Why do conservatives deny that crime and socio-economic status are linked?
Although there is indeed a relationship between crime and poverty, it is not the whole picture. Crime is caused by “alienation” which is in turn a by-product of the capitalist system. If you have a society where wealth is produced collectively and distributed privately (eg. labour and capital are both needed to produce wealth, but the owners of capital get the lion’s share of the produce) there is a temptation by the proletariat to feel alienated and estranged. Some elements of the proletariat respond by breaking away from this system through crime, drugs and prostitution (what I term the “lumpenproletariat”). In a more “socialistic” society (where wealth is collectively produced and enjoyed), crime is less likely to occur because the working classes do not feel estranged from the wealth that they generate.
