Harmful Societies

Understanding Social Harm

Pemberton, Simon A., Simon A. Pemberton

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781847427953
• eBook ISBN: 9781447321248
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

While the notion of social harm has long interested critical criminologists it is now being explored as an alternative field of study, which provides more accurate analyses of the vicissitudes of life.

However, important aspects of this notion remain undeveloped, in particular the definition of social harm, the question of responsibility and the methodologies for studying harm. This book, the first to theorise and define the social harm concept beyond criminology, seeks to address these omissions and questions why some capitalist societies appear to be more harmful than others. In doing so it provides a platform for future debates, in this series and beyond.

It will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers across criminology, sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies and geography.

THREE

Capitalist formations and the production of harm

This chapter seeks to progress the argument that structural harms are preventable through further articulating and elaborating the idea that these harms result from ‘alterable’ social relations. This argument is forged from a position that there are no ‘natural’ rates of harms within society, and that the experience of harms will vary according to the mode of social organisation that takes hold within a given society. Therefore, if it is possible for nation states to ‘organise out’ or to reduce harms in comparison to other similarly placed societies, one might conclude that harm is not inevitable; rather, it is a product of ‘alterable’ social relations. As a starting point for this discussion, it is argued that the organising features of capitalism are inherently harmful, so that the harms that different nation states produce will only vary in extent but not in their nature – indeed, the eradication of harms resulting from capitalist exploitation, alienation and commodification are only possible through alternative social forms. In part, the variation of harms identified between nation states may be explained by the ‘embedded’ liberal forms that developed in many advanced industrialised nations, following the initial and particularly injurious phases of capitalism, and have served to ameliorate the more harmful aspects of capitalism that result from its ‘purest’ laissez-faire form. Therefore, the variation in the experience and extent of harm between nation states will depend on the ‘embedded’ liberal forms that have developed and the nature of the form that harm reduction systems take. With the advent of a variety of neoliberal projects, it is argued that the generative contexts of harm that neoliberal policies create, as well as the dismantling of harm reduction systems, serve to promote more harmful social forms. It is proposed that the impact of neoliberalism has not been uniform, with some formations more receptive to the reforming strategies of these projects. The chapter concludes by developing a ‘typology’ that seeks to categorise nation states according to the harm reduction characteristics they demonstrate – so that these theoretical arguments may be explored further in the empirical analyses presented in later chapters.

Harmful features of capitalism

A key theme of the book explores varieties of capitalist form and contrasts the harms they produce. It is important that divergence is not overstated and in the process the inherently harmful nature of capitalism is omitted from consideration. As explained above, while the extent of harms may vary, the nature of these harms remains the same. Thus, the fundamental characteristics of harms are replicated across diverse capitalist forms. Indeed, Garside’s observations that social harm analyses have, to date, focused on the latest capitalist phase, neoliberalism, at the expense of an analysis of the structural features of capitalism that persist across time and space, is particularly relevant here. As Garside (2013, p 251) convincingly argues, neoliberalism ‘offers a poor starting point for understanding the underlying dynamic of the production of social harm’; therefore, Marx’s critique of capitalism frames this analysis.

Capitalist systems are often viewed as dynamic social forms driving human progress and civilisation, producing the goods and services that we rely on and could not exist without. Yet, as Marx taught us, the production, distribution and flows of capital that ensure the continuity of these social arrangements also cause widespread harms – in many respects, as the remainder of this section suggests, the production of these harms is a necessary feature of the system (Hillyard and Tombs, 2004). As Garside forcefully reminds us, ‘throughout its history the operations of capitalism have been associated with the most profound social harms’ (2013, p 252). To avoid rehearsing well-known criticisms of capitalism that Marx’s work has given rise to, this section details the key tenets of the critique, and relates these to the three constitutive categories of social harm identified in the previous chapter. In doing so, an argument begins to build that these harms are inherent features of this form of social organisation.

Surplus value and exploitation

Marx’s critique of capitalism is predicated on the processes by which surplus value is extracted from the labour–capital relation. Surplus value is derived from the exchange of labour power for a subsistence wage, from which the capitalist receives both the productive activity and creative force of the worker. Ultimately, the worker gives a greater value to the production process than initially existed, for which they receive a fraction of the exchange value of the goods and services created. Thus, all value, be it surplus or profit, results from the exploitation of wage labour. The rate of exploitation, the ratio of surplus to necessary labour time, can be increased in a variety of ways, in either absolute terms through ‘squeezing’ more from workers through changes to the working day and raising expected levels of output, or, in relative terms, through the introduction of technology to reduce production time and costs. The exploitative nature of these relations forms a generative context from which harms are produced in capitalist societies, in particular, the physical and mental health harms that result from extracting greater levels of productivity from workers that manifest in long working hours, stress-induced conditions, physical illnesses that result from repetitive tasks or long periods spent in particular positions.

Far from being a ‘natural’ state of affairs, Marx drew our attention to the fetishised nature of this social relation. Thus, despite the appearance of workers’ ‘freedom’ to sell their labour to whomever they choose, as well as consumers’ apparent ability to dictate the price that they pay for goods and services, his analysis lay bare the coercion and inequality that exists in the spheres of production and distribution. Essentially, workers within this system face a stark choice – to sell their labour power or to be condemned to the harsh reality of life as part of the reserve army of labour. In doing so, the myth of freedom on which capitalist societies are built is deconstructed, and in so doing, we begin to understand the ways that, for many within these societies, their personal autonomy is compromised in harmful ways. Indeed, the realisation of autonomy under capitalism would appear to be paradoxical in conditions whereby the continued drive for accumulation gives rise to increasing concentrations of social power within the hands of the few. In societies characterised by such stark differentials of power and resources, it is not difficult to envisage the harmful ways in which our autonomy is compromised through the frustration of self-realisation that results in this context. Freedom therefore remains an illusion without the resources and opportunities to realise life goals and plans.

The mode of production – the configuration of the wage labour/capital relation – takes multiple forms and gives rise to the differentiations between workers and the complex hierarchies on which capitalist societies are based. Variance in the mode of production is largely dictated by the value assumed to be contributed by a specific labour form and the means by which surplus value is extracted. For the purposes of the analysis presented, the forms that the modes of production take also vary between different nation states or social formations, insofar as the impediments to the extraction of surplus value – such as the collective organisation of workers – diverge in important and significant ways. Therefore, our experience of harms – the physical impacts and the ways in which our autonomy is compromised – will vary in intensity according to different modes of production, as some will be more humane than others; however, they remain injurious all the same.

Alienation

For Marx, the injurious consequence of the extraction of surplus value and exploitation is the alienation workers endure within the sphere of production. A fundamental characteristic of being human is our ability to consciously engage in work as an activity that is rewarding and productive, that has the potential to contribute to our self-development. Thus, work in the capitalist system ‘is external to the worker, that it is not a part of his nature, that consequently he does not fulfil himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery, not of well being, does not develop freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased’ (Marx, 1844/1963, p 177). However, in the words of Marx, ‘the alienated character of work ... appears in the fact that it is not his work but work for someone else, that in work he does, does not belong to himself but to another person’ (p 178). Within this system the worker loses control over what is produced from their labour, as well as the process of production itself. This process of alienation perpetuates autonomy harms, as our ability for self-actualisation is compromised when we do not have opportunities to engage in meaningful and productive work of our own choosing.

Alienation extends far beyond the sphere of production to provide a broader context that generates further harms. As Ferguson et al (2002, p 76) note, ‘whilst there is a group in society that wields an enormous amount of power ... the vast experience of working class people is an experience not of power but rather of powerlessness, of having little or no control over major areas of their lives.’ Thus, a host of autonomy harms result when we lose control of the decisions that affect our lives and the resources necessary to act on our life choices. Furthermore, the alienating nature of the system creates divides between those who gain and those who are exploited, alongside the competition it encourages that pits individuals against one another to improve their ‘lot’, which clearly militates against feelings of solidarity towards others, and undermines the possibilities for collective interests to form. Individualism within capitalist societies erodes an essential aspect of the human condition – ‘being with others’ – and so the high degrees of individualisation and fragile social cohesion that pervades these societies also results in a host of relational harms. These can result from the difficulties experienced in making and sustaining meaningful relationships with friends and family that manifest in forms of social isolation and loneliness.

Commod ification

Capitalism strips us bare, reducing our worth as human beings to the sum of the contribution we are perceived to make to the processes of accumulation. In its most unrefined form, where human needs are almost entirely subjugated to the needs of capital, dehumanisation can be unremitting and is undoubtedly injurious. ‘Commodity fetishisation’ obscures the consequences of the prioritisation of capital over human needs. Thus, it renders invisible social relationships between capital and workers, so that these relationships appear to be between ‘objects’ or ‘entities’, therefore reducing workers to the status of a mere ‘component’ or ‘unit’ among others, such as machinery or land, that constitute the production process. This provides a generative context through which workplace harms are produced, if workers are to be viewed as a ‘unit’ in the production process, as with any ‘unit’ they are subject to ‘calculus’ that seeks to extract the greatest levels of productivity and profit from each aspect of the process. Such ‘calculus’ or ‘cost benefit analyses’ are amoral in nature, rendering actors indifferent to the injurious implications of ‘business decisions’ that prioritise profit above human needs. There are numerous case studies of the physical harms that result from ‘business decisions’ that have utilised the amoral calculus of ‘cost benefit analyses’ that foreground profit over safety concerns for workers and consumers.

However, commodification is not only a feature of the sphere of production in capitalist society; it extends well beyond this sphere to have an impact on many areas of our lives. As Slapper and Tombs (1999, p 144) note:

Capitalism relentlessly reduces all forms of social relationships into economic ones; in this sense, the development of capitalism is synonymous with the commodification of all forms of human life.

The extension of this logic into broader societal spheres has harmful consequences. First, commodification serves to undermine social solidarity, the social bonds and ties that exist despite the individualist impulses of capitalist relations to humanise these societies. Harm production in capitalist societies will be influenced by the extent to which forms of social solidarity are able to decommodify aspects of social life. As argued later in the chapter, societies that are more solidaristic in nature are likely to demonstrate greater empathy for others and, in turn, develop social security systems, regulatory agencies and so on, that serve to protect against the more rapacious and harmful aspects of commodification in capitalist societies. Second, commodification provides a generative context for many relational harms. Our worth as members of society is often evaluated through our perceived ‘economic’ contribution. Therefore, the ‘victim status’ attributed to those who experience harm will be determined as a result of their perceived ‘worth’. The existence of autonomy harms, such as poverty, tends to be legitimated through discourses that construct those who endure these harms as ‘architects of their own demise’, as worth and identity is almost solely determined in capitalist societies by the paid work that is performed. Therefore the societal stigma and pejorative discourses that come to be attached to ‘worklessness’, ‘the receipt of state benefits’ or ‘low income’ can manifest in feelings of shame, guilt and humiliation that undermine self-esteem, thus compromising ability to flourish.

Crises of capital/ism

Capitalism’s much celebrated dynamism results from the profit motive that compels individuals to compete against one another for similar ends – a motivational structure that imbues the system with a degree of coherence. However, it is the uncoordinated nature of competitive accumulation that gives rise to a host of contradictions within capital, which more often than not result in crisis. The history of capitalism is littered with periodic crises and bears witness to its inherently volatile and unstable form. According to Marx, crisis is an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of capitalism’s chaotic and anarchic form, with each crisis proving necessary for the system to purge itself of obstacles and blockages. Marx portrays a system that generates contradictions that primarily result from the oscillations of under/overproduction, that are then absorbed into other areas of the system, such as the financial system, in order to reverse falling levels of profit. Yet the readjustments such crises generate remain temporary patches, insofar as different terrains within the capitalist system absorb these contradictions, but then these contradictions only subsequently play out in a new terrain, and, as Harvey remarks, ‘can spin onwards and outwards in this way to encompass every aspect of the capitalist mode of production’ (2007b, p 32). Ultimately, capitalist crises perform an important function, resetting the conditions for accumulation in either specific circuits of capital or more widely, depending on the nature of the crisis.

But while crises may be necessary to bring ‘equilibrium’ to the system, they are also responsible for an array of harms. As Gamble (2009, p 47) notes, ‘one of the key functions of the crisis for Marx was to reconstitute what he called the reserve army of labour, by making thousands of workers unemployed … and driving down wages’. While resetting the labour relation serves to restore the conditions necessary for accumulation, it also provides generative contexts for the production of autonomy harms. Crises ‘re-impose’ discipline on labour, serving as a persuasive discursive tool to ‘free’ labour markets of regulatory impediment that protect working conditions, pay and hours. More broadly, in response to specific crises, capital has sought to reconfigure its relationship with the state; this may be through processes of deregulation of markets or to remove ‘burdens’ in the forms of corporate taxation from business. Indeed, the state itself has contracted, reducing expenditure on benefits or service provision, often seeking to rebalance the relationship between the public and private sectors of the economy, so the former does not ‘crowd out’ the latter. At these points we tend to witness the dismantling of the state’s ‘harm reduction’ capacity, which itself generates a host of harms, such as increased poverty, homelessness and so on. Regardless of the function that crises perform, they create conditions that are harmful, precipitating often acute deterioration of living standards, limiting opportunities for economic participation and creating greater levels of anomie. Thus, ‘secondary harms’ tend to result in times of crisis, with considerable evidence linking recession to increased physical and mental health harms such as suicide, murder and mental illness, that result from increases in unemployment and financial insecurity.

Varieties of capitalism, varieties of harm production?

If we move beyond the underlying nature of capitalist harm, important points of variation exist, insofar as the intensity and extent of these harms vary dramatically according to the type of capitalist formation. Thus, as argued above, different modes of production may result from contrasting forms of political and social organisation, and in turn, these determine a variety of outcomes. Fundamental to developing an understanding of the contrasting organisation of capitalist societies is the role attributed to the state. Indeed, the role of the state is a recurring theme, in particular, the interplay between state and capital. These concepts form the basis of the discussion in this chapter and are further elaborated throughout; it is important, however, to briefly outline the ways in which the state is approached.

The state is viewed as a terrain through which social forces and interests are acted out. As Poulantzas (1978, p 132) argued, the state should be considered to be a ‘material condensation’ of the forces that constitute the historical bloc. However, he warns us that ‘the state is not reducible to the relationship of forces; it exhibits an opacity and resistance of its own’, thus guaranteeing the relative autonomy of state apparatus and its unique qualities (1978, p 130). At any point, then, the state is constituted by a delicate balance of forces giving rise to the contingent and unstable nature of state power. Thus, the state is not a monolithic entity: ‘internal cracks, divisions and contradictions of the state do not represent mere dysfunctional accidents’ but are representative of a field of struggles (Poulantzas, 1978, p 132). If the state is conceived as a field of struggles through which social relations come to be contested, it is possible to conceive of ways in which ‘claims for social justice and progressive politics are forged, fought over, resisted and implemented’ (Coleman et al, 2009, p 14).

When the state is viewed in this way, it allows an exploration of the contradictory and complex relationship between the state and the production of capitalist harm. Nation states are often complicit in capitalist harms through the role they play in the maintenance and reproduction of inequitable social orders. As Poulantzas (1978) notes, the state has a considerable capacity to organise aspects of capitalist society. Without the organising frameworks of ‘dispossession’ – through which public goods are converted into private property – and ‘exploitation’ – that regulate the labour–capital relation – provided by the state, the conditions necessary for wealth accumulation would not be possible, and neither would the harmful contexts of capitalist organisation. Principally, the juridical power wielded by states is crucial to these frameworks in a variety of ways: through the regulatory structures that create and sustain markets, where otherwise profit-making would not be possible, such as privatised rail systems, utilities or telecommunications; or the right to private property realised through civil law, that ensure that the contracts that...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• List of abbreviations
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Christina Pantazis
• one: introduction
• two: Defining social harm
• three: Capitalist formations and the production of harm
• four: Harm reduction regimes and the production of physical harm
• five: Harm reduction regimes and the production of autonomy and relational harms
• six: Harm reduction regimes, neoliberalism and the production of harm
• References