit, growth, and expanded market share subject to constraints imposed by markets and the state. Markets generate supply and demand constraints, the former defined by technology, the nature of the production process, and the cost and availability of resources; the latter by product market structure, share, and growth. The state or legal constraint is defined by law and mechanisms of enforcement … The legal constraints arises historically to supplement or reinforce the market constraints … Illegal circumvention of market constraints can be translated into expected changes in cost relative to revenue, that is, into changes in expected profits. One can expect that a corporation will be relatively likely to choose to engage in crime when the expected costs of its illegal action are acceptably low relative to perceived gains, other things being equal.

123 Scientiﬁc Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 219

As sophisticated as this analysis may be, Barnett’s overriding concern nevertheless is with immediately perceived forms and surface appearances, which means that no attention is given to the substantive social relationships between labour and capital, and capital and capital, which profit and market exchange presuppose and indeed depend on. Conse- quently, the profit motive is fetishised as a desire on the part of organisationally con- strained corporate managers to accrue a certain return on top of the initial investment, in a market environment with limited legitimate opportunities. A similar problem may be witnessed in Rothe’s (2009) explanation of the United States’ criminal involvement in Nicaragua during the nineteen eighties. Applying an integrated theory of violations of international criminal law, Rothe (2009, pp. 59–60) claims: At the international level, the Reagan administration was, in part, reacting to the changing international relations during the Cold War. As an empire, the US was being challenged by Japan as the sole economic power, and was challenged ideologically by the USSR… [O]pportunities included the existing international relations and the State’s economic and military supremacy… By using its position in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the US was able to veto economic assistance. Additionally, due to the global position of the US, the Administration used its economic and military supremacy to put political pressure on Western European gov- ernments to support the Contras and to politically and economically isolate Nicaragua. While Rothe indeed identifies certain criminogenic forces associated with the immediate power contests that take place within an asymmetric international system, she fails to go beyond this analysis and examine the historically developed relationships which generate both the international system’s uneven character and historically specific forms of geopolitical struggle. Given then that the orthodoxy generally operates under an ontology that ignores ‘‘important and actually existing relationships which are less directly apparent’’ (Lukaćs 1978, p. 14), abstraction and theory are not utilised to overcome fetishised perceptions of the facts. Instead, as I noted above, theoretical concepts are generated and employed to assist isolate within the ‘‘immediately given facticity’’ (Lukaćs 1978, p. 14), the ‘causes’ of the crimes of the powerful (see for example, Finney and Lesieur 1982, p. 260; Mullins and Rothe 2008b, p. 87; Vaughan 2002, pp. 124–125).20 As a result, orthodox scholars harness the mind’s power of abstraction—through which theoretical categories are generated—to distil a common causative substance from the perceived patterns of causation featured in the empirical literature (see Rothe and Ross 2009, p. 25).21 On this basis, over a period of decades, orthodox scholars have gradually fashioned complex explanatory theories that identify numerous criminogenic catalysts that intersect on a variety of social levels (see Braithwaite 1989; Kramer et al. 2002; Mullins and Rothe 2008a; Vaughan 2002).

20 Hence Ross (2003, p. 17) argues, ‘‘theories are developed and designed to explain the causes and effects of processes and phenomena and to predict likely outcomes’’. 21 Classical Marxism, it should be noted, avoids isolating causes and attributing to them explanatory significance. Its focus, rather, is on understanding the underlying relations and processes that give specific ‘causes’ their particular historical ‘effects’ (Michalowski 1985, p. 17). Unfortunately, orthodox scholars have tended to tare Marxist categories from the dialectical framework in which they obtain their explanatory power, treating them instead as abstract concepts designed to be applied using the logic of ‘cause and effect’. For example, Ross (2003, p. 25) claims ‘‘[Marx] … (along with Fredrick Engels) suggested that conflict in society is a result of a scarcity of resources (i.e., property, wealth, power, and jobs [incidentally Marx chastised Malthusians for arguing this – K.L.]). This creates inequalities among individuals and constitu- encies that in turn lead to a struggle between those who possess these resources and those who do not’’. 123 220 K. Lasslett

This empiricist stance adopted by the orthodoxy cultivates a number of methodological problems, which fundamentally inhibits orthodox scholars from developing more penetrating accounts of the crimes of the powerful. In particular, this stance promotes an unmediated approach to the comprehension of reality,anabstract method of abstraction, and a reductionist mode of theorisation. I will now consider each of these three methodological problems, employing an example from the orthodox literature which illustrates their particular shortcomings. We will begin by considering the problems associated with the orthodoxy’s unmediated approach to the comprehension of empirical data. When an interpretative approach to reality is characterised as unmediated, it is meant that the ‘facts’ employed to make certain empirical claims have not been subjected to a qualitative process of theoretically guided, scientific abstraction, i.e. one directed towards identifying actually existing, but not readily apparent, connections and processes that give specific phenomena their historical mode of existence. Instead, the empirical work’s rigour generally tends to be judged on a quantitative basis, i.e. how thorough has the researcher been in collecting/collating the facts of sense-perception, according to a verifiable method (Quinney 1974, pp. 2–3). Of course, that is not to suggest classical Marxists are opposed to thorough fieldwork, it is in fact greatly encouraged. Nevertheless, classical Marxists also maintain that the quantitative process of data collection, cognitively speaking, must pass through a qualitative process of theoretically guided abstraction, in order to illuminate substantive yet elusive social forces. Thus Ilyenkov (1982, pp. 44–45) argues that the raw data recorded by human beings when investigating the empirical world is ‘‘… only the first, sensual stage in cognition … thought striving for truth does not take this form of consciousness to be either its goal or result but merely a premise, material for its specific activity’’. This specific activity, theoretically guided abstractive analysis produces ‘‘… something different in qualitative terms from the cognitive raw material represented by sensations. A new alloy has been fused together in intellectu, a product distinct from the original material and from intermediate products’’ (Bukharin 2005, p. 75). However, facts that have not been subjected to this qualitative process are not somehow more authentic representations of reality. They too are abstractions which have been produced with the assistance of socially developed categories. As Ilyenkov (1982, pp. 40– 41) observes, ‘‘each separate sensual impression arising in individual consciousness is always a product of refraction of external stimuli through the extremely complex prism of the forms of social consciousness the individual has appropriated’’. To claim, for example, that a mining conflict was initiated by aggrieved landowners, at first seems a straight forward statement of fact. However, upon closer inspection the category ‘landowner’ encourages us to focus on a particular quality local villagers possess, and attribute to it a definite meaning i.e. that this is a group unified by its connections with the soil. Viewed this way, this statement is actually a definite interpretation of the facts. Thus, as Lukaćs concludes, ‘‘[h]owever simple an enumeration of ‘facts’ may be, however, lacking in commentary, it already implies an ‘interpretation’’’ (Lukaćs 1971, p. 5; see also Lukaćs 1989, p. 212). Though in the case of unmediated interpretations, the facts have passed through an unscrutinised ‘‘prism’’ of social categories, employing an anarchic abstractive methodology, an approach which generally produces one-sided or partial interpretations of reality that remain trapped in the first stage of cognition. An example from the literature which exemplifies the problems associated with unmediated contemplation, can be found in a revealing debate between Coleman and Braithwaite in the American Journal of Sociology. Coleman (1987, p. 416), in order to pinpoint the structural origins of white-collar crime, advances the proposition that with the development of industrial production there has arisen a criminogenic system of beliefs 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 221 which he refers to as the ‘‘culture of competition’’. Coleman (1987, p. 417) argues that this criminogenic system fosters both a ‘‘demand for success’’ and a ‘‘fear of failure’’, which when synthesised ‘‘prove a set of powerful symbolic structures that are central to the motivation of economic behaviour’’. However, according to Braithwaite (1988, p. 627), a weakness in Coleman’s argument is its ‘‘theoretically truncated focus on competition and the political economy of capitalism.’’ In order to defend his original thesis, Coleman (1988, pp. 633–634) responds to Braithwaite’s charge by arguing that his conceptual framework is equally applicable to ‘socialist’ and ‘capitalist’ societies,22 an argument which is advanced on the basis of the following characterisation of the ‘empirical facts’: While Braithwaite holds that socialist societies are ‘imbued with a cooperative rather than a competitive consciousness,’ I do not see such a sharp distinction between the two types of societies. Rather, I would put more emphasis on the structural characteristics, common to all industrial societies, that foster a competitive orientation. Although there is probably somewhat less individual competition in the Eastern bloc than in the capitalist nations, I would argue that most of the difference is that the battle for success in communist nations is more purely bureaucratic and less closely linked to economic production. Thus, the competition for success in achieving high bureaucratic position and social esteem may be given more emphasis than the competition for wealth and profits per se, but the motivational effects of these two are essentially the same … The available evidence on the stratification system of the industrial communist societies such as the Soviet Union indicate that they are, in many ways, quite similar to those found under industrial capitalism… Not only do both types of industrial societies support a ranked hierarchy of social positions; comparative studies indicate that there is about as much mobility in the Soviet Union as in the United States. Since there are only a limited number of high-status positions in any industrial society, and those positions require a level of technical skills incompatible with a system of allocation based solely on inheritance, how can competition for desirable positions be avoided. It should now be apparent that the facts which Coleman forwards to defend his thesis that ‘socialist’ and ‘capitalist’ conjunctures share common ‘‘structural characteristics’’ as ‘‘industrial societies’’, are actually definite interpretations. However, in this instance the categories which Coleman employs to interpret the facts are wholly incapable of defining the ‘‘structural characteristics’’ of either ‘capitalist’ or ‘socialist’ societies. Indeed, categories such as ‘‘ranked hierarchy of social positions’’, ‘‘limited number of high-status positions’’, and ‘‘competition for desirable positions’’, are generalisations which only identify immediately contemplated, abstract features inherent in both conjunctures.23 They by no means tell us about the actual complex of relations and processes which inform the economic, political and cultural practices through which social reproduction occurs in each instance. Indeed, the categories which Coleman employs to characterise the facts are of such a superficial nature, his thesis would equally apply to parts of pre- colonial Papua New Guinea where clan mates competed to earn the prestigious status of

22 Affixing the label ‘socialist’ to the Soviet Union, a characterisation both Coleman and Braithwaite partake in, is an example of a definite interpretation being passed off as a statement of fact. 23 ‘‘So notions like ‘man’, ‘blue’, etc., should not be called concepts but abstract general notions, which only become concepts when it is shown that they contain distinct aspects in unity, whereby this unity determined within itself constitutes the concept’’ (Hegel cited in Ilyenkov 1982, p. 48). 123 222 K. Lasslett village big-man, by accumulating culturally significant forms of wealth for ceremonies, and by mediating intra and inter communal exchanges. From a classical Marxist perspective the correct approach to the above problem would be to employ abstraction and theory in order to assist orient the individual to the inner character of the world economy and the inter-state system through which it is politically administered; from there the thinker would progressively concretise their definition of each particular conjuncture (i.e. the United States and the Soviet Union) by introducing new categories that capture more acutely the specific determinations at a national level which have generated vastly different forms of capitalist development and political rule. The outcome would be a more complete comprehension of the specific determinations in each conjuncture which fostered the particular forms of criminality under consideration, rather than an abstract set of categories which ‘explain’ crime in both conjunctures. Therefore, from a classical Marxist perspective, the structural similarities which Coleman identifies are not so much the result of there being any actual shared concrete features between the US and the Soviet Union, rather they are more directly the product of Coleman’s failure to pass the ‘facts’ through a qualitative process which would allow him to make the cognitive transition from immediate contemplation to concrete comprehension. The analogy he draws between coterminous spatial conjunctures is, therefore, an abstract one. Accordingly, the problematic of unmediated contemplation should make us question both the empirical depth of orthodox case studies, as well as the validity of the factual claims which the orthodoxy employs to justify their theoretical conclusions. With this problematic kept in mind, we will now turn to the second limiting feature of the orthodoxy’s scientific framework, namely the method of abstraction it employs to develop the theoretical concepts that form the foundation for its explanation of the crimes of the powerful. At this point in the discussion it is important to remember that classical Marxism views the mind’s social ability to isolate and critically scrutinise discrete features of concrete reality, as a distinct strength (Marx 1976, p. 90). However, if the process of abstraction is to forge more complete approximations of reality, it must be directed towards defining ‘‘different elements of the actual concreteness, that is, of the law-governed organization of a system of relations of man to man and of man to things…each abstract definition…must express a discrete element that is actually (objectively) singled out in the concrete reality’’ (Ilyenkov 1982, p. 55). However, in the orthodox tradition of criminology immediate appearance and essence are seen to more or less correspond, consequently the process of abstraction is never conceived of as a tool through which to make the transition from the first stage of cognition (sense-perception), to a higher more complete comprehension of reality which captures the ‘‘less directly apparent’’ but ‘‘actually existing relationships’’ that inform social practice and human subjectivity (Lukaćs 1978, pp. 13–14). Instead, orthodox scholars utilise the mind’s abstractive power to delineate from immediately perceived (unmediated) causal patterns, an abstract general substance which is said to be at the root of criminality (e.g. blocked goals, criminogenic opportunity structures, weak social controls, culture of competition, situated rationality, differential association, etc.) (see, for example, Coleman 1987; Finney and Lesieur 1982; Gross 1978a; Hansen 2009; Kramer et al. 2002; Vaughan 1983, 1998). In other words, for a method that uses empirical patterns as the basis for the development of theoretical laws, abstraction is a tool which is employed to give these patterns a general form that is not theoretically biased to a particular empirical instance. According to this method, were I to examine through unmediated analysis, such dis- cordant examples of social exchange as tribal fighting over land in the Highlands of Papua 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 223

New Guinea, geopolitical conflict over oil reserves in the Middle East and fraudulent advertising by a major supermarket retailer in the US, abstraction would allow me to locate an identical causative substance common to each instance. By employing such a method, for example, I might theoretically conclude that each empirical instance is a particular manifestation of the criminogenic effect of ‘competition’ in environments featuring ‘finite resources’ (obviously, this is a basic conclusion used for demonstrative purposes). Therefore, I would be attempting to make the transition from appearance to essence across a bridge built on narrow generalisations. An overt example of this method can be found in a number of esteemed contributions made by Gross in the late nineteen seventies. Employing ‘‘a variation of Mertonian theory’’, it is Gross’s (1978a, pp. 56–57) guiding thesis that organisations are ‘‘inherently criminogenic’’ due to the fact that they are constructed for the specific purpose of achieving goals in competitive social environments. However, what is most instructive about Gross’s (1978b, p. 209) approach is how he reaches this theoretical conclusion by abstracting from the particular: Some organizations seek profits, others seek survival, still others seek to fulfill government-imposed quotas, others seek to service a body of professionals who run them, some seek to win wars, and some seek to serve a clientele. Whatever the goal might be, it is the emphasis on them that creates the trouble. Gross (1978a, p. 72) adds: First, nothing we have said gives any special comfort to those who identify crime with the pursuit of profit and who might see in our remark an argument against capitalistic forms of organization. The problem with organizations is goals—whatever the goals happen to be. Both of these examples feature an abstractive movement which methodologically inverts the dialectical approach.24 Rather than trying to define how particular goals are an ideal expression of definite practices which are intimately connected with a specific social location in a historical ensemble of relations and processes, that is rather than establishing their concrete character, Gross proposes that we ignore their particularity, that we ignore their ideal character, and that we thus also ignore the structure which they correspond to, and in the name of theoretical explanation we instead homogenise disparate goals through focusing our abstractive lens on a narrow general quality these heterogeneous motivations all possess, i.e. goal emphasis.25 It would seem, therefore, that rather than being judged on its ability to reveal as much detail about a particular instance of criminality as is possible, explanatory strength is seen to belong to those theoretical frameworks that so vaguely define the processes behind criminogenesis that they are capable of ‘explaining’ diverse instances of state/corporate crime through short, abstract causative formulas. Hence, in the orthodox literature it is not uncommon to witness theoretical frameworks produced through this method of abstraction that make rather optimistic explanatory claims. For example,

24 That is, classical Marxism employs abstraction to study the objective connections that exist between differentiated phenomena, the orthodoxy on the other hand utilises abstraction to discover identical qualities in disparate processes. 25 Indeed Braithwaite (1988), p. 628; see also Braithwaite 1984, pp. 94–95) who ﬁnds Gross’s approach ‘‘irresistible’’, argues ‘‘to identify the causes of white-collar crime with the competitive pursuit of proﬁt is … theoretically constraining.’’ 123 224 K. Lasslett

Vaughan (2002, pp. 131–132) forwards the following thesis, which she argues helps to explain the nature both of corporate crime and domestic violence: Individual status in the immediate social setting (the family in one case, a corporation in the other) becomes tied to status in the external environment, thus the individual (depending upon position in a structure) becomes the potential originator of a complex, double status-related, violative act that is connected to that person’s rank in the organizational setting as well as in external structural arrangements. In both examples, the individual actor remains central, but the violative act, in the actor’s view, has the potential to elevate the standing of the individual and possibly that of the group (family; corporation) to which he or she belongs. A fundamental social psychological motivation to violate is produced, analogically in both examples, by layered institutional and organizational influences that affect rankings for individuals and, in some cases, organizations alike. Classical Marxism’s jaundiced view of such modes of abstraction and their theoretical results is perhaps best expressed by Bukharin (2005, p. 83) who observes, ‘‘[w]e do not want these abstractions, the dead plucked peacocks, out of which you have pulled all the luxuriant plumage!’’. The ontological justification for this biting criticism is identified by Ilyenkov (1982, p. 48): … [E]ssence is by no means reducible to the abstractly identical in different phenomena, to the identical elements observed in each of the phenomena taken in isolation. The essence of an object is almost always contained in the unity of distinct and opposed elements, in their concatenation and mutual determination. As a result, abstractive analysis directed towards identifying the ‘‘the abstractly identical in different phenomena’’, can in no way act as a medium through which the mind can progressively absorb and comprehend both the relations that exist between differentiated phenomena, and the way these relations connect together and function as a system to give rise to specific forms of concrete social development.26 Consequently, it may be said that a merit of the classical Marxist framework is that its method of inquiry and exposition is specifically attuned to identifying and defining as a totality, those historical connections that have formed between human beings in specific conjunctures, which are the conditions of existence for the everyday forms and exchanges evident to sense-perception. On the other hand, Gross and Vaughan’s abstractive method, which aims to capture the ‘‘abstractly identical’’ in ‘‘different phenomena’’, is powerless in this respect, therefore their concepts are quite incapable of explaining the deviant conduct of states and corporations. Given then that the categories of orthodox crimes of the powerful theory are mentally generated through identifying the ‘‘abstractly identical in different phenomena’’, which

26 Thus, when Marx turned his scientific lens towards comprehending the revolutionary potential of the proletariat, he did not simply identify those identical abstract features individual members of this class possessed in contrast to other classes e.g., they work for wages, they are poor, they are propertyless, they have a short life expectancy, etc. Rather, in order to understand the nature of the proletariat Marx focused on delineating and defining in order of priority those historical connections between producer and producer, producer and capitalist, and capitalist and capitalist, which the economic practices of capitalism, and their specific laws of motion presuppose. In so doing, Marx certainly abstracted from the specificity of particular workers and particular capitalists, but he did so in order to identify the objective connection between them (as a complex whole), which in turn facilitated his return to reality in all its particularity, but this time with a far richer understanding of the complex relations, contradictions, laws of motion etc, which shaped the particular worker’s mode of existence. 123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 225 leaves us with a series of narrow theoretical definitions, these ‘‘dead plucked peacocks’’ cannot obviously play the same mediating role in cognition that Marxist concepts do. That is to say, because orthodox theoretical categories are not developed in order to orient the human mind to specific relations and processes, they clearly cannot be critically applied in future case studies to assist deduce the complex of determinations that excite specific moments of criminality. As a result, orthodox crimes of the powerful scholars utilise theory in a very different way. Their abstract theoretical categories form causative explanatory frameworks which researchers employ in an effort to identify those immediately perceived forms and exchanges within specific social environments which are thought to be criminogenic in character (see Mullins and Rothe 2008a, chapter eight).27 For instance, were we to utilise a version of ‘‘Merton’s attempt to explain crime as a response to anomie – the disjuncture between cultural goals of success and legitimate opportunity structures through which success might be realized’’ (Box 1983, p. 34), we would focus on the particular goals, opportunity structures and modes of social regulation (or lack thereof) featured in our unmediated empirical data, using the theory to forge an abstract causal chain between these moments, all awhile the empirical features presented remain poorly defined and the real connection between phenomena mystified (for examples of this process using the concept of anomie, see Rothe and Ross 2009; Schoepfer and Piquero 2006). On those occasions where the abstract theoretical framework leaves out causes that an unmediated analysis of the empirical data suggests are central to criminogenesis, the orthodoxy advances theory by forwarding possible solutions, either through inductively forging new abstract categories, or by borrowing abstract categories from theories that are currently not utilised to explain the crimes of the powerful (see Rothe and Ross 2009,p. 25).28 For example, Braithwaite (1989) while acknowledging that the blockage of culturally inscribed goals partly explains the motivation for organisational deviance, he nevertheless notes that the available empirical data suggests not all organisation unable to achieve their aims legitimately opt for illegitimate means. Consequently, Braithwaite (1989) claims that we must supplement this theoretical assertion with additional concepts which assist to explain why only some organisations utilise deviant forms of innovation. Braithwaite achieves this end through synthesising subcultural theory, control theory and differential association in order to claim that organisational deviance will more likely

27 The orthodoxy’s theoretical categories, therefore, are employed to ‘explain’ crime in extraordinarily diverse conjunctures. For example, Mullins and Rothe’s (2008a) integrated theory of violations of international criminal law, has been employed to explain the crimes of the powerful in Nicaragua, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (see Lenning and Brightman 2009; Mullins and Rothe 2008a; Rothe 2009). While Kramer and Michalowski’s integrated theory of organisational deviance (see Kauzlarich and Kramer 1998; Kramer et al 2002), has been employed to explain, for example, the Challenger disaster (Kramer 1992), US state crime in Iraq (Kramer and Michalowski 2005), as well as health, safety, and environmental crimes at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky (Bruce and Becker 2007). While classical Marxists, of course, would also employ certain theoretical categories to assist illuminate all of the above diverse conjunctures, owing to the fact they all exist within the capitalist world economy, nevertheless the Marxist challenge would be to progressively develop more concrete categories capable of understanding the peculiar trajectory of capitalist development each conjuncture has undergone, linking this social trajectory to the crimes under consideration. 28 Induction, in this sense, is where the scholar employs abstraction to identify the general causes of crime. These causes are then given a theoretical form and tested in future empirical research. Deduction, on the other hand, is where the orthodox scholar employs existing theoretical categories to locate the causes of the crimes of the powerful in a specific empirical study. Of course, generally these two processes occur in a logical loop. 123 226 K. Lasslett occur when social conditions foster cultures which supply the means to transgress the law, rather than ones which encourage compliance. In an analogous fashion, Mullins and Rothe critique Kramer et al’s (2002) integrated theory of organisational crime, which claims that the latter phenomena is generated by a coalescence of certain catalysts for action (motivation, opportunity structure, operationality of control), across a number of intersecting social levels (see Mullins and Rothe 2008a, b; Rothe 2009). Arguing that this model ignores important causative factors, Mullins and Rothe construct an integrated theory of violations of international criminal law, which includes a new set of catalysts under the heading constraints, and a new social level, the international (Mullins and Rothe 2008a, pp. 9–13; Rothe 2009, p. 52). Having made these modifications Mullins (2009, p. 19) argues: Crime events are produced by a combination of motivation and opportunity elements influencing social actors decision making processes, those processes are then further influenced by extant constraints and controls before an action is or is not committed. These four catalysts can function at all levels of analysis: international, national (macro), meso and micro. Therefore, as both these examples illustrate, theory development is essentially a quantitative process of accumulating further abstract generalisations, in order to engineer a web of causative explanation that is seen to be more complete (see also Hansen 2009; Vaughan 2002). As a result, even though in the past several decades orthodox crimes of the powerful scholars have focused on integrating theories in order to specify with greater breadth the essential causes of state/corporate crime, on a variety of social levels, this process of integration never breaks with the general approach to comprehension presented here, but merely quantitatively extends it. Consequently, even in the case of the orthodoxy’s numerous integrated theories, Gramsci’s (1971, p. 430) critique would seem to apply: The so-called laws of sociology which are assumed as laws of causation (such-and- such a fact occurs because of such-and-such a law, etc) have no causal value: they are almost always tautologies and paralogisms. Usually they are no more than a duplicate of the observed fact itself. A fact or a series of facts is described according to a mechanical process of abstract generalisation, a relationship of similarity is derived from this and given the title of law and the law is then assumed to have causal value. But what novelty is there in that? The only novelty is the collective name given to a series of petty facts, but names are not an innovation.

Conclusion

Research into the crimes of the powerful has reached a decisive juncture in its existence as a criminological sub-discipline. With an expanding network of critical scholars, students, activists and NGOs all devoting considerable efforts to both exposing and understanding the crimes of the powerful, the future trajectory of this scientiﬁc focus now hinges upon researchers debating the critical assumptions which inform this scholarship. This paper has claimed that as it stands crimes of the powerful scholarship is quantitatively dominated by an orthodoxy whose scientiﬁc method restricts the depths with which the crimes of the powerful can be plumbed. However, that said, the orthodox tradition is not necessarily an ‘empty’ one. The numerous integrated ‘theoretical’

123 Scientific Method and the Crimes of the Powerful 227 frameworks that have been developed both by state crime and corporate crime researchers, remain extremely useful analytical topographies which help orient criminologists to the particular social realities that are of special significance to those trying to make sense of the crimes of the powerful (i.e. motivation, opportunity structure, constraints, controls). Nevertheless, such topographies only help us to identify specific forms and exchanges that are of a particularly criminogenic character, they do not help us to understand the substantive social forces that inform these immediately perceived realities. To capture and define these substantive forces we require a method and a body of theory that is acutely tailored to the dialectical character of being and consciousness. Here classical Marxism can make a productive contribution to the crimes of the powerful scholarship. Indeed, by employing the method and concepts of classical Marxism to capture, as a totality, the particular historical connections between differentiated human beings and the processes they generate, we can begin to develop progressively more concrete explanations of the social contexts in which specific forms of state/corporate crime take place. Of course, in so doing we are not motivated simply by abstract intellectual curiosity. The reproduction of the concrete in the mind, and its dialectical presentation, is a task scholars must intensively pursue as it constitutes the most potent intellectual weapon we have to guide contemporary struggles against the powerful’s criminality.

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