Posted: Apr 03, 2020 6:40 pm
by chairman bill
Engels proposed a crime of social murder. In, The condition of the working class in England (1845), he wrote;

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live — forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence — knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.


I think it could rightly be said to apply to current circumstances, not least because the government ignored requests for stockpiling of PPE in case of a pandemic, way back in 2016. In addition, the policy of developing 'herd immunity', which seems to be continuing, was in itself a policy that was predicated on the deaths of citizens. I'd also apply it to the wholesale slaughter that has resulted from the whole austerity policy bollocks.