Prisons Under Capitalism are Concentration Camps for the Poor

The brutalities of capitalism make the lives of the working class difficult to live.

Marxists have come to understand that the impoverished community is often the most crime stricken, because conditions are more difficult for working people. So much so that workers act desperately to live. Criminal acts include robbing stores, selling drugs, getting involved with or forming gangs to protect drug dealing and murder. Thus, as conditions get worse for the poor, crime also rises. Because of these unchanging conditions, working people under capitalist society often remain poor.

Because the working poor fight to live, and because crime is so dominant in impoverished communities, prisons have been filled poor people for the most part. This however does not exclude the fact that two thirds of the prison population is black. As a matter of fact, it adds to the evidence that the prison in the USA is an extension of slavery. Ever since slavery, the black community in America has been left with nothing, and stuck in a constant chain of poverty, due to the over 200+ years of slavery and segregation. Black people have been excluded from both high wage paying jobs, and/or jobs in general. Today this is common with employment discrimination, where black people can go without work for weeks at a time. Plus given the fact that America’s police force, has been raised in a racist culture, targeting impoverished communities that are predominantly Black.

Given this subject of class repression, instead of changing the conditions to end poverty, the root of the issue of crime rates, we fight the crime itself, and put millions of impoverished people behind bars. Thus, prisons under capitalism are concentration camps for the poor.

American prisons are pure hell for the inmates. Not only are men and women subjected to “the hole” if they “misbehave,” but they are placed in small cells, often made of solid block, with no air conditioning. This can make it difficult to live if the prison is in a tropical or desert region, Adelanto, California for example. During summer, when the temperature is close to 100 degrees or higher outside, it is much hotter inside the prison walls. Worse still is the fact that most prisons operated in the United States are operated under contract with the private security companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Inmates are assigned to hard labor with little to no pay, almost mirroring conditions under slavery. This makes sense only because there is an exception in the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States that allows conditions of slavery if it is punishment for a crime.

The 13th amendment says as follows:

“Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

When it comes to the prison industrial complex, the terminology we Marxists use to describe lockup, it has been like a golden ticket for the Wall Street bankers.

“They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All their workers are full-time, and are never late or absent because of family problems. Moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.”

“The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

-www.globalresearch.ca

Not only does inmates produce profit for the greedy vultures of Wall Street, but moreover the best way to profit off those desperate to leave prison, bail bonds. Bail bonds are a severe form of profiteering from incarceration. Desperate people who can bail themselves out of jail, do so because of the conditions of incarceration are so extreme. It takes the desperate and exploits money out of them.

The poor have been filling the prisons while the rich and members of the state apparatus have avoided jail for crimes they have committed. Our own President, Donald Trump is the best example, but there are others. Remember the rich kid, Ethan Couch? He killed 4 innocent people while driving drunk. He got rehab instead of prison. However, impoverished people who get caught driving drunk, are arrested and put in jail. And if they end up killing someone during their drunken driving spree, they get charged with manslaughter, and rightly so. Remember the rich kid from Stanford, Brock Turner, who raped an unconscious woman on campus? He got 6 months jail time, He was released after 3 months for “good behavior.” The usual time convicted rapists serve ranges from 3 to 8 years and a lifetime listing on the sex offender registry, which affects future employment and housing.

The rich have dodged prison and jail with ease while poor people are left to rot, just like the “patriotic” Americans George Bush, Dick Cheney and others who purchased their way out of serving in the armed forces, while telling poor people to go and die for their nation. Prisons under capitalism are concentration camps for the poor, and it is our job as Marxists to fight for abolishing these bastard institutions, that have been utilized to oppress workers; and put in place prisons for the reactionary capitalists, and their reactionary lapdogs. Like the USSR did with gulags, we must build institutions that can be used to secure the dictatorship of the proletariat, by suppressing the bourgeoisie, and their reactionary forces (fascism, white nationalism, monarchists, etc.)

American Founding Fathers vs. Joseph Stalin

There are constant comparisons by American “patriots” between the founding fathers and the deceased Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. The problem with these comparisons is they lack historical understanding and are driven by white chauvinism.

If we look at the history of the founding fathers, we will see a lot of beliefs that we do not agree with, including their support for slavery and white supremacy. If we look at history, the actual history, of Stalin, we will see a world view that supports liberation, self-sufficiency, and worker democracy. The only historical belief we oppose that Stalin advocated was the recriminalization of homosexuality. Stalin’s views on homosexuality should not be surprising as homophobia was the prevailing world view during Stalin’s time. Some would make the same argument, given the historical circumstances that during the time of the founding fathers, slavery and white supremacy were the prevailing views, but if you compare the subject of slavery and genocide vs the subject of homophobia, obviously one is worse than the other. Yet American “patriots” still praise their founding fathers almost like gods among men, while communists look up to former Soviet leaders like Stalin as the former heads of a revolutionary movement that was focused on liberation of working people. And they look up to them more so given the fact that they were the leading force of the movement, since they had a state to back them up in global political affairs.

Does this mean we excuse homophobia? No, of course not. We as Marxists are scientists and we understand today that old belief of being homophobic was wrong, and we move away from that incorrect belief. We still recognize the contribution Stalin gave to pushing the revolutionary communist movement forward. While we oppose the subject of recriminalization of LGBT+ people. The same goes for Marx, we recognize he held beliefs we are not in complete agreement with. However, we support the contribution of Marx in pushing the communist movement forward.

Some would argue that Stalin was a mass murder, in which I urge the reader to check out my article “Detailed analysis of J.V. Stalin's non-existent mass murder policy and its anti-communist premise”

Some would argue that the founding fathers were not slavery supporters or genocide supporters.

George Washington was a slave owner with a total of 317 slaves which were not freed until a year before his death, by his wife. In terms of Native Americans, George Washington said the following to General John Sullivan, May 31, 1779:

“The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more.”

-indiancountrymedianetwork.com

Thomas Jefferson on Natives:

“This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate.”

-indiancountrymedianetwork.com

Thomas Jefferson owned 200 slaves. He only freed a few because of debt. And it is argued that he fathered multiple children with one slave, Sally Hemmings, the half -sister of his late wife, Martha Skelton.

John Adams while never owning a slave never gave full support for the abolitionists who seek to abolish slavery. He dismissed full abolition of slavery as “producing greater violations of Justice and Humanity, than the continuance of the practice.”

John Adams is shown historically to stand neutral on the subject. To those with a Marxist view of history, to stand neutral on the subject of oppression is to pick the side of the oppressor.

Benjamin Franklin not only owned slaves, but his newspaper in the 1730's often featured slaves for sale.

-benjaminfranklinhouse.org

Alexander Hamilton, while never owning a slave before in his life, he never strongly opposed it. Not only is there info of partaking in the selling of slaves, he also would never oppose slavery from an ideological view of seeing it as immoral; but from practical concerns. When it came to property rights, American interests, or personal ambitions, Hamilton chose those personal goals over abolishing slavery. Opposing slavery was not Hamilton's main priority.

-varsitytutors.com

John Jay was a slave owner, who signed into law the “gradual abolition of slavery” which was in itself a contradiction, for it stated that the children of slave parents would be free. However, they were required to work for the owner of their mother till age 27 for males, and age 25 for females. It replaced the chains of slavery with the chains of indentured servitude.

-columbia.edu

James Madison, the main man supportive of the removal of Natives from their land, first by converting them to European culture and then by invasion, also saw slaves as both human and property, and that they should be protected by both their master and the government.

The founding fathers, like every president of the United States, has worked in the interest of both the wealthy, and the White propertied class. From the first settlers, America was built by slaves, on blood stained land, on top of mass graves of Native Americans. And to this day, the only ones who have power in this country are dominantly wealthy, mostly white, and mostly men.

To compare Stalin to the founding fathers, to promote support for the founding fathers, is to misguide workers into believing they are comparing oppression with liberty. The reality is, to compare Stalin to the founding fathers, is to compare worker liberation, and worker power to genocide, slavery and white supremacy.