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Anarchism and capital punishment
As anarchism, as an ideology, stands against the concept of the state and arms-backed governance, capital punishment by the state is seen within anarchist theory as a form of premeditated revenge murder. Anarcho-pacifists, who are actively non-violent, are probably the most strident against the usage, sponsorship or legalization of capital punishment. Anarchists have significant influence in the political movement against capital punishment.[1]
Contents
The use of capital punishment
According to most state governments, capital punishment is used against the committers of what are defined in the particular society as the most heinous crimes; in societies which retain capital punishment, murder is probably the most common crime that could be classified as a capital crime, or a crime that is worthy of capital punishment.
There are various real and supposed benefits of capital punishment, which include:
- It gives 'closure', although 'closure' is just a bullshit term for 'revenge'.
- It is a highly reliable prophylactic. Some reform programs yield a relatively low recidivism rate, even breaking the 50 percent barrier, whereas the recidivism rate for the death penalty is 1 percent, with a margin of error of 2 percent.
- It serves as a deterrent, although it may be either more of a deterrent or less of a deterrent than prison, depending on the particular criminal.
- It relieves prison overcrowding.
- It saves a vast amount of tax payer money in comparison to prisons.
Two anarchists' views on capital punishment
Emma Goldman viewed capital punishment as a murderous state action that fails to result in any permanent or lasting reduction of murderous or heinous crime:
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation.[2]
According to American anarchist, author and essayist Edward Abbey, "The true, unacknowledged purpose of capital punishment is to inspire fear and awe - fear and awe of the State."[3] That statement does not add up however, since life imprisonment within the current prison system is a much worse and frightening fate than execution.
References
- ↑ anarchism: Contemporary anarchism Britannica Online
- ↑ ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR, by Emma Goldman
- ↑ The Late Edward Abbey - Beloved Desert Anarchist
External Links
- Anarchism and Capital Punishment excerpted from the book Individual Liberty: Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker
