Crime Becomes Custom - Custom Becomes Crime

Trevor Bark
School of Social Science
Middlesex University
Queensway, Enfield, EN3 4SF

Paper presented at the 'Making Social Movements: The British Marxist Historians and Protest Movements' conference, June 26-28 2002 Edge Hill College of Higher Education.

Abstract

The British Marxist Historians (BMH) were involved in the study not only of protest and social movements, but of what was and was becoming crime. The enclosures, the change from wages in kind (perquisites) to the wage form itself (Linebaugh 1991), wood gathering, nutting and so on that were previously peoples custom were criminalized and fought politically by the disposessed. Thompsons 'moral economy' theses was based upon the study of bread riots, and this in turn became part of what is known as the social crime debate (Douglas Hay et al, 1975)

Rather than economic crime and protest being central to the poors' lives, crime became marginalized and left to the professionals or a marginalized lumpen element in the Fordist era. Into the late modern era we have seen the growth of crime often linked to high unemployment and 'flexibility', and the growth of social movement protest.

The themes of the BMH about a militant participation in the present, a political Marxism, and reconstructing theory are important ones. To that end we involve ourselves in the social movements, whether that is a rediscovery of the mass tobacco and alcohol smuggler, other informal economic activity in the city, or the emerging anti-capitalist movement.

I am presenting a case for the development of the social crime concept by testing whether the key characteristics can be found today, and also politically reassessing the nature of crime itself. Originally (Hay et al, 1975) said it wasn't possible to distinguish between 'good' criminals here and 'bad' criminals there, and this all blurred into the labouring poor; Linebaugh (1991) notes payment of wages was often years behind. The distinction between the respectable/unrespectable, non-deserving and deserving poor manifested itself in the political development of the Labour movement and Marxism, and can be found within the anti-capitalist movement.

Following "No Logo" and its emphasis on the trademark brand names in the shops I will present analysis about shoplifting and whether the politics of part of the anti-capitalist movement has had any effect on shoplifters choices. I will ask the question about how you go about destroying the brand most effectively, and outline the liberalism found within "No Logo". 'Crime' is now a central feature of the social movements large manifestations and also for a significant section of the general public.

INTRODUCTION

The title of the paper may seem like a reversal of the chronological order in which the events described happened. However I placed it this way round because I want to emphasize the precedence with which I view contemporary events. It also has something to do with the involvement I have with these events that lends it subjective force, and I am aware of that. Although as my grandparents grandparents were born in the 1830's I am also aware of the influence history exerts, as oral history is passed down. This is work in progress.

Custom Becomes Crime

The British Marxist Historians produced a lot of exiting material about the development of capitalism and the struggles of the poor. It is the process of the capitalist turning custom into 'crime' which is the centerpiece of the early social crime debate

"the vast expansion of property-protecting law in the eighteenth century, transforming for example 'customs of the trade' into the embezzlement of materials and the gathering of firewood into a rural felony, then we can see the substance behind Edward Thompson's remark: 'Crime in the sense of being on the wrong side of the law was, for vast numbers of undifferentiated working people normal'." [1]

This outlines how the process of the proletarianisation of the masses was carried out by divorcing them from the feudal means of production through criminalisation. When the peasantry worked the lords land for part of the product, they also had some rights to common pasture. Where they could run some of their livestock and also cut turf for fuel, gather nuts (nutting) eggs (a-egging )[2] and wood for fuel from the forest and so on. The poors' access to game has always been tightly controlled however and had always been known as poaching for which there were harsh penalties and even death as punishment. At one point only the owner of land could kill game which even antagonised some of the more well off and relatively powerful people. In order to be able to hunt

"By an act of 1670 a man had to be lord of a manor, or have a substantial income from landed property, even to kill a hare on his own land. The basic game qualification was an income of £100 yearly from a freehold estate, which in 1750 was between five and ten times the annual income of a labourer, and fifty times the property qualification to vote for a knight of the shire." [3]

"the poor… [who] reminded themselves that Genesis said the animals were made for man, and poached with passionate determination and courage" [4]

"The industrial revolution and accompanying demographic revolution were the backgrounds to the greatest transformation in history, in revolutionising 'needs' and in destroying the authority of customary expectations. This is what demarks the 'pre-industrial' or the 'traditional' from the modern world." [5]

"it was traditional to pay part of a farm labourer's wages in cider. A typical allowance was three or four pints a day, increased to six to eight pints during haymaking and harvest. Then a clause in the Truck act prohibited the payment of wages in alcoholic beverages and cider truck became illegal." [7]

1. Urban pool of labour.
2. Migrants from the countryside
3. People from other parts of the world.

Various new laws also enforced the necessary protections and morality for these new capitalist arrangements. However, this is the actual pre-history of the factory that we are talking about here. These changes are part of the preconditions necessary for the extension of the factory system into the everyday life of the masses. Attitudes that were previously based upon the seasons within agriculture largely were task orientated and unaccustomed to the brutal reality of the clock. The following emphasize the space aspect of the new employment conditions, but the control of time was just as important.

"Handicraft, putting out and manufacture could lead to confusion as to the ownership of the means, materials and product of production. The Williamite criminal code sought to clarify the confusion. The privilege of benefit of clergy was removed from the following offences: robberies of 5s or more in a dwelling house, shop or warehouse (Robbery act of 1691); stealing goods of 5s or more in the day or night from a shop (Shoplifting act of 1699): stealing goods of 40s or more from a dwelling or outhouse (Larceny from a dwelling act of 1713). Of cardinal significance to these statutes was the locus operandi. New modes of circulation of commodities (shopping) and new modes of their production (putting out and manufacture) that emphasized physical locations were reflected in these revised definitions of robbery, breaking and entering, burglary and shoplifting." [8]

"in the British Isles a home market was being formed during this period. We see this clearly in the provisioning of protein to London - that is, in the meat trades. Provisions originated from the far reaches of Scotland, Wales and Ireland; they were realized in sale at many markets; they were consumed in London. A transportation infrastructure was created; roads were built; capitalist methods of marketing were imposed; people were expropriated from traditional ways. In Ireland and in Scotland banditry prevailed; in London Highway robbery. Bandits and Highwaymen conducted their affairs with distinct, living memories of a regulated moral economy. Behind the abstracted 'corruption' noted so often then and since as being typical of the period, there were monied corporations insinuating an avaricious tone into society. An aggressive dialectic existed between two forces: one established commodities, organized labour and provided discipline at the gallows; the other consisted of an unusual conglomeration of people with different ideas and experiences of property..." [9]

However, it was a later period, that between 1776 and 1800 which saw the pace of change speed up and also the magnitude and importance of many issues. We shall see that the rate of enclosures was especially great in this period.

ENCLOSURE

"was a plain enough case of class robbery, played according to fair rules of property and law laid down by a Parliament of property owners and lawyers"
E.P. Thompson "The Making of the English Working Class".

"the law was employed as an instrument of agrarian capitalism, furthering the 'reasons' of improvement. If it is pretended that the law was impartial, deriving its rules from its own self-extrapolating logic, then we must reply that this pretence was class fraud... Enclosure, in taking the commons away from the poor, made them strangers in their own land."
E.P. Thompson, "Customs in Common", Penguin, 1991, P 175, 176, 184

From the late 14th century to the early nineteenth we are talking about the transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist one. It was not a matter of simple and immediate replacement but a process of transition between the idealised epochs. Of crucial importance is the fate of the peasantry and its' proletarianisation.

"as long as the mass of the people have direct ties to the soil and hence to their means of subsistence, capitalist production cannot be widespread, for the essential element of capitalist production is the existence of a mass of labourers who are forced to sell their labour power to capital in order to subsist. The transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist mode of production therefore requires the seperation of the mass of producers from the means of production." [10]

The classical economic interpretation would see the 'progress' of economic development that "consists primarily of the triumph of the advanced manufacturing or 'industrial' sector over the backward agricultural or 'traditional' sector" (Lazonick P. 3) It is particularly based upon qualitative changes in social relations which are masked by such neutral terms as "industrialisation". Which in and by itself specifies only a form of material production and leaves out much more, and can be used as

"to portray 'industrial' development as a class-neutral technological process which can be adequately assessed in quantitative terms.... The idea of 'industrialisation' is in itself historically meaningless and misleading unless we specify the historical changes in the social relations of production of both agriculture and manufacturing which permit the rapid expansion of material production." [11]

"a process of taking land which is either communal property or individual property operated in a system of communal agriculture, and redividing it and reallocating it in private plots or tracts which are often literally enclosed off from one another. Generally, then, enclosure represents the extinction of communal or semi-communal forms of landholding and their replacement by purely private forms. The results of enclosures in England... were, according to Marx, not only the creation of purely private property in agriculture, but also the creation of a landless labour force, an expanded food supply to feed this labour force, a home market for agricultural and manufacturing products and the concentration of landed wealth... Enclosures, extending from the 15th to the 19th century were prime instruments in the proletarianisation of a significant portion of the English labouring class... even though following enclosures, many of the newly created proletarians remained as wage labourers in the agricultural sector, they had become, nevertheless, dependent on capital for their subsistence. With their proletarianisation, the social relations into which these labourers now entered had radically changed... What mattered in terms of economic and social development was the fact that their labour power had become a commodity" [12]

It is of no surprise that the highest rate of enclosure and it's last wave in Britain should have come as the industrial revolution started and developed. The genesis of which were the previous waves of enclosure already mentioned. It is not because of an idealised romantic love of the land that we are concentrating on enclosures, it is because of distinct social relations and the means of production on the land that it is important. These took the form of customary rights that varied from parish to parish. The peasants cow could graze on the common; firewood, nuts and mushrooms could be collected in the forest, the peasants could cultivate the natural world as they saw fit and poach for meat as the Game laws prevented people from killing on land they even had rented from the Lord of the Manor.

"The most important common right, common of pasture, was of critical importance to common field agriculture... a number of other property rights of less central significance to agriculture but often of great importance in household economies, usually lay over the same lands. The right to take turves [Fuel] or wood from the wasteland; rights to fish, gather acorns, and mast for pigs; or to take sand or gravel from the common, might all be matters defined by local custom. Who could take what, when, and where were inscribed in immemorial practice... Beyond common of pasture and the other common rights already mentioned... were a variety of claims recognised in only some places. Customs existed allowing the burning of furze for ashes, or even (some commoners claimes) the taking of game.... the right to glean the harvested fields for fallen grain was maintained for the women and children of the labourers and poor... The sanction of religious precept was perhaps particularly strong with respect to gleaning customs: 'And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God' (Leviticus 23:22)" [13]

Whilst it is true that enclosures started at the end of the 14th century it is only when land became scarce due to economic changes and population growth that enclosures became so politically important

"In the 16th and 17th centuries... as sheep farming increased, as population grew... and as grain production for the market became more profitable, land ceased to be relatively abundant. When landlords enclosed the commons, the inhabitants had virtually no legal claim to continuation of their customary rights. Legally protected rights to the use of commons accrued only to those who held an interest in the open-field. The rights to land use by cottagers and squatters were at the will of the lord; such rights could be extinguished by the will of the lord" [15]

For our purposes it should be noted that it was the time after the restoration of the Stuart monarchy that states organised political power merged with the emerging capitalist class to end the final traces of the feudal economic relationships ie. the destruction of the open field system operated by the peasantry and from which it derived its subsistence. There was of course different levels of relative wealth and this influenced the fortunes of those people. Even those lucky enough to remain with a couple of acres of land felt the neutral (according to classical economic theory) economic pressure to sell (Hay and Rogers, 1997) their last remaining tie to the land and hence were totally proletarianised.

"The 'upper' yeomen and perhaps some of the more well-to-do 'lower' yeomen were already, at the end of the seventeenth century, producing primarily with the idea of marketing as much surplus value as possible as oppossed to producing merely to meet their subsistence needs. As wage labour became more available and as the land market grew, these richer peasants were leasing and buying more land and hiring more labour. They were ceasing to be independent peasants and were becoming capitalist farmers and even landlords.... as for the cottagers and squatters... their means of subsistence became increasingly tenuous as more and more of the common land was enclosed. They derived an increasing share of their subsistence by selling their labour power as a commodity and/or producing for exchange in the putting out system. They derived a decreasing share of their subsistence by directly appropriating it from the land. In the late 17th and early 18th century, there were many forces working to accelerate these changes. Substitution of terms of tenure... also, much of the land enclosed during the first 60 years of the 18th century involved conversion of arable to pasture for purposes of sheep-raising. As in the 16th century, such enclosure had the most sudden and dramatic effects in creating a proletariat." [16]

If we see enclosure as the representation of many different factors in proletarianisation then perhaps by about 1750, the social relations of capitalism were emerging as dominant in the agricultural sector (tenant farmer, landlord and wage labourer) and there were also a large number of proletarians to feed the booming industrial revolutions need for labour power.

If the Customs meant that people could gather subsistence from the land then the enclosures turned land into capitalist property, criminalising previous claims

"the most important attack on the claims of custom as law was the passage of so many enclosure acts in the last four decades of the eighteenth century.... its most important legal and social consequence was the obliteration of the customary common rights of the manor. What had been law for over 500 years ceased to be so; the history of struggles, over generations, of commoners and lords to define their respective property rights in the common lands and wastelands of the parish passed from the realm of lived custom, lived law, lived tradition and struggle, to total irrelevance. That this transformation happened in thousands of parishes (usually the most populous) in the lifetime of a generation meant that the familiar modes of regulation of life that was communal (although not democratic) were breached in a striking way" [17]

Social Crime Debate

Definition and Characteristics

"The concept of social crime that emerged from these studies is quite broad and at times opaque. It involved a number of elements by no means all of which are necessarily present, or even regarded as essential, across the range of studies" [18]

Thirdly, the criminalisation of custom that mainly centered around activities designed to assert traditional land uses in the face of encroaching capitalist social relations. Fourthly, social crime that exists in industrial capitalist society after the working class looses it's mass consciousness of pre-capitalist norms will be either of two forms. A) Either attempts at new or proto communist forms of distribution, or b) an underground capitalism with no laws comprised of stolen or illegally manufactured goods that the community tolerates not because it is prefigurative communism, but because it involves low prices. Finally, there is no 'nice and tidy' social crime here, and destructive anti social crime over there (Thompson, 1972) The authors of "Albions Fatal Tree" could find no evidence of these tightly formed categories existing in real communities. Instead the boundaries between social crime, anti social crime and non criminal acts were a part of everyday life and judgemental moralism didn't impinge on social relationships.

The start of a period of political and media attention on the alcohol and tobacco smuggling issue in comparison with shoplifting is interesting in itself. Vast amounts of money has been spent tackling smuggling and employing 1,000 extra customs officers recently, but why? In terms of financial costs the effects of shoplifting and alcohol and tobacco smuggling are fairly similarly gigantic. Yet one is the subject of MI5 inquiry and the other is not. This has the effect of virtually criminalizing people who previously would see themselves as law abiding individuals, and making the political dimensions of the whole process more apparent. Therefore increased policing control may have the opposite effect of that intended by resolving those already in the smuggling periphery, and drawing those into the smuggling fraternity people who wouldn't normally have considered it. The policing arrangements merely mediate the political struggle being carried out by powerful tobacco corporations, other political actors, and other institutions.

The emergent 'political criminality' is a cultural phenomena in the way it manifests itself, eg a pub on the seafront of Dover covered with anti Police grafitti, bad newspaper cuttings about the police, and piracy images which are identified as an emblem for smuggling. Also the smuggling village par excellance today is that of Gvelde just over the Belgium border. This frontier town is a tobacco centre replete with piracy images because it represents the first port of call of very cheap tobacco. French tobacco is cheap but the cheapest of all is Belgium, and Gvelde is about a 40 minute drive from Calais and the famous Eastenders alcohol retail warehouse in Calais carries maps showing the exact route to take. This analysis makes it clear that the individualistic and bourgeois nature of law (Pashukanis) that separates each 'offence' from all others in place, time and societal context is perforce a deliberate political pro-capitalist act which seeks to depolitisize the events taking place so that they can be processed by the criminal justice factory. A more honest approach as I hope to describe is a more historical and structural view, that does not excuse any of the behaviour that may have provoked lurid media tales, and at the same time avoiding judgemental and individual blame ascribing. Whilst situating behaviour in a living manner that dialectically relates to changes in the economy and society carried out by different actors.

Taking the left realist square of crime we realise that there is not just policing (policing being a generic term for crime prevention) here, and crime there,

"only a relation between the two - crime and control" (Hall et al, 1978 P. 185)

We must be aware that in just focussing our research on eg smugglers in prison, or smuggling culture on the streets of Dover, Calais and elsewhere, we maybe committing a fundamental error in that we would be separating the 'perceived vanguard' from a wider, more fluid and sophisticated understanding of the different groups that form the class history as a whole. For it is not the only the smugglers who matter, it is the lorry drivers, white van men, off license retailers, market traders, car boot sellers, migrants, travelling salesmen, and most numerous of all the buyers of cheap cigarettes and alcohol.

"The point is easy to illustrate from the social history of nineteenth century London. The criminal 'fraternities' of East London were clearly parts of the wider class ecologies, class cultures and class formations of the London of the period. To reserve them for a special category would be simply to lose any grip on a central aspect of the history of the urban working class and the urban poor of the period. In the historical sense, 'crime' was a well articulated part of the working class cultural repertoire of the period: how some members of the labouring and casual poor 'lived' the contradictory experience and exploitative relationships which characterise class relations as a whole… For the children of those families… it must have been a very thin, often imperceptible, margin indeed between getting what they had to, legally, and scrounging where and however they could; and the margin, for all practical purposes, was not between 'legality' and 'illegality' so much as between survival and sheer destitution" (Hall et al, 1978, P. 188) Emphasis added

Moral Economy definition

What was Thompsons moral economy then, and how did it relate to the food riots? What were its' features and can we identify the same sorts of ideas into modern history? This 'Moral economy' theses is perhaps the most well known formulation of the social crime debate. In particular it speaks of the relationship between the rulers and capitalists, and the people within certain types of crowd.

"The food riot in eighteenth century England was a highly complex form of popular direct action, disciplined and with clear objectives. How far these objectives were achieved - that is, how far the food riot was a "successful" form of action… cannot be done until the crowd's own objectives are identified. It is of course true that riots were triggered off by soaring prices, by malpractices among dealers, or by hunger. But these grievances operated within a popular consensus as to what were legitimate and what were illegitimate practices in marketing, milling, baking, etc. This in turn was grounded upon a consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community, which, taken together, can be said to constitute the moral economy of the poor. An outrage to these moral assumptions, quite as much as actual deprivation, was the usual occasion for direct action.

While this moral economy cannot be described as "political" in any advanced sense, nevertheless it cannot be described as unpolitical either, since it supposed definite, and passionately held, notions of the common weal - notions which, indeed, found some support in the paternalist tradition of the authorities; notions which the people re-echoed so loudly in their turn that the authorities were, in some measure, the prisoners of the people….

It was about the crowd's 'moral economy' in a context which the article defines… my object of analysis was the mentalite, or, as I prefer, the political culture, the expectations, traditions, and, indeed superstitions of the working population most frequently involved in action in the market; and the relations - sometimes negotiations - between crowd and rulers which go under the unsatisfactory term of 'riot'… to understand the 'political' space in which the crowd might act and might negotiate with the authorities… [includes] a larger analysis of the relations between the two. [19]

"Economic class-conflict in nineteenth century England found its characteristic expression in the matter of wages; in eighteenth century England the working people were most quickly inflamed to action by rising prices."[20]

It is precisely the very notions of culture that should have led scholars to trace the historical lineage and modern expression of social relationships like those found in the moral economy theses. The moral economy maybe read as the predecessor of what was known as the social contract during the Fordist era. This is where in exchange for wage labour and full employment the worker was 'guaranteed' certain services, like education for the children, healthcare, unemployment benefit and so on. These deeply felt needs and culture are

"custom… as sui generis - as ambience, mentalite, and as a whole vocabulary of discourse, of legitimation and of expectation… Many customs were endorsed and sometimes enforced by popular pressure… many of the classic struggles at the entry to the industrial revolution turned as much on customs as upon wages or conditions of work… in the eighteenth century custom was the rhetoric of legitimation for almost any usage, practice, or demanded right… Nor should we underestimate the creative culture forming process from below. Not only the obvious things - folk songs, trades clubs and corn dollies - were made from below, but also interpretations of life, satisfactions and ceremonials."[21]

HISTORY

"The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collection of commodities'; the individual commodity appears its elementary form. Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of a commodity" Marx (1976, P. 125)

In order to situate shoplifting properly it is necessary to delve into history, for shops like shoplifters do not appear as if by magic. The retail site is an ever changing feature of society today with its' own personnel and culture, as are the shoplifters. At the same time i have isolated relevant features such as the shoplifters personality, their characteristics, their culture, and situated them in the negotiated world of the shop as they attempt to shoplift. The current high profile literature on globalisation impacts on the goods we buy in shops, and Klein (2000) has firmly fixed peoples attention on brand name goods in our shops. We have to talk about what shoplifting means today and what are the market conditions, what do people want to buy and do they care where it was made under what sort of employment practices? Also when it has been shoplifted how is it distributed? This is not a project or tour de force on shoplifting around the world, but of its role in the global bazaar concentrated in Britain but also in the global cities where the world capitalist control and command insitutions gather (G8, IMF, World bank, World Trade Organisation; in Seattle, Prague, Genoa etc.) Marx in the quotation above realised that it is the commodity that is the distilled essence of capitalist society, for without exchange there is no accumulation. He would also have realised that the concentration on the commodity is an abstraction that isolates and analyses one particular aspect of society in order to make plain its real connections and essence.

The bazaar according to Ruggiero is the descriptive term for the attempt

"made to identify a continuum between irregular, hidden, semi-legal, and overtly illegal economies. This continuum is given the name bazaar, which captures the notion of a constant movement, a form of occupational commuting... between legitimate and illegitimate activity characterising many urban contexts." [22]

"The manifold complexities of interaction involved in shopping produce different kinds and types of shoppers, all of whom can, for example, provide valuable camouflage" [23]

"is the same as for normal shopping: the acquisition of goods at minimum cost." [27]

"as unattractive morally as crime may be, we must appreciate that there is genuine experiential creativity in it as well. We should then be able to see what are, for the subject, the authentic attractions of crime and we should be able to explain variations in criminality beyond what can be accounted for by background factors." [28]

"sensuous human activity, [was] practice" [30]

A lot of debate around shoplifting revolves around whether people are just greedy, or are they genuinely needy. Campbell says

"there is no statistical evidence to suggest that shoplifting is a particularly middle-class activity. And there can be no justification for the assumption that economics is an irrelevant factor. The evidence strongly suggests that lack of money plays a part (see Arboleda-Florez et al., 1977). On the other hand, it would be romantic and inaccurate to paint a Dickensian picture of shoeless orphans stealing loaves of bread. Sixty-six per cent of girls in 1959, for example, stole clothes or cosmetics - luxury items… The issue seems to be not genuine need but greed at all social class levels" [31]

Although Campbell was speaking 20 years ago about clothes and cosmetics not being a case of genuine need, I think she would be arguing you only need food to live. Today the difference is about the quality of life afforded by good food and/or good living. The class differentials in shopping today range from the Italian selection at Harrods at the expensive end, to market leftovers or the cheap supermarkets like Aldi and Netto, and the cheap ranges such as Tesco Value Sausages and Chips at the lower end.

Heroin Chic Women Steal the Brand?

Similarly, the social pressure to conform to supposed ideals on young girls that leads to dietary problems on one hand, also leads to the problem of over consumption by means of the 'five finger shuffle' on the other. Some existing research (Campbell 1981) has shown the high levels of economic pressure reported by delinquent girls that led to their shoplifting in England. Campbell went so far as to announce that it was "consumer fetishism" that led large numbers of working class girls into shoplifting.

Given the widely noted increases in individualism and consumerism in the recent past then this can only have fuelled the level of shoplifting. Of course, in relation to the modern general demand for brand names this has an intensifying effect on the girls pre-existing consumer fetishism and leads to more shoplifting. This also applies to boys who are also increasingly fashion conscious. In shoplifting today like Campbell noted when we consider that the girls

"have by no means escaped the sex- role trap. They may feel freer to break the law of the land but not necessarily the law of the female's position in a consumer society, where women themselves are still a commodity." [32]

"If we stop history at a given point, then there are no classes but simply a multitude of individuals with a multitude of experiences. But if we watch these men [and women] over an adequate period of social change, we observe patterns in their relationships, their ideas, and their institutions. Class is defined by men as they live their own history, and, in the end, this is its only definition." [33]

One of the main aspects of shoplifting is what is called on the street, the 'buzz', 'did you get a buzz'. This for my purposes will be the term used to describe an activity which gives the individual a hit of naturally produced adrenaline, due to their own or/and possibly groups behaviour. This is a painkiller that leaves you with warm and happy feelings. For shoplifters of all types describe this effect and it is a common experience across all sorts of crime. The rituals of the catch, and the celebration of it, is a means of self and class valourization. In brief this means that shoplifters revel in both the act of shoplifting itself and in the cultural celebration as well. This releases positive feedback in many forms and also includes the cultural techniques of neutralisation e.g. denial of victim - 'shops can afford it' and so on.

More of us…

"There is no telling who connive at poaching; the Name of them is legion" F.M. Denwood, Cumbrian Nights, 1932.

Whereas the social crime debate illuminated the criminalisation of the poor, with custom becoming crime under economic liberalism. The new economic transitions or neo-liberalism are creating social and economic conditions similar to the previous period, and now there is a reversal of the transition with crime becoming custom.

The assertion that crime has become custom has not only to do with the first world, for if the processes that Klein writes about are correct then the newly industrialised areas, the export processing zones, appear to be Fordist to the degree that the factories are large. However they appear to be skipping the post war Keynesian social contract that much of Western Europe and the USA had. If that is the case then the peasantry newly displaced from the land with it's own conceptions of revolt (James C. Scott, J. Ditton, Walton & Seddon) may well engage in routine covert insurgency. Of which arson was the most dramatic in the mid 19th century in Britain (Hobsbawm and Rude), although poaching also was widespread and aggressive (Hopkins, Hay et al, 1975) Captain Swing was unfairly classed as a firestarter in the 1830-31 disturbances or riots, but the rural proletariat lived up to its reputation later and "triumphed in this role for 20 years after" (Hobsbawm and Rude) I am a little bit reticent in calling the Swing events riots because like Rule (1979) and Thompson (1991) I see the organised and disciplined nature of the crowd acting and maintaining internal discipline.

If there is no space for the unrespectable to go 'respectable' in the third world through trade union, education, religious and labour movement mediation that accounted for much working class discipline then the self regulating mechanisms favoured by free marketers may well mean that freer and unregulated people may be found. Within the first world the neo liberal economy emerging through decades of high unemployment and soaring crime rates may de facto be said to have shown that 'crime has become custom' for pauperised and semi excluded workers. However, it is well known that there is no mechanistic criminal reaction to unemployment or semi employment, just an alienation that is mediated through many forms. Nor is there any mechanistic way of telling whether crime rates definitely did rise at a certain time because there are tremendous problems with police statistics and other methods of trying to decide the rate of crime.

SHOPLIFTING - Very Generalisable…

Time and again research has shown that shoplifters and shoppers are one and the same. See the incredible 200% rise in offences known to the Police in America from 1973 (349,283) to 1989 (1,059,765) And remember that this is the tip of the iceberg - most shoplifting offences are not detected by the private security, and then again not all cases they detect are passed onto the police. Whilst nobody knows how many people security let go either side of the Atlantic there are similarities in the process, stereotypes and prejudices. Whilst it is acknowledged that because of the private nature of the ownership of stores the

"Police involvement in the detection and apprehension of shoplifters, however, is minimal." [34]

"Police in [the whole of] New York City arrested 3,177 shoplifters in 1963; in 1962 they arrested 3,061… [security] personnel picked up 6,200 pilferers in its two Bronx stores in 1963, against 4,900 in 1962." [35]

"There are approximately 23 million shoplifters (or 1 in 11 people) in our nation today. More than 10 million people have been caught shoplifting in the last five years." [36]

"challenge the view that shoplifting has been increasing dramatically. In fact, the Monitoring the Future data show that there has been virtually no change in shoplifting activity between 1977 and 1988… The pattern for 1977 (30.2% reported shoplifting during the last year) is nearly identical to that reported for 1988 (30.4%). At no time between 1977 and 1988 was there more than a four-point fluctuation in the percentage reporting recent shoplifting activity." [37]

In Britain self report data from interviews with youth point towards not only the 'mass shoplifter' that I identify later in this article, but also the mass criminal. Two extensive surveys, firstly commissioned by the Jewish Association for Business Ethics that spoke to 34,000 pupils from all backgrounds aged 13 to 15 and the second commissioned by the Government's Youth Justice Board spoke to 5,263 children aged 11 to 16. Of the 34,000 children

"45% of them believe law-breaking is acceptable. Under-age drinking, criminal damage and fraudulent use of public transport were among offences regarded as minor… One in 10 boys said there was nothing wrong with shoplifting" [39]

"Theft was also on the increase, with 35% admitting to shoplifting, compared with 31% the year before. The number of children stealing from school rose from 15% to 23%. The survey reported that 49% of children had dodged fares, compared with 44% last year." [40]

"Shoplifting has always been considered to be the female offence par excellence." (emphasis in original) [41]

"the fact that most ordinary people have shoplifted at least once by the time they reach adulthood, a statement that could hardly be made about any other indictable offence." [42]

"the ordinariness of shoplifting - [that] has not been explored as it should… shoplifting - this banal phenomenon - is found in a large proportion of the population and the offenders are mostly quite ordinary people". [43]

"Shoplifting is a multi-million pound industry. Those who do it look - on the whole - just like you and me. They aren't all drug crazed youths (though there are plenty of those). For retailers, the problem has become an enormous burdon… shoplifting is a problem [for the retailers] that just won't go away." [44]

"Delinquency researchers, in particular, have established that most delinquents are involved in a wide variety of delinquent acts and rarely specialise in one type of delinquency. This tends to discourage researchers from focusing on a single type of deviance. As a result, unique insights that apply to particular types of deviance are overlooked." [46]

There are several possible avenues to pursue when looking at how globalisation of capitalism has impinged on shoplifting, the European Economic Community (EEC) and in particular Britain. This also involves changes in the personnel of the shoplifter, the use of the shoplifted goods, the types and site of the goods production, and the retail of the shoplifted goods.

Do shoplifters follow the pronouncements of Naomi Klein in her bestseller "No Logo", and refuse to shoplift the big name brands like Nike and Reebok? Or do shoplifters pursue their trade without regard to the productive process and the inherent barbarity of the "Export Processing Zones"? (Klein, 2000)

Perhaps there are other fruitful avenues to pursue from economic life in the EEC. Whether it's the free movement of goods and people that began in 1992 when the barriers came down, or has the ease of transport and the channel tunnel affected shoplifters notions of suitable places to visit. It is well known that professionals of all illegal trades often like to operate outside their known areas, and this is bound to have had an impact in France.

Since the Calais region has become a famous destination for booze cruises the level of growth of stores and warehouses has been astonishing. Since I have been visiting Calais there has been a noticeable increase in store security. [49] Whether it is the checking of boxes in the Auchen, formerly known as the 'Mammoth' supermarket (a favourite destination of organised bus excursions from London), or the checking and sealing of bags before you enter the Carrefour at the Cite Europe shopping mall, specifically built near the Calais Eurotunnel site. This of course is where the large barbed wire fences now surround the railway to prevent the refugees boarding as the trains slow down.

Polemic

E.P. Thompson described the popular protest of the bread riot, and it's self disciplined peoples' order. The similarities between this and contemporary events are all to clear. Whilst most of the participants are orderly,[50] there was on occasion activity that went beyond the respectable dignity that was used as long as it was effective. There are a variety of other actions for the common good outside of the 'set piece confrontations' of the bread riot. Describing the 'Wiltshire Outrages' of 1802 Randall shows that people responded to the technological innovation brought on by the industrial revolution and economic liberalism (Rule, P. 365) in a sophisticated manner. They targeted the Gig Mills that reduced the amount of labour the shearmen and boys had to do quite dramatically, to one quarter of the previous amount that obviously would have resulted in widespread unemployment.

"the general purpose of the shearman's actions embraced a pre-emptive move against frames as well as a protest against the use of gig mills. As was to be the case in the Luddite districts, protest took 'legitimate' trade union forms and involved petitioning of parliament as well as intimidation and attacks on machinery and other forms of property. The use of threatening letters was an integral part of the deterrent intent of the shearm[51]en."

As part of a political strategy that wanted to show the ultimately reasonable nature of the cause of working people, the Hammonds had an imperative to

"push violence to the periphery of trade union history. They were unable to place a movement like Luddism, in which violence was central, into their conception of the long-term evolution of the labour movement. It had to be explained away by insisting that the persons who broke the machines were apart from the "consitutionalists" who concentrated on seeking a parliamentary redress. At the same time, anxious to deny any revolutionary input into the British Labour movement, they were at pains to stamp on any suggestion that Luddism could have been to a significant degree a manifestation of an underground revolutionary movement." [53]

"Agricultural Trade Unions meet at a public house in this place... The ostensible motive for the union is the mutual relief when the members (or Brothers as they term them) are out of work - but their real intention as I know but cannot legally prove it, is intimidation, and they have agreed as soon as they are strong enough to strike simultaneously throughout the country; if possible in harvest - threats are also uttered among them of setting fire to the corn..." [54]

Rule comments "Randall is right to stress that they were part of the tactics of a well organised, strongly unionised group of skilled workers engaged in a conscious pre-emptive action. Effectively they succeeded in postponing the widespread introduction of the machinery for around twenty years". There have been actions against neo-liberalism and capitalist globalisation around the world (Walton and Seddon, Klein) for over a decade, and there were actions against the decimation of industry in Europe and America for some decades before that. With the demonstrations against the world capitalist control and command institutions over the past few years we can see a similar political outlook being forged and the various actions in different political situations are seen to be part of common strategy.

Anarchic Protest and the British Marxist Historians

"on swill and grains you wish the poor to be fed And underneath the Guillotine we could wish to see your heads For i think it is a great shame to serve the poor so - And i think a few of you heads will make a pretty show"
Anonymous threat made to local food magnates, Malden, 1800. In "Albion's Fatal Tree", P. 338.

In discussing the BMH attitude towards protest and social movements we would do well to consider E.P Thompsons treatment of "Popular Action". For my purposes I am going to talk about actions that have given the current wave of protest its' dynamism. Examples of this new wave of anarchic protesters are the Black Bloc and the Wombles. There are certain late entrants to the anti capitalist movement who say that the Black Bloc isn't involved in struggles to build socialism, "as a substitute for mass mobilization"[55] . In fact this is a new interpretation of the old and reactionary critique aimed at anarchists, 'that anarchists are adventurists', "the anarchist Black Bloc, whose pursuit of violent confrontation with the state… [is] the idea of exemplary action on behalf of the masses" [56] . This is also hypocrisy on behalf of Callinicos who is in an hierarchical organization, the Socialist Workers Party, whose party functions on an elitist leadership imperative. It serves functions for Callinicos as well as being a blatent slander as to the political beliefs and motives of anarchists engaged in the Black Bloc. Function one is to gloss over the reality which is difficult for hierarchical organizations to understand, namely that there exists a number of working class people who think that the way forward entails violent confrontation with the state, and they note

"Without violent confrontation with the forces of the state the working class will never break through the deadly, stultifying condition which enmeshes it today. The class becomes decadent without class violence. Without a willingness to confront and attack physically the state, authority and institutions will continue to flourish." [57]

"Real change can only come about by working class people organizing themselves to deal with the problems that they experience and to provide for ourselves. Direct Action is necessary against the individuals and institutions who stand in the way of this. There is no alternative. Violence is a necessary part of the class war - not as elitist terrorists but as an integrated part of the class". [58] [

Thompsons first characteristic of popular action is that of the anonymous tradition discussed in "Customs in Common"and "Albions Fatal Tree", Chapter 6.

"the anonymous threat... is often found in a society of total clientage and dependency, on the other side of simulated deference. It is exactly in a rural society, where any open, identified resistance to ruling power may result in immediate retaliation - loss of home, employment, tenancy, if not victimization at law - that one tends to find the acts of darkness: the anonymous letter, arson of the stack or outhouse, houghing of cattle, the shot or brick through the window, the gate off its hinges, the orchard felled, the fishpond sluices opened at night. The same man touches his forelock to the squire by day - and who goes down to history as an example of deference - may kill his sheep, snare his peasants or poisen his dogs at night." [59]

The second component of popular action is what Thompson calls the "countertheatre of the poor… the plebs asserted their presence by a theatre of threat and sedition" [60] involving subtle demonstrations, satirical even, of which the meaning was difficult to assertain by the uneducated onlooker, who could not miss the occasions when displays were meant to be menacing. All these features can be found in the recent demonstrations, whether it's the pink block which sometimes acts as a cover for militant activity or the use of the huge skirt which covered drilling equipment on the M40 during the Reclaim the Streets action in 1997. The Reclaim the Streets tactics have rapidly been globalised and have being responsible for J18 have been part of Peoples Global Action from its beginnings. Thompsons' third component is the crowds "capacity for swift direct action… its own art of the possible. Its successes must be immediate, or not at all." [61] This can be seen on the RTS influenced J18 'stop the city' action where the crowd seized the opportunities it had, amongst them was the raid on the Liffe building (Futures stock market).

There are many things to be said for the emerging 'summit hopping' tradition that dates back in Britain to the G8 in Birmingham in May 1998. When talking to participants from Seattle in '99, Prague '00, Genoa '01 and the Peoples Global Action forum in Milan in 2001 the media seems overly concerned with the class composition of the protesters rather than the protesters themselves. Perhaps this dates back to the riots in 1981 where the Daily Mail 'found' 2 people who toured the country instigating and paying for the spread of rioting around the country? The media have to explain away protest in a reactionary manner, unless they approve of it like the applause for the Countryside Alliance. There has been right wing criticism of left wing and anarchist activity since the 1980's when police waved £10 notes at striking miners. It took other forms like the well known refrain "Get a job", or abuse from newspapers like the Daily Star calling travellers "Scum", telling them to get a job and a bath, and other assorted nonsense.

For people in the Globalised Social Movement (GSM) these accusations are totally untrue as many of them have jobs, even though many are also students often they have to supplement their loans with employment as well. For a militant section of the GSM however they make the most of the money they do have by substituting free goods and services and put the money saved towards political work. Like the well known use and abuse of public transport and facilities (service stations) by football hooligans but different in significant ways ie rather than the proceeds and enjoyment camaraderie creates being aimed at supporting their team or purely for individualistic purposes the activity is seen as having communistic and anarchistic purposes supporting the collectivity via shared goods and recollections. This can be described as substituting a loss of money that creates capitalist profit for free goods for use value. Often this means toiletries, transport, clothes and food are "liberated" [to use a term from my informants] and then turned into goods and services useful for 'communism' &/or 'anarchism'.

Taking this further my research revealed a conscious design by participants. They knew they were globalised shoplifters on tour, from Milan to Prague and beyond. Perhaps this is an embodiment of the globalised multitude Negri and Hardt (2001) mention, an oppositional globalisation against the globalised corporate world described by Naomi Klein (2000) The new shopping malls described by Klein selling the brands made by deregulated productions chains can be found in many cities, and if you can shoplift in the belly of the beast (London, J18, '99, Frankfurt International Airport, and more) you can shoplift anywhere for the skills are transferable. The technology used to protect goods in the shops of the global city is some of the leading examples of its type, however once it is removed from the item (whether it damages it or not) there is nothing to prevent the shoplifters imitating the routine shopping behaviour of placing goods in a bag and leaving the store.

Other techniques that can be described as 'hand' and 'disguise' skills are also transferable to global cities around the world. 'Hand' skills can refer to the placing of goods up sleeves, in pockets, in hats, in such a way that the process uses shop fixtures or the shoplifters body itself, or an accomplice to prevent it being witnessed by cameras, store personnel or other shoppers who maybe plain clothes store detectives. Of course this process doesn't apply to hidden cameras but a large part of the cameras and store detective function is to deter people from shoplifting by disciplining their hopes and dreams, rather than to catch the skilled shoplifters who are not deterred by security staff or technology. This is not to say that the GSM is composed totally of skilled shoplifters, of course the real range is from the non-shoplifters to the professional shoplifter as I've tried to indicate. It is impossible to come to definitive positions about the quantity of the relative category's personnel as for a myriad of reasons it is impossible to tell the strength of the GSM anyway. All I can do is describe the way the GSM manifests itself from participation and observation.

'Disguise' skills refers to the ways shoplifters massage the way the viewer interprets what the shoplifter is doing, and so masks the criminality (according to a legalistic perspective) of what they are doing. This can range from simply not overtly challenging capitalist money-exchange relations by buying something at the same time as shoplifting, so there is a legitimate reason to be at the scene of the 'crime'. To assuming the role of the shopper by creating doubt in the mind of anybody watching eg by being pleasant to shopworkers. For if shoplifters merely picked up goods and blatantly walked out of the store each time the prisons would be more full than they are today as this would be obvious for the store detectives, although sometimes confident people smartly dressed can carry out this blatant type of shoplifting successfully.

Good 2 B Bad

"I shoplifted the "Fortune" world top 500 companies. I did this by stealing a copy of Fortune that had the special supplement in it about the world top 500 companies, so I've not actually taken anything from all the top 500 companies, yet…. [laughing] They'll never stop us all." [62]

Shoplifters come in many varieties and a totally comprehensive typology of shoplifters would either be too simplistic so that you could confidently fit every possible person into the categories. For example, the professionals who would swop the price labels on expensive bottles of wine to a cheaper price before the introduction of 'swipe technology' made this impossible in some stores, although some stores still in the pre-information technology age still use sticky labels although they are increasingly hard to find. Or a sophisticated typology may fall foul of the law of the 'black swan' [something beyond the bounds of reasoning and that is totally unexpected] - because you can't possibly know about ALL shoplifters as they do not own up publicly and you cannot hope to meet all varieties of shoplifters using other methods anyway.

"The problem may stem from the paradox involved in the very 'ordinariness' of shoplifting. It is such a common offence and it is committed by so many people that no specific characteristic or pattern arises to make a typology of an all-encompassing classification of the offenders." [63]

Given the difficulties and the widespread acknowledgement that nobody actually knows the extent nor seriousness of the losses to shoplifting, and neither is there any serious research about the widespread nature of the crime and shoplifters themselves. Then we are faced with the idea of the mass shoplifter whose disguise is that of everyday language and clothes, who escapes sociological classification due to their very abundance.

Counterfeit the Shoplifted

Hopefully I've provided some insight into patterns of behaviour and strategies, the social context, and sometimes the person's thinking and explanations for shoplifting behaviour. This is also justified by my estimation that there is not one estate or housing scheme in Britain that does not have its shoplifters.

At the same time I am aware that some of my material is from America, although this can be justified by the fact that it is the worlds most advanced consumer society and has a globalised economy. In part this was also forced upon me by the dearth of British shoplifting material. One example of this is the report by Lord Grabiner [64] that can talk about the informal economy without mentioning shoplifting at all. Apparently shoplifting doesn't exist (!) in the Governments view of the informal economy that is solely concerned with saving money via benefit fraud reduction.

In the real world the bazaar economy straddles the legitimate and illegitimate. For the socially included, excluded and those in between, the informal economic continuum includes shoplifting.

"Stolen goods are a major component of the ghetto economy. Subjects who engaged in shoplifting or other forms of theft seldom sold the goods they stole to professional fences. Most often, they sold the goods to other neighborhood residents directly." [65]

"Shoplifting is often a major component of the larger street culture of drugs, prostitution, and crime" [66]

However, the poor and other illicit entrepreneurs are promoting more communistic social relationships outside and against the imposition of capitalist and companies' laws or control. So the helplessness described in the philanthropic tradition and paraphrased as the 'sociology of misery' has been avoided and the analysis points towards self and community help as a means of individual and class valourization in a conception of the active amoral poor and not the

"virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them." [67] (Emphasis added).

As Negri and Hardt in their counterblast to the existing liberalism within the anti globalisation movement mention the

"perpetual movement of the Wobblies [International Workers of the World, IWW] was indeed an immanent pilgrimage, creating a new society in the shell of the old, without establishing fixed and stable structures of rule." [68] (emphasis added)

The Cultural Protest Theory Legacy of the BMH

I have described certain processes as being dependent upon the culture of the people involved, and this is best described as being present within peoples' lives due to their possession of attitudes that gives culture a forward looking dynamic. Thompson notes that people need an attitude to get them through their daily economic routine without conflict, getting up, to work and being at work and so on. Outside the vision of our fat controllers people may do other things, and then again when people gather together for political protest other things become possible. Scott (1990) calls these different discursive fields the "public transcript" and the "hidden transcript". Thompson when he talks about 'mentalite', 'expectations' and 'traditions' of people opens up notions of possibilities engendered by peoples self belief in their common needs, and capabilities to enforce these needs. Thompson cautions us to listen when he warns that custom in its' codified and uncodified [the Book of Orders] forms was not solely a popular culture of resistance

"a system of shared meanings, attitudes and values, and the symbolic forms (performances, artefacts) in which they are embodied [in fact it is] a field of change and contest, an arena in which opposing interests made conflicting claims. This is one reason one must be cautious as to generalisations as to 'popular culture' [which is not only] a system of shared meanings, attitudes and values [it is] also a pool of diverse resources, in which traffic passes between the literate and the oral, the superordinate and subordinate, the village and the metropolis, it is an arena of conflictual elements, which requires some compelling pressure - as, for example, nationalism or prevalent religious orthodoxy or class consciousness - to take form as 'system'… the very term 'culture', with its cosy invocation of consensus, may serve to distract attention from social and cultural contradictions, from the fractures and oppositions within the whole." [69]

There is also a grave danger in many objective readings of history being a vehicle for forwarding a simplistic cause/effect relationship, or in presenting and judging working class activities as defensive activities that have no continuity or connection beyond the location and time in which these acts took place in. Like the propagandists of economic liberalism who portrayed the peoples bread riots as having backward ideas, we should not either read into their behaviour and ascribe to them 'custom as a merely defensive strategy' interpretation. As this would ignore the ingenuity of much that took place and any hopes and acts of 'Levelling'. It would also be a mistake in that the defensive logic would separate each event in place and time and personnel by playing down the importance of general actions and the threat of violence. It was this threat in a set of social relationships that allowed the mob a little avenue of action, and persuade the farmers & rulers to bring a little justice to the price. There were communities who did indeed exhibit a hightened defensive approach in particular areas, just as there were communities, mainly mining, that had the opposite approach and were aggressive in their action especially when attacked. Thompson says

"this has the advantage of discarding the notion that 'moral economy' must always be traditional, 'backward looking', etc; on the contrary, it is continuously regenerating itself as anti-capitalist critique, as a resistance movement." (Emphasis added) [70]

This in turn was the basis for the culture of the poor. These struggles and any new ones that came up in the local area, for example, against , always involve elements of continuity as well as discord with the recent and distant past.

The logic of the defensive strategy approach would separate culture from the people by imagining we can stop the social transmission of ideas. Whereas the weakness of the attacking strategy approach would discount the amount of times when people were prepared to settle for what they could get through paternalism, and also the experience of defeat by the poor that is sure to come in struggles. For perceived defeat (it is never an absolute) alters perceptions and lowers the threshold of what people are prepared to do in struggle, the self sacrificial calculation that people make in the face of heightened confidence on the part of the rulers that likewise alters their threshold of what they are prepared to give to maintain peace.

In relation to the new social movements it's clear that they feel unburdened by 'defeat' and are proactively creating the new world in opposition to the old capitalist one. The movement as a whole using respectable and unrespectable methods to get 'success' and build, involving sometimes aggressive campaigning methods and passive ones, utilising more defensive postures whilst pointing towards the black bloc and exclaiming that 'you can't negotiate with them'.

Thompson in other work such as "Albions Fatal tree" (1975), "The Moral Economy of the English crowd in the Eighteenth century" (1971), and "Customs in Common" (1991) implied that class was a non-reductive category, consciousness and experience could not be assumed. Class therefore is something you constantly do, a proactive category, rather than something that is done to you, a mechanistic and inactive interpretation; and both always within the bounds of globalised and class structured world economy. It is easy to see how the reflective theory, ie that the economy determines, could gain credence, however we know now that it's a bit more complicated than that. So while this experience of conflict and mass conflict appears to be economically determined, the immediate experience of struggle is a cultural phenomena and as Marx wrote in the first "Theses on Fuerbach"

"The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism… is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively… he does not conceive of human activity itself as objective activity." [71]

"the theme of custom as it was expressed within the culture of working people in the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. It is my ['Moral Economy'] thesis that customary consciousness and customary usages were especially robust in the eighteenth century: indeed some 'customs' were of recent invention, and were in truth claims to new 'rights'." [72]

Additional Notes on Globalisation

When Thompson was writing he was thinking about a straightforward progression of capitalism within England only, although there was always a globalised economy of sorts. Later capitalist and Marxist development have been able to locate the economic changes that have influenced the events Thompson et al talked about until today. What were the factors within capitalist development that led to the struggles Thompson described?

Walton and Seddon (1987, 1994) analyse the similarities and differences in the moral economy food riot around the world from the classical variety popularised by Thompson to todays provoked by economic adjustment programmes forced on certain countries by the economic command financial institutions of world capitalism. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and so on.

Thompsons moral economy was built on the struggles around the emerging liberal economy and away from the paternalistic feudal system. The older paternalist idea was meant to provide the staple diet at a low enough price for the poor, however this was systematically

"undermined by new national policies aimed at greater efficiency and market regulation. Spanning a century and more, the policies included such varied activities as enclosure, land concentration, capital intensification of farming, proletarianization, grain export, taxes, tariffs, and other governmental efforts to regulate the food supply." [73]

"a direct response to state reforms that eliminated interventionary protections for customers." [74]

"signals a new phase in the development of the global state system… modern food riots in the developing nations are generated by processes analogous to economic liberalisation policies that produced classical food riots, but today's transformation is taking place at the international level. Neo-liberalism simultaneously affects all Third World countries in much the same fashion as laissez-faire policies within nations once affected particular towns and regions… changes result from a closer integration of the global economy with the international state system coordinating the reorganisation through agencies like the IMF… so the food riots recurs when its structural causes recombine in history" [76]

"The economy of the poor was still local and regional, derivative from a subsistence economy… Thus one function of [the classical bread riot] was to moderate the appetite for profit unleashed by the developing "free market", and Arnold relates its assertiveness to the transitional moment between locally based markets and an emergent national grain market." [77]

Notes

1 J. Ditton, "Perks, Pilferage and the Fiddle: The Historical Structure of Invisible Wages", Theory and Society, 1977, No. 4.
2 Harry Hopkins, "The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars in Britain 1760-1914", London:Papermac,1986, P. 201.
3 Douglas Hay, "Poaching and the game Laws on Cannock Chase", in D. Hay et al, "Albions Fatal Tree", London:Penguin, 1975, P. 189.
4 Douglas Hay, "Poaching and the game Laws on Cannock Chase", in D. Hay et al, "Albions Fatal Tree", London:Penguin, 1975, P. 191
5 P. Linebaugh, "The London Hanged", London:Penguin, 1991.
6 Georg Vobruba, "Income Mixes: Work and Income Beyond Full Employment", Crime Law and Social Change, no. 29, 1998.
7 Peter Whitaker, "The Apples Fermented Inside the Lamented", The Field, July 1994.
8 Peter Linebaugh, "The London Hanged", London:Penguin, 1991, P. 65.
9 Ibid, P. 116.
10 William Lazonick, "Karl Marx and Enclosures in England", P. 4,5.
11 Ibid, P. 3.
12 Ibid, P. 5,7.
13 D. Hay and N. Rogers, "Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords", 1997, OUP, 1997, P. 86,87.
14 Paul Mantoux, "The Industrial Revolution in the Eigtheenth Century", London:University paperbacks (Methuen & Co.) 1961.
15 Lazonick, Op cit, P. 19
16 Lazonick, Op Cit, P. 23, 24
17 D. Hay and N. Rogers, "Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords", 1997, OUP, 1997, P. 99
18 J. Lea, "Social Crime Revisited", Theoretical Criminology, 1999.
19 E.P. Thompson,"Customs in Common", Merlin, 1991, P.188,260,261.
20 Ibid. P. 189.
21 Ibid. P. 2,3,4,5,6
22 V. Ruggiero, "Crime and Markets: Essays in anti-criminology", Oxford: OUP, 2000.
23 D. P. Walsh, "Shoplifting", MacMillan, 1978, P. 21.
24 V. Ruggiero. 2000. op. cit.
25 Naomi Klein. "No Logo". Flamingo. 2000.
26 V. Ruggiero. 2000 . op. cit.
27 "Deterrent and Definitional Influences on Shoplifting". R.E. Kraut Social Problems. 25 (Feb) 1986, P. 365, in L.W. Klemke, "The Sociology of Shoplifting: Boosters and Snitches today", Westport: Praeger, 1992.
28 "Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil". J. Katz. Basic Books. 1988.
29 Routinely negative publicity is given to poor and dangerous counterfeits, but the powerful don't publisize the well made and safe ones eg. Jo Dillion, "War Declared on £8bn Counterfeit Goods Trade", The Independent on Sunday, 8.7.01. James Meikle. "Sellers of faked goods 'no Del Boys'". Manchester: Guardian. 16.5.00. This applies to the current publicity concentrating on the supposed criminal records and criminal organisation of tobacco smugglers.
30 F.L. Bender. "Karl Marx: The Essential Writings". New York: Harper & Row. 1972.
31 "Girl Delinquents", A. Campbell, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981. P. 103.
32 A.Campbell, "Girl Delinquents", Oxford: Blackwell, 1981, P. 94.
33 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class", Middlesex:Pelican, 1979.
34 "Customers and Thieves: an Ethnography of Shoplifting". D.J.I. Murphy. Gower. 1986.
35 "Shoplifting: A Social History" P.58. K. Segrave. McFarland & Co. inc.. 2001
36 http://www.shopliftersalternative.org/facts.html Accessed 18/5/01.
37 "The Sociology of Shoplifting: Boosters & Snitches Today". L.W.Klemke. Praeger. 1992.
38 "Customers and Thieves: an Ethnography of Shoplifting". D.J.I. Murphy. Gower. 1986.
39 Sarah Cassidy. "Two in Five Children See Nothing Wrong in Flouting Law on Drinking". Independent. 21.3.01.
40 Ian Burrell. "One in 5 Children Admits Breaking the Law". Independent. 30.3.01.
41 A. Campbell, "Girl Delinquents", Oxford: Blackwell,1981, P. 93.
42 Ibid, P. 99.
43 J. Sohier, "A Rather Ordinary Crime: Shoplifting", International Criminal Police Review, No. 24, 1969, P. 162,168.
44 Alan Smith. "Alan Smith - The Chief Executive of Somerfield Responds to an Article by Terence Blacker, in which he described his Treatment at the Hands of over-zealous store detectives." Independent. 18.8.00.
45 Klemke. 1992. op. cit.
46 Ibid
47 "London Labour and the London Poor". H. Mayhew. Vol. 4. Dover. 1968.
48 Richard and Judy, "The truth about that shoplifting charge", Daily Mail, 23.7.02, pages 1, 28 - 30.
49 Whether this is due to the general increased private security trends in society or due to the shoplifters themselves, or a mixture of both, is impossible to pronounce on the available evidence.
50 John Rule "The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England, 1750-1850",
51 Ibid P. 364.
52 New Left Review, April/May 2002
53 John Rule, Op cit, P. 369-370)
54 Ibid P. 362.
55 Alex Callinicos "International Socialism", 92, Autumn 2001, P. 57
56 Ibid P. 34
57 Ian Bone, "Anarchist!".
58 Class War, No 83, Summer 2002, P. 13.
59 E. P. Thompson, "Customs in Common".
60 E.P. Thompson, 1991, P. 67.
61 Ibid. P. 69.
62 Shoplifting interview with the Black Hand.
63 Arboleda-Florez, J, Durie, H & Costello, J. "Shoplifting - An Ordinary Crime?", International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol 21, No. 3.
64 "The Informal Economy: A Report by lord Grabiner QC", London: HM Treasury, March 2000.
65 "Taking Care of Business: The Economics of Crime by Heroin Abusers." B.D. Johnson. Lexington Books. 1985. P. 118.
66 Klemke. 1992. op. cit. P. 103.
67 Oscar Wilde. "The Soul of Man Under Socialism".
68 Hardt, M & Negri, A,"Empire", Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000. P. 207.
69 E.P. Thompson, "Customs in Common", Penguin, 1991.
70 Ibid, P. 341.
71 "Karl Marx: the Essential Writings". Edited by F.L. Bender, London: Harper Torchbooks, 1972.
72 E.P. Thompson, "Customs in Common", Merlin, 1991, P.1.
73 J. Walton & D. Seddon, "Free markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment", London:Blackwell, 1994. P. 34.
74 Ibid P. 34.
75 Ibid . P. 39.
76 Ibid . P. 24,50,53.
77 E.P. Thompson, "Customs in Common", Merlin Press, 1991.

Bibliography

V. Ruggiero, "Crime and Markets: Essays in anti-criminology", Oxford: OUP, 2000.
D. P. Walsh, "Shoplifting", MacMillan, 1978
A. Campbell, "Girl Delinquents", Oxford: Blackwell,1981
J. Lea, "Social Crime Revisited", Theoretical Criminology, 1999
J. Katz. "Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil". Basic Books. 1988.
J. Sohier, "A Rather Ordinary Crime: Shoplifting", International Criminal Police Review, No. 24, 1969,
H. Mayhew. "London Labour and the London Poor". Vol. 4. Dover. 1968.
"International Socialism", 92, Autumn 2001
J. Walton & D. Seddon, "Free markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment", London:Blackwell, 1994 E.P. Thompson, "Customs in Common", Merlin Press, 1991.
E.P. Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class", Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
Stuart Hall, C. Cricher, Tony Jefferson, J. Clarke, B. Roberts. "Policing the Crises: Mugging, the State and Law and Order" London: MACMILLAN, 1978.
Eric Hobsbawm, "Bandits", London:Abacus, 2001
John Walton, "Urban Protest and the global political economy", in M.P. Smith and J.R. Feagin (eds) "The Capitalist City", London: Blackwell, 1987. Class War, No 83, Summer 2002. London: Class War.
Ian Bone, "Anarchist!". Published by London Class War, P.O. Box 467, London, E8 3QX. 2000.
Georg Vobruba, "Income Mixes: Work and Income Beyond Full Employment", Crime Law and Social Change, no. 29, 1998.
Oscar Wilde. "The Soul of Man Under Socialism".
Hardt, M & Negri, A, "Empire", Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Peter Whitaker, "The Apples Fermented Inside the Lamented", The Field, July 1994.
Peter Linebaugh, "The London Hanged", London:Penguin, 1991.
K. Segrave. "Shoplifting: A Social History", McFarland & Co. inc.. 2001
L.W.Klemke. "The Sociology of Shoplifting: Boosters & Snitches Today". Praeger. 1992.
D.J.I. Murphy. "Customers and Thieves: an Ethnography of Shoplifting". Gower. 1986.
D. Hay and N. Rogers, "Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords", 1997, OUP, 1997.
"Karl Marx: the Essential Writings". Edited by F.L. Bender, London: Harper Torchbooks, 1972.
John Rule, "The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England 1750-1850",
John Rule, "Social Crime in the rural south in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century", Southern History, 1979, Vol 1.
Georg Vobruba, "Income mixes: Work and income beyond full employment", Crime Law and social change, 1998, no. 29.
William Lazonick, "Karl Marx and Enclosures in England"
Werner Bonefeld, "The Permanence of Primitive Accumulation: Commodity Fetishism and Social Constitution", www.thecommoner.org accessed May 2002, article dated September 2001.
James C. Scott, "Domination and the Arts of Resistance", London: Yale University Press, 1990.
James C. Scott, "Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance", New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Arboleda-Florez, J, Durie, H & Costello, J. "Shoplifting - An Ordinary Crime?", International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol 21, No. 3.
"The Informal Economy: A Report by lord Grabiner QC", London: HM Treasury, March 2000.
B.D. Johnson. "Taking Care of Business: The Economics of Crime by Heroin Abusers." Lexington Books. 1985
Hardt, M & Negri, A, "Empire", Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.
D. Hay et al, "Albions Fatal Tree", London:Penguin, 1975,
E.P. Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class", Middlesex:Pelican, 1979.
Harry Hopkins, "The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars in Britain", Papermac, 1985.
Paul Mantoux, "The Industrial Revolution in the Eigtheenth Century", London:University paperbacks (Methuen & Co.) 1961.

Back to Class Against Class