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