5 Assignment 07

Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s From Military Keynesianism to post-Keynesian militarism argues that after the shift from military Keynesianism – an economic policy that relied on the production of war-related goods to boost the economy – came another shift that resulted in what Gilmore (and others) refer to as the carceral state.

There is a “common sense” notion that has been propagated by the media and political elites, as Gilmore discusses, which assumes that the exponential growth of the US prison population was tied to an increase in crime. But, Gilmore demonstrates that this massive expansion (from some 600,000 people to nearly 2 million in less than 20 years) is due, in reality, to a political imperative rather than anything having to do with a rise in seemingly collective “bad behavior.” Indeed, she shows that the expansion of the carceral state was initiated as crime rates were on the decline.

It’s necessary, then, for Gilmore to take readers back to the social and economic crises that came to a head in one of the most infamous years in social struggle history: 1968. It was the height of the Black Power movement, a time of mass upheaval (1968 was the year that MLK, jr. was assassinated sparking an explosion of street rebellions in hundreds of cities across the country. As Gilmore points out, before this era, riots were generally started by white people) that political elites were able to utilize to paint a picture of a black community out of control. Gilmore explains that this social crisis was compounded by an economic crisis of capitalist profitability – largely a response to earlier Keynesian economic policies.

While it may seem counterintuitive, Gilmore points to a marxist understanding of crisis to explain how crisis and surplus are actually linked up. Once the productive forces of society are stalled, a transformation of some kind is forced to resolve this crisis. Gilmore posits that the surplus was in the form of human labor – i.e. all those cut off from legitimate wage-labor as a result of racist marginalization – as well as in the form of land – i.e. agriculture lands that were no longer being utilized for productive purposes.

Essentially, the solution to these crises was to utilize the surplus that derived from it to, as in all cases, the benefit of capitalism. It is here where Gilmore, using the State of California as her example, demonstrates that this land and labor was used to physically construct the carceral state – both the land used to build extraordinarily large prisons and a population to then fill the prisons with.

In the article “Globalization and US prison growth: From Military and Keynesianism to post- Keynesian Militarism” by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, she writes about the expansion of prison that connects to socio-economic problems. She also writes about the existent crises and surplus of prison population and reconstructing the state.
From my understanding the crisis Gilmore is analyzing is the social lack and economic panic, which resulted as a huge capital disorder. The problem is the number of crises accumulated throughout three decades. This means that it would take an extremely longer time to get it fix or this problem won’t get fix. The change of getting it fix was very low. I wasn’t sure, but from my point of view she said that one way to get out of the social-economic crisis is by domestic abuse; which eventually turns out to be a behavior that seeks to take the victim’s liberty and freedom away, violent elimination of foreign and domestic enemies. Crises do indicate a small percent of change specially when those who responsible didn’t attend to result it as soon as they saw a mini crisis approaching. Another problem is that since there huge number of crises happening at the same time it actually means that a lot of people will be suffering, not physically, but economically. In other words, everyone struggles because there is not alternative. Surplus is when something meets it’s requirements and it’s left alone, which means future problems turning into crises. I think that was what happened and this is what Gilmore is trying to explain us. Maybe at some point before all of this happened, those in control and with power had the opportunity to make the right choice and didn’t. In life, everything has a cause and effect and unfortunately the minority and people of color suffered the most.
Surplus labor increased the prison population because there was more unemployment people and less jobs. The result was to look for an illegal job and eventually get caught and go to jail. May people of color and poor saw themselves in this position. In other words, during the mid-1970s there was a job crisis and no way to support themselves and families, one option was to do something illegal. In my opinion the government/police/prison principals only focused on crimes instead of helping increase the economics of the state. Crises and surplus in this cases are the same thing because they influence society.

In the article “Globalisation and US prison growth: From military and Keynesianism to post-Keynesian militarism by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, she explains to us how the expansion of prison populations has increased because of the “law and order” where this involves the handling and control of cases such as robbery, any kind of violence or disturbance of peace.

This type of bad behavior was treated as a punishment with the fulfillment of people in prisons.But not all the time the penalty was fair since, as Gilmore explains, there existed many racial, economic and political factors.The most common population in a California’s prison was African Americans and latinos and some women of all race.

What was causing this expanding in prison? I will call crisis to the circumstances to let more people go to prison. One of the reasons is the “drug epidemic and the threat to public safety posed by the unrestrained use and trade of illegal substances”(172). Because of the unemployment illegal sale of drugs became one of the ways people used to survive. Unemployment was notable and many people opted for easy money and this came from the illegal drug trade.

The lack of employment was another reason for prison expansion in California. When people were not having employs opportunities they were forced to commit property crimes and drugs traffic. The number of prisoner increase “the percentage of people in prison for property offenses more than doubled since 1982” (Pg. 173)

Gilmore also tells us that the function of prisons was to “fix” social problems. For example, she mentions that there was a civil disorder where people of color were out of control and there was some group of people who wanted to organize big movements. All this crisis, a prison was supposed to resolve to have more prisoners and to fix these social problems. Prisoners had to fight for their rights because most of the time they had a long sentence that not always were correct. They were trying to fight in federal courts to get new reforms to help themselves. The author also mentions that people of color and Latinos compromised a big part of the prison population.

In conclusion, we can say that the “surplus labor” incremented the prison population in the U.S was the excedent of unemploy people because there were more people that employments at that time. The mid-1970s recession produced that big corporation eliminated jobs and workers were suffering from unemployment. There were a lot of people who could not get jobs and also there were more people coming as an immigrant looking for jobs.

Gilmore describes both the US prison system and the surpluses as resulting from globalization and the “uneven development”(page 174) it causes. Though the prison system is also described as an economic and political response to both the uneven development and to moral panic.

The surpluses cross over many different aspects of our society – capital, labor, land, and the power of the state but what she is primarily pointing to is a surplus of production, it’s really the natural ebb and flow of an economy – at least a capitalistic one (I truly can’t speak on any other economies, having no experience or understanding of them).

One way the expanding prison system relates to the restructuring of the state, is the power grab by the Right in 1968, when the Right criminalized activists and activist groups individually in order to show control and progress towards order by making specific arrests. Gilmore describes this as “domestic war-making” on the part of the state (page 176) and literally means creating a racial and class war between state run police and militant activist groups, in fact militarizing the state against these groups.

These events had been set in motion earlier, at the end of WWII with the growth of the Department of War and the popularization of military Keynesianism, which meant in the most common terms that war made the country rich. The way rights were distributed at this time further entrenched the rights of the white male, particularly those in cities, while denying rights to workers, particularly agricultural workers, people of color, and women. In short, it reinforced capitalism. In the mean time and updated Keynesianism was working to decreases taxes on wealthy corporations and criminalize the welfare state.

The crisis Gilmore is describing is actually a culmination of several crises. The moral panic, the civil unrest revolving around civil rights, students and activists, racial tensions, criminalizing black communities, panic about single women and single mothers, power structures within the activism world, and economic panic on both the individual and corporate level. The new state that comes from this crises is the prison state – a surplus of defense against crime.

It really is striking that in a state as liberal as California the prison system has a budget close to that of the state university systems. Gilmore relates the prison system to a “big stick” used by the state to keep labor movements in check, and as operating behind a “wall of racism” (page 186). Demolishing the prison industrial complex is put foremost in her view, as a means of restructuring the state in a way that would be amenable to human rights activists.

In Gilmore’s article, she writes about an existent crisis and surplus regarding prison population and the reconstruction of the state. The crisis, being of social matter, is the actuality of imprisonment, who is being imprisoned, and historical content relating to potential reasons correlating with their imprisonment. Prison, masking as a solution for social crises among a population, has caused and continues to cause a new state, a state that she refers to as a “prison industrial complex,” (p. 178). This solution, un-coincidentally, and simultaneously rids problems associated with minorities, domestic enemies, minorities, and anyone causing civil disorder, making the state feel out of control.

“Objectively, crises are neither bad nor good, but crises do indicate inevitable change, the outcome of which is determined through struggle. Struggle, like crisis, is a politically neutral word: in this scenario, everyone struggles because they have no alternative,” (p. 178). The significance within this text, relating to prison population, is this idea that struggle is inevitable due to inexistence of an alternative. This idea, however, seems inaccurate, considering that historical events that have contributed to many particular people’s struggles, and some people’s advantages. For example, after the Great Depression, there was a heavy diminishing of work for a lot of employees, and yet, the hierarchy of the structured society still held up. This means, people in power and wealth, considerably higher classes, remained in superior classes, while the lower classes, continued to struggle within that status. Another example, emphasizing on the class issue in a hierarchy, African Americans and Latinos, who, still today, make up the majority of lower class statuses, make up the majority percentage and surplus of people in prison.

Now, without ignoring the racial factors, referring to Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” it is stated that there are more African Americans recorded in prison in the U.S, than there have been slaves. There’s obvious controversy that this is a race issue, and it very well might be, but it goes deeper than that when the actual structure of a society is coercing Social Darwinism. The need for survival, especially considering the economic instability that ultimately limits the access and opportunity for some to educate themselves, progress, and better themselves, contributes to illegal ways of earning compensation. To assume that everyone struggles because there are no alternatives, neutrally, is an understatement.

 
Prison, which is a huge contributor to Capitalist economies, is a way to continue a flow of currency when other markets and contributors fall or downsize. “Alternatively, all prisoners might well be required to work in the public sector, both to pay their own costs and to make profit for the state, as was the case in prisons of the US South starting at the turn of the twentieth century,” (p. 186). Referring to publicly owned prisons and reconstructions, prisoners forced to work can be one solution to society’s tax struggle. This surplus labor tax, as Gilmore calls it, or new way of industrialization to preserve the economy, can be well connected to former slavery, forcing predominantly colored, caged people to work for little to nothing. The very foundation of prisons depict a strong aligning with racism and exploitation – and is clearly being used as an alternative plan for restricting and improving the state’s political and economic standing, as opposed to being concerned of the welfare of citizens due to actual crime and danger.

The surplus that Gilmore is referring to are the surplus of people mostly poor people of color that were left unemployed due to economic recession, surplus of land that was left unused due agribusiness and the industrialization of farming and the increased investment in high tech military industries resulted in large groups of people being unemployed. For those in government they understood that warfare spending produced wealth. This in turn created a social crisis where people  were fighting for social welfare rights because they were deliberately excluded which created various forms of activism and in turn created a moral panic which included civil disorder, political alliances among organizations. In order to cure society of the social crises ( people of color out of control, idle youth in the streets, and women and children without husbands and fathers) the state began to incarcerate large numbers of African American and Latinos. The prison system is the answer to the social crisis and deviant behavior.

Gilmore also explains that structural changes to employment opportunities  could also be another reason for prison expansion in California. These structural changes forced large groups of people to find other ways to support themselves and generate income. Many people resorted to property crimes or drug dealing and those convicted of such crimes made up a large number of the prison population because even laws changes which affected how a person would be charged and how long their sentence would be. People would not have resorted to crime had they not been forced out of work and if the social programs and resources were still available to them.

Media, policies and government were also influential in creating the social or moral crisis. The use of such terms as “law and order” and safety and crime  were used to justify the building of so many prisons in a short  period. Society was more concerned with crime rates and drugs than they were about unemployment and inflation. Society continued to worry about crime and safety even though crime rates were down.

The crisis was not necessarily economic the crisis seemed to be people especially those of color wanted fair treatment and employment. The surplus consisted of finance capital, land, labor (people) and sate capacity.

Crisis is usually what happens when something in society, ( people, land, buildings) becomes surplus or more than what was expected or needed and “society” decides that it should do something about it. In California the prison system is the answer to the crises: Land was made a surplus because of agribusiness (industrial farming), finance capital was made surplus by California’s budget and tax laws and the people in the urban areas were made surplus by uneven development, structural changes to employment opportunities and racism.

In this reading immediately Gilmore points out how crime was ran and influenced by minorities reeking havoc on society, which I felt was somewhat true but really unfair to say. Gilmore expresses that civil disorder has created a moral panic. The U.S has time and time again proven to be in a crisis state. Her perception of ” crisis” is that it is never bad or good but that its purpose if to influence change due to a struggle. She observes that people only struggle because they have to. Gilmore goes on to talk about the depression which was a depression which was a struggle, crisis forced people to want something better for themselves and to want something different for their lives. This is when many people started to move the suburbs out of the city. Gilmore also talks about how prisoners sought out reform not only for better living conditions but the way the sentencing is which was very interesting to be because they were getting sentenced to 1 year to life which by todays standards is crazy. instead of the state changing or improving the conditions of prisons they just wanted to create more prisons, mega prisons. instead of using the new prisons to house some of the population who were in over crowded prisons they put all new offenders into these prisons. The voters who voted for the prison project were persuaded that Crime was the countries problem and the prison was the answer. Prison was supposed to “fix” the nations crisis. The people who voted for the prison project were the same people who received major tax breaks and had secure housing so they could really careless about who was effected by a prison being built in their state. This is not unlike the poitical scene today in which people in power vote for things that will greatly  negatively effect many people but will positively effect the voter exclusively. Prison is big business, both for the land owners and for the state in general which is what the voters used as a defense. At first in the cities where the prisons were expected to be built the idea was rejected but after they were persuaded that prisons would be a recession proof endeavor and that it would improve local development they jumped onboard with the idea this is just another way that prison was seen a the “fix it ” solution.

Due Sunday, March 26th, by midnight. Word count: 400 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. If you paraphrase, make sure to include the proper citation.

In her work, Ruth Wilson Gilmore argues that the expanding prison population should be connected to a restructuring of the state. In your own words, explain the “crisis” and “surplus” that Gilmore joins to the prison population in the U.S. (of the more than 2 million people living in prisons in 1999).