Page:Essays on the Social Problem.pdf/17

 Let us inquire for a few minutes what is the cause of crime. Most crimes at the present time, that is most all acts classed as criminal, are violations of what is termed property rights. Most of the remainder are the outgrowth of jealousy, which in turn is due to legal marriage, and superstitious beliefs in regard to sex matters. Children are badly born because their parents have not had opportunities to develop what was in them, nor to gain the requisite knowledge to become the parents of healthy and intelligent children. Then, too, heredity is not the only factor to be considered. All persons act as their surroundings impel them to. When opportunities are restricted and persons find it difficult to provide the necessities and comforts of life, they have but little time to cultivate the artistic, to foster fraternity, and to enjoy the society of their fellows. All this has a degrading and stultifying effect upon the people. All around they see others, human beings like themselves, who have not only the comforts they crave for and are denied, but also such luxuries as they have never dared to dream of possessing. Is it any wonder that so many say to themselves: "It doesn't matter how you get it, the only thing to live for is to get money!"

Nothing can be plainer than that the present economic system, the outgrowth of monopoly, which in turn depends on the State for existence is the chief, if not the only, breeder of crime.. Having driven persons to the commission of crime the State immediately becomes a still greater criminal by punishing its victims for doing that which it has forced them to do. The State denies equality of opportunity, fosters privileged classes, creates monopolies, and commits innumerable crimes against individuals; forces them into crimes and vices of all kinds, and then builds jails, prisons, and erects gallows and electric chairs in order, so it is said, to suppress the very crimes and vices of which it is the direct cause.

With all these facts in view it is the height of absurdity to pretend to fear freedom, lest crime should go unpunished and increase beyond human endurance.

In the above article I showed that the State was the chief cause of crime, and that it was the greatest of all criminals, hence its abolition meant the cessation of nearly all crime.

Now, in the event that crime is committed, after the State has ceased to exist, what is to be done about it? That is the question that seems to bother a large number of persons. At least they will ask that question and look troubled. I will endeavor to point out what crimes might occur, and what would be done about it.

In the first place, the incentive to crime will be reduced to the minimum, and we can reasonably expect that crime would be of rare occurrence. Most crimes today are crimes against property. The reason for that is plain enough. The resources of the earth are monopolized. This prevents the majority from using natural opportunities, thus forcing them to work for wages, or not at all, if no one who owns these opportunities cares to hire them. This immediately creates a distinction between different individuals, creating enmity, jealousy, envy, hatred and all forms of discord. Not only that, but it makes the struggle for existence so fierce amongst the propertyless, or poor, that they are forced to resort to various "questionable means" in order to provide themselves with the means of subsistence, or a few of life's comforts. That easily leads to the commission of "crime against property." Then, too, others are driven to the commission of "crimes against property," by hunger, or the sight of suffering.

Some crimes are the outgrowth of envy, jealousy and hatred, we are told, and I admit it. But it is easy enough to see that all these are the direct outgrowth of the distinctions that grow out of privileges granted by the State. Once these evil frames of mind are engendered, and the conditions that produce them continue, they grow upon themselves, destroy the ability of those possessing them to view