Caesercel
mentally crippled by lonely teen years
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- Joined
- Jun 14, 2020
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The post modernist french philosopher Focault had some interesting ideas on this topic.
He believed that the ultimate purpose of the criminal justice system is to uphold the power and dominance of the ruling classes. The function of law and order is to maintain an "order" or a "system" that is enshrined into the constitution and the various laws that govern a society. And in most cases this system has the existence of class structures either directly or indirectly encoded within itself.
Consequently, it doesn't matter if a single officer or fed in this system is an honest public servant who has the best interests of the public at heart. As long as he is part of a system that is built upon an assumption of holding some people over others, that's what he will eventually end up doing.
This is how you get a situation where the extraction of labour Surplus Value is legal while stealing private property is a big no. This is not just about corrupt officers, who do the bidding of powerful people, and it's not a matter of implementation either. The very concept of what counts as a crime and what doesn't preserves the interests of the dominant classes.
He believed that the ultimate purpose of the criminal justice system is to uphold the power and dominance of the ruling classes. The function of law and order is to maintain an "order" or a "system" that is enshrined into the constitution and the various laws that govern a society. And in most cases this system has the existence of class structures either directly or indirectly encoded within itself.
Consequently, it doesn't matter if a single officer or fed in this system is an honest public servant who has the best interests of the public at heart. As long as he is part of a system that is built upon an assumption of holding some people over others, that's what he will eventually end up doing.
This is how you get a situation where the extraction of labour Surplus Value is legal while stealing private property is a big no. This is not just about corrupt officers, who do the bidding of powerful people, and it's not a matter of implementation either. The very concept of what counts as a crime and what doesn't preserves the interests of the dominant classes.