Futility of Legality (1964)

Book Review from the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Disinherited and the Law by Dagobert D. Runes (Philosophical Library, $3.00)

As the late Professor Joad would have said, “It all depends on what you mean by justice.’’ In the world of capitalism we get justice right enough—capitalist justice, and the principles on which it is based are the preservation of private property society. That the rich remains rich, and demonstrably so, and the poor remain poor, is only to be expected. To blame the legal set-up for that is really to put the cart before the horse.

These few words could perhaps summarise our feelings on Dagobert D. Runes’ latest book The Disinherited and the Law (Philosophical Library, $3.00). Each chapter is a short essay on the shortcomings of the American laws (mainly) and the author’s contention throughout is that:—

The law is not a symbol of justice, but rather an expression of the wishes and desires of those in dominance. . .

You can see that he has equated “justice" with humanity. He is appalled at the discrimination against Negroes in the southern states and the connivance of the law at the acts of terrorism and murder which frequently occur. He is just as incensed at the fate of the unemployed dockworker who was imprisoned in Naples for stealing a side of beef at Christmas time to feed his hungry family.

There are countless moans like this throughout the book. The inconsistencies on gambling, alcoholism, drug-taking and homosexuality, all come under his attack. In one chapter he is particularly enraged at the fact that Nazis, Negro haters and Jew baiters are allowed to pour out their poisonous messages without serious let or hindrance. The law, he says, should be altered to put a stop to them.

Now it is undeniable that there are many laws, which when judged even by capitalism's standards, are oppressive and anomolous. It is for this reason that there are always those who are campaigning for their reform. In England, for example, it is many years since anyone was hanged for stealing a five-shilling watch, but to steal a watch is still an offence because the watch, life everything else in capitalist society, is still the private property of some individual or other. And the law is concerned first and foremost with the rights of private property, however much you may reform away its worst faults.

Mr. Runes seems to have an inkling of this but, like many others, thinks that the law can be altered to work in the interests of the masses. He pleads:—

  Let our law be . . . freed from narrow, suppressive and property dictated tradition and transformed into a code of new values and new considerations.

And what are these new considerations? Perhaps a glance at page 59 will give us an idea: —

  If the rich take properly, it should be taken back from them; if the poor take property, they should make restitution as well as they can. . .

So when the author's reforms are put into effect, we will still have rich and poor, and the struggle between them will still go on. The law will be more “humane” perhaps. There will be fewer prisons of the old type, and petty offences will receive more lenient treatment than they do now. On the other hand, the racialist and the violent criminal will be isolated in island settlements, being made to work and being paid the current rate for the jobs they do. But what of that? Penal reform societies are pressing for such measures all the time.

The point which escapes Mr. Runes is that even with sweeping reforms, the law will always be oppressive, because it is concerned with administering the affairs of an essentially oppressive system of society. All that he has done is perhaps to summarise the case for various changes which might bring the law in line with the needs of contemporary capitalism. The unemployed, meat stealing dockworker may get easier treatment under Runes’ new rules, but he will still be a poor person, like the rest of the working class.

Eddie Critchfield