Social murder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Social murder (German: sozialer Mord) is a concept used to describe an unnatural death that is believed to occur due to social, political, or economic oppression, instead of direct violence. Originally coined in 1845 by German philosopher Friedrich Engels, it has since been used by left-wing politicians, journalists, and activists to describe deaths attributed to larger social forces.
Friedrich Engels
The term "social murder" was first introduced by Friedrich Engels in his 1845 work The Condition of the Working-Class in England with regard to the English city of Manchester in the Victorian era. Engels used the term after describing how societal conditions such as poverty, poor housing, and dangerous working conditions have resulted in avoidable excess mortality among the working class.
Engels argued these conditions were the results of inherent exploitation and pursuit of profit under the capitalist system. In his opinion, at fault was "the class which at present holds social and political control" (i.e. the bourgeoisie), who placed hundreds of proletarians in a position where they inevitably met an early and unnatural death. According to Engels, this type of death was in a different category to murder and manslaughter committed by individuals against one another, as social murder explicitly was committed by the political and social elite against the poorest in society.[1]
When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, [...] knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.[1]
In a review of academic usage of the phrase "social murder" throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, authors Stella Medvedyuk, Piara Govender, and Dennis Raphael identified four key aspects of social murder as per Engels' original definition:
- It involves premature death due to working conditions
- The working conditions are themselves a consequence of exploitation under capitalism
- There exists a class (e.g. the bourgeoisie) that benefits from this exploitation
- The benefiting class is aware of the exploitation, and thus responsible for it[2]
Others
In the 21st century, usage of the phrase has expanded such that it doesn't necessarily include a critique of capitalist exploitation. In the more general sense, social murder has been used to refer to excess death as a result of bad public policy.[2]
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