Ruling classes, criminal classes?
This article suggests that criminologists studying white-collar crime should take into account critical evaluations of the behavior of the ruling classes, many of which have been provided by French economists and sociologists. I focus on analyses of current crises that are based on criminalizing the behavior of the ruling classes, looking at how the vocabulary of deviance has been used to describe economic and political behavior as theft, extortion, and violence and showing that these accusations involving identifying such behaviors as a major element in the practices of the dominant class. For example, the revival of critical sociology is anchored in part on an analysis of the relationship of the ruling classes with laws and standards, showing that one of their distinguishing features is to consider these rules to be fundamental for others but not for themselves. Such analyses have led to policy proposals that make use of the idea of criminal punishment. But the article shows that such interpretations also influence broader policy issues, especially in the game of power relations between states and between states and capital holders outside their control.