Abstract
Critics of market economies are found among academics, social movements and alliances involving both. One such alliance is constituted by what is known as the degrowth movement, whose analyses of the dysfunctional effects of prevalent economic arrangements and principles relate (implicitly or explicitly) to crime prevention strategies. After briefly examining the concerns of classical theorists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber about infinite growth and its environmental impact, this paper tries to uncover the criminological implications of degrowth and to hypothesize how its strategies can contribute to the reduction and/or prevention of criminal activity.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appadurai, A., & Alexander, N. (2020). Failure. Polity.
Arboleda, M. (2020). Planetary mine: Territories of extraction under late capitalism. Verso.
Bookchin, M. (1980). Toward an ecological society. Black Rose Books.
Brisman, A., & South, N. (2020). A criminology of extinction: Biodiversity, extreme consumption and the vanity of species resurrection. European Journal of Criminology, 6, 918–935.
Buck, H. J. (2019). After geo-engineering: Climate tragedy, repair and restoration. Verso.
Burton, M., & Somerville, P. (2019). Degrowth: A Defence. New Left Review, 115, 95–104.
Chertkovskaya, E., & Paulsson, A. (2020). Countering Corporate Violence: Degrowth, Ecosocialism and Organizing beyond the Destructive Forces of Capitalism. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420975344
Currie, E. (2012). The market economy and crime. In F. T. Cullen & P. Wilcox (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of criminological theory. Oxford University Press.
Currie, E. (2013). Crime and punishment in America. New York Picador.
Currie, E. (2016). The roots of danger: Violent crime in global perspective. Oxford University Press.
Currie, E. (2020). A peculiar indifference: The neglected toll of violence on Black America. Metropolitan Books.
D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (Eds.). (2014). Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era. Routledge.
Daly, H. (2014). Beyond growth. Beacon Press.
Dean, M. (2019). What is economic theology? A new governmental-political paradigm? Theory, Culture & Society, 36, 3–26.
Dorling, D. (2019). Inequality and the 1%. Verso.
Durkheim, E. (1960). The division of labour in society. The Free Press.
Foster, J. B. (1999). Marx’s theory of metabolic rift: Classical foundations for environmental sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 366–401.
Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx’s ecology: Materialism and nature. Monthly Review Press.
Foster, J. B., & Holleman, H. (2012). Weber and the environment. American Journal of Sociology, 17, 1625–1673.
Foucault, M. (1994). The order of things: An archeology of human sciences. Vintage.
Fraser, N. (2021). Climates of capital: For a trans-environmental eco-socialism. New Left Review, 127, 94–127.
Galbraith, J. K. (1987). A history of economics: The past as the present. Penguin.
Hall, S., & Winlow, S. (2015). Revitalizing criminological theory. Routledge.
Hirschman, A. O. (1977). The passions and the interests. Princeton University Press.
Jackson, T. (2021). Post growth: Life after capitalism. Polity.
Kallis, G., Kostakis, V., Lange, S., Muraca, B., Paulson, S., & Schmelzer, M. (2018). Research on degrowth. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 43, 291–316.
Kallis, G., Paulson, S., D’Alisa, G., & Demaria, F. (2020). The case for degrowth. Polity.
Kelly, M. (2000). Inequality and crime. Review of Economics and Statistics, 82, 530–539.
kMatrix Data Services (2021), Low carbon environmental goods and services, London: kMatrix Data Services.
Latouche, S. (1986). Faut-il refuser le développement?: Essai sur l'anti-économique du Tiers-monde. Presses Universitaires de France.
Latouche, S. (1993). In the wake of the affluent society: An exploration of post-development. Zed Books.
Latouche, S. (1996). The westernization of the world: Significance, scope and limits of the drive towards global uniformity. Polity Press.
Latouche, S. (2005). L'invention de l'économie. Press Universitaires de France.
Latouche, S. (2010). Farewell to growth. Polity Press.
Löwy, M. (2017). Marx, Engels and ecology. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 28, 10–21.
Luhmann, N. (1996). Sociologia del rischio. Bruno Mondadori.
Macekura, S. J. (2020). The mismeasure: Economic growth and its critics. University of Chicago Press.
Marx, K. (1960). India, China, Russia. Il Saggiatore.
Marx, K. (1974). Early writings. Vintage.
Marx, K. (1976). Capital, (volume 3). Vintage.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1952). On religion. Foreign Languages Publishing House.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1975). The German Ideology. In Collected works. International Publishers.
More, T. (1997). Utopia. Wordsworth.
Nurse, A. (2015). An introduction to green criminology and environmental justice. Sage.
Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (Eds.). (1993). The quality of life. Oxford University Press.
Palmer, C. (1997). Environmental ethics. Abc-Clio.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2005). Macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity and violent crime. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 331–356.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the 21st century. Harvard University Press.
Raymen, T. (2019). The enigma of social harm and the barrier of liberalism: Why Zemiology needs a theory of the good. Justice, Power and Resistance, 3, 134–163.
Reiner, R. (2007). Law and order: An honest Citizen’s guide to crime and control. Polity.
Reiner, R. (2016). Crime: The mystery of the common-sense concept. Polity.
Reiner, R. (2021). Social democratic criminology. Routledge.
Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance: A sociology of our relationship to the world. Polity Press.
Rosa, H., & Henning, C. (Eds.). (2018). The good life beyond growth. Routledge.
Rosenfeld, R., & Messner, S. F. (2013). Crime and the economy. Sage.
Roth, R. (2009). American Homicide. Harvard University Press.
Ruggiero, V. (2001). Movements in the City. Prentice Hall.
Ruggiero, V. (2013). The crimes of the economy. Routledge.
Ruggiero, V. (2015). Power and crime. Routledge.
Ruggiero, V. (2020). Killing environmental campaigners. Criminological Encounters, 3(1), 92–105.
Sampson, R. J., & Wilson, W. J. (1995). Race, crime and urban inequality. In J. Hagan & R. D. Peterson (Eds.), Crime and inequality. Stanford University Press.
Schabas, M. (2007). The natural origins of economics. University of Chicago Press.
Scorse, J. (2010). What environmentalists need to know about economics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Sen, A. (2015). The country of first boys and other essays. Oxford University Press.
Shearing, C. (2015). Criminology and the Anthropocene. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 15, 255–269.
Simmel, G. (1971). On individuality and social forms. University of Chicago Press.
Skidelsky, R., & Skidelsky, E. (2012). How much id enough? The love of money and the case for the good life. Allen Lane.
Sollund, R. (Ed.). (2015). Green harms and crimes: Critical criminology in a changing world. Palgrave Macmillan.
South, N., & Brisman, A. (Eds.). (2013). Routledge international handbook of green criminology. Routledge.
Spapens, T., White, R., van Uhm, D., & Huisman, W. (Eds.). (2018). Green crimes and dirty money. Routledge.
Streeck, W. (2012). Citizens as customers: Considerations of the new politics of consumption. New Left Review, 76, 27–47.
Testot, L. (2020). Cataclysms: An environmental history of humanity. University of Chicago Press.
Tombs, S., & Whyte, D. (2015). The corporate criminal: Why corporations must be abolished. Routledge.
Veblen, T. (1994). The theory of the leisure class. Dover Publications, Inc..
Webber, C. (2021). Rediscovering the relative deprivation and crime debate: Tracking its fortunes from left realism to the precariat. Critical Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-021-09554-4
Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant ethic and the Spirit of capitalism. George Allen & Unwin.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society. University of California Press.
Whyte, D. (2020). Ecocide: Kill the corporation before it kills you. Manchester University Press.
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2019). The inner level. Penguin.
Young, J. (1986). The failure of criminology: The need for a radical realism. In R. Matthews & J. Young (Eds.), Confronting crime. Sage.
Zedner, L. (2006). Security. Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ruggiero, V. The degrowth movement and crime prevention. Crime Law Soc Change 77, 463–478 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-021-10003-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-021-10003-0