Socialism, crime, Dostoyevsky, and the more things change

The root causes of crime have been debated for centuries. A classic example phenomena comes from renowned author and thinker, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose words written over 150 years ago ring as true today as perhaps ever before. 

“Crime is an abstract term that means nothing in a lot of ways,” explained a young progressive named Sky last year in Park Slope, Brooklyn after a homeless man repeatedly terrorized women in a local park. “The construct of crime has been so socially constructed to target black and poor people,” she continued.  Sky is not alone.  The idea that crime is not actually crime or is the product of something other than an individual committing an illegal act has permeated most of the far left in recent years.  In March 2022, Psychology Today attempted to answer the question, “What Are the ‘Causes’ of Crime?”  They began by noting, “The perennial search continues to identify causes of criminal behavior. Nearly everything but the federal deficit has been identified as playing a causal role. The term ‘root cause’ is still used to describe what are considered critical environmental factors. The earliest citation of a link between poverty (long considered a ‘root cause’) and crime has been attributed to Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.) who stated, ‘Poverty is the mother of crime.’ In some quarters, crime is even considered to be a normal and adaptive response to economic disadvantage.”  In December of the same year, The New York Times published a guest essay by Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, an African American Studies professor at Yale, who assailed the traditional tough on crime approach.  “There is a prevailing narrative about crime that positions bad people as the problem and toughness — in the form of police and prisons — as the solution. It’s emotionally powerful, enough to make politicians allocate money for more cops and more prisons in order to avoid being labeled weak or, worse, pro-crime. The recent decision by Mayor Eric Adams of New York to get more homeless mentally ill people involuntarily committed — which shocked even the N.Y.P.D. — is just the latest example.  But policies like this have little, if any, effect on violent crime, in part because they do not address what causes the problem.”  Setting aside the empirical reality that crime rates plummeted to decade lows after the tough on crime approach was enacted locally and nationally in the 1990s, he continued, “If you want policies that actually work, you have to change the political conversation from ‘tough candidates punishing bad people’ to ‘strong communities keeping everyone safe’” which roughly translates into improved mental health, subsidies for poor people, and other recommendations generally associated with the “defund the police movement.”  Defunding the police, of course, is a product of the far left, and the far left is well known to have more than a flirtatious relationship with outright socialism.  Therefore, it should not be surprising that much of this argument has been recycled since the dawn of the movement in the mid-1800s.

A classic example phenomena comes from renowned author and thinker, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose words written over 150 years ago ring as true today as perhaps ever before.  Dostoyevsky was something of a political cipher in his era.  Somewhat radical in his youth, he was jailed, faced the death penalty, and was ultimately exiled to Siberia for over five years for the crime of criticizing the Russian Tsar.  At the same time, he was innately cynical about the nature of human affairs and questioned most of our political and social systems, believing primarily in the power of faith and religion to transcend human concerns.  As a result, Dostoyevsky was skeptical of the “republican” governments sweeping across Europe after the founding of the United States.  In 1849, he claimed “As far as I am concerned, nothing was ever more ridiculous than the idea of a republican government in Russia,” even as he remained deeply concerned about the plight of the serfs and the permanent underclass they represented.  He believed, however, that a constitution would have a negative rather than positive effect on those he cared for, claiming it was a “gentleman’s rule” that will “simply enslave the people.”  It seemed that no human system was much to his liking, neither democracy nor oligarchy, when he described the situation in France in scathing terms, “the oligarchs are only concerned with the interest of the wealthy; the democrats, only with the interest of the poor; but the interests of society, the interest of all and the future of France as a whole — no one there bothers about these things.”  If anything, most of his beliefs can be characterized as moderate positions, combining a little of at times contradictory philosophies and world views.  He did not believe in atheistic socialism and he believed in conserving institutions he thought were valuable while urging the elimination of draconian systems like serfdom.  He was moderately free market and largely pacifist, rejecting violence to achieve political goals, but throughout his writing one finds support for various principles from almost all points of view along with an abiding belief in the redeeming power of individual faith.  To some extent, he sympathized with all sides and faces of the human condition, which should not be surprising for an author that viewed all aspects of our condition was subject matter to be explored, combining an astute understanding of human nature, precise, intricate plotting, and a wealth of detail with complex philosophical undertones and an exploration of what motivates us as human beings, from our capacity for logic and reflection to the uncontrollable, inexplicable passions that move us.

The novel Crime and Punishment is widely seen as one of his timeless masterpieces and remains an immortal exploration of criminality and morality after the main character, Raskolnikov, commits a brutal murder simply because he feels he can get away with it, believing he is above both the law and morality, only to be haunted by his own demons and pursued by the police in the aftermath.  The events take place in the mid-1860s, when radicalism was on the rise among the young and disaffected, presenting St. Petersburg as a bubbling cauldron of competing factions and classes, potentially rising to a boil that could burn the entire Russian system, literally and figuratively considering events take place in the oppressive heat of summer. In that sense, it is not surprising that Dostoyevsky considered competing ideas for the root causes of crime head on, using character and dialogue to discuss various theories on the subject.  One such scene begins as a drunken argument that the reader is not privy to at the time, but which spills over into the events of the next day.  Raskolnikov and his friend Razumikhin are in the apartment of a police investigator, Porfiry, who is Rasumikhin’s cousin and is suspicious of Raskolnikov himself.  The argument at the party comes up in the course of the conversation, and Razumikhin asks Porfiry who ultimately won.  “Well, it was interesting?  I mean, I left you just when it was starting to get interesting, didn’t I?  Who came out on top?”  Porfiry replies, “Oh, no one, of course, they alighted on the eternal questions, but went up on a gust of hot air.”  Razumihkin then turns to Raskolnikov, also known as Rodya.  “Would you believe it, Rodya?  Last night they got onto the question of whether there’s such a thing as a crime or not!  I told you they were talking a devil lot of nonsense!”  “What’s so extraordinary about it?”  Raskolnikov asks in response.  “It’s a social problem you hear discussed all the time.”  Porfiry interjects, “Not in the terms in which they were formulating it,” prompting Razumikhin to relate the argument in more detail.  “I say, Rodion: listen and give me your opinion,” he begins.  “I want to hear it.  I nearly burst a blood vessel arguing with them last night before you arrived…What parked it off was when we started talking about the view of the socialists.  It’s a view that is well known: crime is a protest against the craziness of the social system – and that’s all there is to it, no more than that, and no other reasons conceded – so it doesn’t matter!?”  Most authors likely would have left it there, but Dostoyevsky was not one to leave anything uncovered in depth; from freewill to the nature of God, he was unafraid to explore the underlying premises and likely outcome of any thought.  Razumikhin continues in what is described as a “fervour,” incredulous that the socialists have books on this topic and “they put it all down to being “a prey to one’s surroundings’ – and that’s it!  It’s their favourite expression!  From that it follows directly that if only society were to be organized sanely, crime would simply disappear. As there would be nothing to protest about and everyone would become virtuous, just like that.”

Razumikhin himself finds this assertion preposterous, clearly the world doesn’t work that way, and he attempts to identify what is missing from the socialist view, broadening the discussion from crime to human history itself.  “Nature isn’t taken into consideration, nature is banished, nature is not supposed to exist.  The way they see it, it’s not mankind which, moving along a historical, living path of development will finally transmute itself to a sane society, but rather a social system which, having emanated from some mathematical head, will at once reorganize the whole of mankind in a single instant make it virtuous and free from sin, more speedily than any living process, bypassing any historical or living path.” Razumikhin continues to explain why this cannot be and ultimately delivers a stirring description of what it means to be human, to have freewill, to make mistakes.  “That’s why they have such distaste for the living process of life: they don’t want the living soul!  The living soul demands to live, the living soul isn’t obedient to the laws of mechanics, the living soul is suspicious, the living soul is reactionary!  No, what they prefer are souls which can be made out of rubber, even if they have a smell of corpse flesh – but at any rate they’re not alive, they have no will of their own, they’re servile, won’t rebel!  And as a result they’ve reduced everything to brickwork and the disposition of the rooms and corridors inside a phalanstery [utopian community]!  Their phalansteries may be ready, but the human nature that would fit them is not yet ready, it wants to live, it hasn’t yet completed the vital process, it’s not ready for the burial ground!”   Razumikhin proceeds to denigrate this purely rational view of the world, rejecting the idea that humanity can be reduced to mere metrics and suggesting that there is a more primal urge underneath that supersedes rationality itself.  “It’s impossible to leap over nature solely by means of logic!  Logic may produce three eventualities, but there are a million of them!  Snip off the entire million and reduce everything to the question of comfort – that’s a very easy solution to the problem!  Temptingly obvious, and one needn’t even have to think about it!  That’s the main thing – that one shouldn’t need to think!  The whole of life’s mystery can be accommodated within two printer’s sheets!”  Once again, another author might have left it there, but Dostoyevsky embraced ambiguity and complexity if nothing else.  Porfiry prods Razumukhin on, noting “No, cousin, you’re wrong: ‘one’s surroundings’ have a great deal to do with crime, I assure you.”  Razumukhin replies with a classic contradiction, “Oh, you don’t need to tell me that, but look – tell me this, a man of forty rapes a girl of ten: is it his surroundings that have compelled him to it?”

Given the nature of the scene and the characters involved, it is somewhat unclear how much of this Razmukhin actually believes and how much he is simply performing for performance’s sake, rattling off the various arguments, fully knowing there is no satisfactory answer.  Porfiry, for his part is pretty clearly playing the classic devil’s advocate, prodding Razumukhin on and revealing little of his own beliefs.  We soon learn that this is his habit, but it also serves the character:  Porifiry suspects Raskolnikov, and is engaging in the conversation as part of an extended cat and mouse game, watching carefully for each and every reaction. At the same time, this doesn’t mean there is no truth in the sequence.  On the contrary, Dostoyevsky rather brilliantly and succinctly lays out two competing philosophies.  Socialism at its core is based on the assumption that humanity is perfectible.  That is, we are born as blank slates written onto based on our environment.  If the environment changes, then humanity changes with it.  Therefore, the criminal is not to blame, the world they inhabit is.  Razumikhin reduces this belief to “comfort” and while he is oversimplifying, the phrase is not far off.  If everyone’s needs are met, no one will have any reason to behave badly.  Christianity – and capitalism for that matter – take a fundamentally different view.   We are inscrutable, fallen creatures driven by things we cannot explain and the best we can do is make each individual choice as best we can.  The criminal chooses to commit the crime and is therefore responsible solely for the outcome.  This doesn’t entirely preclude the acknowledgement that environment is a contributing factor, merely that environment alone cannot justify immoral action if humanity is a creature gifted with choice and freewill.  Self evidently, a person who steals to eat might not do so if they were well fed, but ultimately it doesn’t matter after the crime has been committed.  You might be more lenient on that person, but every individual bears responsibility for their actions whatever the motivating factor.  Justice is served on an individual basis as opposed to the collective; social justice is not justice, it’s socialism in disguise. 

The fact that this argument continues to this day in much the same terms is illuminating in and of itself, suggesting several things.  First, the two sides of the debate are irreconcilable – an untold amount of history has unfolded in the intervening century and a half, yet the arguments remain the same, impervious to any and all evidence.  Second, the two sides are fundamental to our conflicted nature.  Dostoyevsky and the reader can clearly sympathize with ideas from either.  The real question remains what to do about and how to treat people, whether as individuals or part of the collective.  One can sympathize with a criminal – as Dostoyevsky has us do with Raskolnikov – but still believe they need to be punished.  Third and perhaps most importantly, human nature remains the same as it ever was.  Crime and Punishment was written before the electric light, much less everything we take for granted today, and yet this and other sequences could’ve been pulled from a debate on any college campus right now.  One might take that to mean that humanity is not perfectible, as I certainly do, but like everything else in life, we all must make of it what we will.