Murderers in communist/anarchist society

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I recently heard Louis CK say that the law against murder is the number one thing preventing murder.

That got me thinking: how do we deal with murderers in a communist/anarchist society?

I know about people killing out of greed or by accident in a armed robbery and those will vanish in communism.
But still we will have killings out of anger.
Reletives and/or friends of the deceased might be vengefull and retalliate.
That in turn might lead to more hate and eventually havoc and people killing each other for some sort of family feud.


So that pretty much leaves us with two questions:

1) Why do people kill?

2) What to do with people who have killed?


Your thoughts please:

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

It probably might help if i posted my thoughts on the subject too...:o

Detention is, of course, (for me at least) not an option. So that leaves us with two kinds of murderers:

A) Violent mentally dissabled people.

B) Rage-killers


For the first category (A) A closer care might be necessary. Very personal attention and maybe medicines, might be able to take away a possible threat against society AND themselves.

The second category (B) however is entirely different. I think someone who kills out of rage (like that ex-cop who has killed that man in the cinema for talking on the phone) is capable of doing that again. That is quite possibly the worst kind of murder, because it is so senseless. There was nothing driving this person to murder but pure anger.
This person needs attention too, to help him deal with his anger. He also needs to be in a personal meeting with the family/friends of his victim, not only to prevent revenge killings, but also to help him understand what happend and fully understand the impact of his actions.

A cat. B person who repeats himself, might end up being "labelled" "A" and get treatment.

How this is enforced in a free society is of course pretty much up to that society, but i'd like to give society as a whole a handle for the future.

[anarhokomunjaravtc]

For an example anarchistic society ( We all been through that) i think :)There is 10 people in a bar having a good time, and one of them wants to attack the waiter so other people start to calm that one guy down sayng "that is wrong" etc and the guy calms down. If it works in a crowd of 10 people, and i know that it works in a crowd of 1000 people, if the people are normal of course :D why should it not work for the all society. Remeber the movie "god`s must be crazy" that "bush people" were an perfect example how anarchist society should function. I was borned in socialist state there were less crimes,les poverty,less hate. People lived togheter in werry multietnical region,people had more freedoom then now when we are free just on the paper, in fact the freedoom depends on only 1 thing and that`s how big is our volet.:star:

[Futility Personified]

What about psychopaths in an anarchist society? If we strongly emphasise treatment care and counselling to prevent deaths, what do we do with people for whom there will be no effect?

[Comrade #138672]

What about psychopaths in an anarchist society? If we strongly emphasise treatment care and counselling to prevent deaths, what do we do with people for whom there will be no effect?I suppose the least we must do is render them ["hardcore psychopaths"] harmless to society. This most likely involves isolating them from society, but perhaps this is not the only possible solution.

I suspect that there will be less "psychopaths" in a communist society, though.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

What about psychopaths in an anarchist society? If we strongly emphasise treatment care and counselling to prevent deaths, what do we do with people for whom there will be no effect?

That is indeed a big trouble point. I don't believe in detaining people, but how to isolate then?


I suspect that there will be less "psychopaths" in a communist society, though.

That is probably true. The question here would be: how do you become a Psychopath. It's first a nature vs. nurture thing, then a "can the psycho-element in ones brain be opressed?"

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

there is a genetic predisposition to psychopathy and there are environmental factors which can exacerbate it (abuse in childhood etc), as far as I've read. there are some good documentaries on it as well as countless articles.

many psychopaths function in society without being violent but are socially manipulative, callous and abusive etc. in a communistic society, there would be little to gain materially for a psychopath - psychopaths flourish in capitalism (many bankers, CEOs and politicians have psychopathic tendencies). the issue is with brutal, sadistic and abusive behaviour. my suggestion would be that anyone who routinely abuses and hurts/murders other people should be isolated in a humane way. therapy should be extensive as well as research into the subjects with the aim of overcoming psychopathy as a psychological defect, which is what it is.

this isn't concrete, just a generalization based on studies. i have psychopathic tendencies myself, more people do than you think. not all will go on to murder - the ones who do have usually undergone some kind of deep-rooted psychological trauma. not all can be accounted for in this way and not all murderers are psychopaths, but the question of psychopathy is a fascinating one i think.

[Thirsty Crow]

What about psychopaths in an anarchist society? If we strongly emphasise treatment care and counselling to prevent deaths, what do we do with people for whom there will be no effect?
Obviously, keep them out of the broader community in an environment which would first be constituted as a place for treatment, and not a rotten and brutalizing prison.

[Manic Impressive]

Whatever happens will be democratically decided by those there at the time. This will most likely not be the same thing 20 years into a socialist society as it will be 100 years into socialist society. Things change, people change, ideas change. So will methods of dealing with people who break whatever proletarian morality forms as a result of the revolution.

Sorry to be boring, but there's no possible way of giving any sort of vaguely correct answer to the question. I suggest if you want to study this subject further you should look into the field of anthropology. That will give you a better idea of how humans behave in the absence of a state and private property. But it cannot answer impossible questions about the future.

[MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao]

As a person who has (had) all kinds of mental issues, and who has read a lot on the subject, I can say that some psychopaths don't need any treatment, some can be treated with medicine, but then there are also those psychopaths who can only be treated with bullets.

[RedWaves]

The whole "mass murder" thing in communist countries is totally blown out of proportion.


There's no proof whatsoever that Stalin killed whatever number of millions they blame him for. Same can be said about Fidel Castro or Che Guevara who also get blamed for some kind of genocide.


With Stalin, he gets blamed for the death toll of WWII which makes no sense whatsoever cause it was Hitler's war. "Stalin was worse than Hitler yo".


Most of it is propaganda to make the Communist countries look terrible because the same ones screaming the bullshit totally ignore the genocide caused by America, such as the genocide against the Native Americans, which they either act like didn't happen at all, or just say "oh that was a long time ago" while they flat out deny or ignore (or both) what's going on the middle east and the numerous victims of capitalism which proves yet again that Communism is a hundred times better.

[BIXX]

The whole "mass murder" thing in communist countries is totally blown out of proportion.


There's no proof whatsoever that Stalin killed whatever number of millions they blame him for. Same can be said about Fidel Castro or Che Guevara who also get blamed for some kind of genocide.


With Stalin, he gets blamed for the death toll of WWII which makes no sense whatsoever cause it was Hitler's war. "Stalin was worse than Hitler yo".


Most of it is propaganda to make the Communist countries look terrible because the same ones screaming the bullshit totally ignore the genocide caused by America, such as the genocide against the Native Americans, which they either act like didn't happen at all, or just say "oh that was a long time ago" while they flat out deny or ignore (or both) what's going on the middle east and the numerous victims of capitalism which proves yet again that Communism is a hundred times better.


Did you even read the thread?

I think that oppressors will prolly be dealt with via violence, but at the same time, I don't think it'd be systematic violence, but individual violence.

It's impossible to guess.

[Don't Swallow The Cap]

Irrelevant words about Stalin.

Have you bothered to even look at the content of this thread?
It has nothing to do with what you are talking about.

I think it's fair to say that revolution won't magically make extinct the violence that capitalist society breeds, but I do think it would diminish significantly, if people are well fed and have the what they need.
There is really no way of knowing to what effect such a massive transformation will have on people, just entertaining speculation.

In any case I think there should be a focus on treatment rather than mindless incarceration. Isolation from the general pubic, if needed, until the problem is solved.

[Mx95]

I recently heard Louis CK say that the law against murder is the number one thing preventing murder.

That got me thinking: how do we deal with murderers in a communist/anarchist society?

I know about people killing out of greed or by accident in a armed robbery and those will vanish in communism.
But still we will have killings out of anger.
Reletives and/or friends of the deceased might be vengefull and retalliate.


You will have eliminated murder from greed, because you've eliminated the conditions that create greed in the first place. If you want to get rid of "psychopaths", then you have to eliminate the environmental factors that create a psychopath.

What creates the desire to kill when we get angry at someone, as opposed to kicking a wall? What creates anger?

[Future]

You will have eliminated murder from greed, because you've eliminated the conditions that create greed in the first place. If you want to get rid of "psychopaths", then you have to eliminate the environmental factors that create a psychopath.

What creates the desire to kill when we get angry at someone, as opposed to kicking a wall? What creates anger?

Agreed, and until this is all figured out, it's not like an anarchist society would just let criminals run around encroaching on the freedoms of others...the whole point of anarchism is to fight against this kind of thing!

I'll quote part of the Anarchist FAQ as it says it nicely:

Anarchists argue that the root cause for crime is not some perversity of human nature or "original sin" but is due to the type of society by which people are moulded. For example, anarchists point out that by eliminating private property, crime could be reduced significantly, since most crime today is currently motivated by evils stemming from private property such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and alienation. Moreover, by adopting anarchist methods of non-authoritarian child rearing and education, most of the remaining crimes could also be eliminated, because they are largely due to the anti-social, perverse, and cruel "secondary drives" that develop because of authoritarian child-rearing practices. However, as long as the few "violates the equal freedom of others . . . we must defend ourselves." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 106]

We are not saying, however, that anarchists reject the concept of individual responsibility. While recognising that rape, for example, is the result of a social system which represses sexuality and is based on patriarchy (i.e. rape has more to do with power than sex), anarchists do not "sit back" and say "it's society's fault." Individuals have to take responsibility for their own actions and recognise the consequences of those actions. Part of the current problem with "law codes" is that individuals have been deprived of the responsibility for developing their own ethical code, and so are less likely to develop "civilised" social standards.

Therefore, while anarchists reject the ideas of law and a specialised justice system, they are not blind to the fact that anti-social action may not totally disappear in a free society. Nor are they blind to the fact that, regardless of our hopes about a free society reducing crime, we will not create it over-night ("all the bad passions . . . will not disappear at a stroke. There will still be for a long time those who will feel tempted to impose their will on others with violence, who will wish to exploit favourable circumstances to create privileges for themselves" [Malatesta, At the Café, p. 131]). Therefore, some sort of justice system would still be necessary to deal with the remaining crimes and to adjudicate disputes between citizens.

This does not, it must be stressed, signify some sort of contradiction within anarchism. Anarchists have never advocated the kind of "freedom" which assumes that people can do what they want. When people object to anarchy, they often raise the question as to those who would steal, murder, rape and so forth and seem to assume that such people would be free to act as they like. This is, needless to say, an utter misunderstanding of both our ideas and freedom in general. Simply put, if people impose themselves by force on others then "they will be the government" and "we will oppose them with force" for "if today we want to make a revolution against the government, it is not in order to submit ourselves supinely to new oppressors." [Malatesta, Op. Cit, p. 99] This applies equally to the need to defend a free society against organised counter-revolution and against those within it conducting anti-social ("criminal") activities. The principle is the same, it is just the scale which is different.

It should be remembered that just because the state monopolises or organises a (public) service, it does not mean that the abolition of the state means the abolition of what useful things it provided. For example, many states own and run the train network but the abolition of the state does not mean that there will no longer be any trains! In a free society management of the railways would be done by the rail workers themselves, in association with the community. The same applies to anti-social behaviour and so we find Kropotkin, for example, pointing to how "voluntary associations" would "substitute themselves for the State in all its functions," including for "mutual protection" and "defence of the territory." [Anarchism, p. 284]

...

This applies to what is termed justice, namely the resolution of disputes and anti-social acts ("crime"). This means that anarchists argue that "people would not allow their wellbeing and their freedom to be attacked with impunity, and if the necessity arose, they would take measures to defend themselves against the anti-social activities of a few. But to do so, what purpose is served by people whose profession is the making of laws; while other people spend their lives seeking out and inventing law-breakers?" [Anarchy, pp. 43-4] This means that in a free society the resolution of anti-social behaviour would rest in the hands of all, not in a specialised body separate from and above the masses. As Proudhon put it, an anarchy would see the "police, judiciary, administration, everywhere committed to the hands of the workers" [Property is Theft!, p. 596] And so:

"Let each household, each factory, each association, each municipality, each district, attend to its own police, and administer carefully its own affairs, and the nation will be policed and administered. What need have we to be watched and ruled, and to pay, year in and year out, . . . millions? Let us abolish prefects, commissioners, and policemen too." [Op. Cit., p. 593]
Precisely how this will work will be determined by free people based on the circumstances they face. All we can do is sketch out likely possibilities and make suggestions.

[bcbm]

if you imagine we can recreate the entire economic basis of society and form a new and classless world but will be bamboozled by peopling killing each oher i dont know what to tell you

[AnaRchic]

First, it is important to note that in an anarchist-communist society aggression and violence would always be against the self-interest of the person committing it, as the self-interest of each is realized in the bonds of solidarity between all.

The easiest solution I can think of is cut such a person off from communal resources for a certain defined period of time. For example, someone who kills out of rage would be offered help through a 2 year treatment program or something. Until he completes his time in that program he will not have access to social resources and therefor has a choice; treatment or isolation.

The vast majority of these individuals will choose treatment or temporary separation from the broader society, as opposed to complete isolation. Under capitalism overpowering others in pursuit of self is advantageous, under anarchist-communism it is like shooting yourself in the foot.

Unfortunately I think there may always be a certain number of sociopaths, who simply do not have the empathy necessary for peaceful human relations. These human predators need to be isolated from the rest of society. They will need to be detained in a sense, but we can still do away with prisons. We can give such people their own island or something, build them some housing and other facilities, and give all of them the opportunity to contribute labor. Like in the rest of society, if a person contributes labor he or she is free to consume according to his/her self-determined needs. So this kind of detainment will be a separation from broader society, as a defensive action. It will not be a prison system, as these individuals will still be provided a good standard of living and the freedom to organize themselves as they choose, and will be free of imposed hierarchy.

This whole question is very interesting, and I'm continuing to come up with ideas concerning how this can be handled. The one thing I do know is that the state, law, police, and prisons are not necessary. Local communities can self-organize and take responsibility for their own defense, basic common law (don't aggress against another) can take the place of statutory law, treatment programs and self-contained/isolated criminal communities can take the place of prisons, etc.

These are all just speculations, ultimately all these issues will be handled in many different ways through a process of trial and error, until the best ways of managing these problems is found.