Crime at Work: The Social Construction of Amateur Property Theft

Abstract

We argue that the theft of goods from work and their subsequent resale might usefully be considered in a social anthropological frame: as the transferring of goods from our economy's dominant market exchange sphere to what we call the illegal amateur trading sphere.

We show that pecuniary reward is alien to the amateur sphere and that a wide range of social features which belie normal market principles characterize the transactions. These features `personalize' relationships and `dematerialize' transactions which become part of a flow in the relationships involved.

Exchange relationships in non-individual societies, are easier to understand because they have several clear spheres of exchange each with institutional forms, moral values and vocabularies. But understanding these relationships in our society is obscured because of the apparent dominance of the market exchange sphere. The natural insulation between different spheres is breached by general purpose currency—money—and market terms pervade all forms of transaction. This fails to emphasize the social dimension and as a result explanations of non-market exchange in our society are described as motivated for economic benefit.

When legal authority, police, security or courts—all extraneous to the amateur sphere—become involved, they `rematerialize' transactions and `depersonalize' relationships completing a reconversion from the amateur sphere back to the market exchange sphere. This process is possible because i) the social availability of a general language of retrospective description only acknowledges economically rational interpretations 2) the linguistic reconstruction of events occurs in contexts alien to the interaction.

Serious problems arise in both criminal processing and control when these are framed in market exchange terms and applied to the an ateur trading sphere. To avoid these problems we propose building on the normative controls typically found at work which limit categories and amounts and institutionalizing these through workplace courts.