Chapter 1: Lynch, M.J., & Stretesky, P. (1998). Marxism and social justice: Thinking about social justice, eclipsing criminal justice.
The class-based Marxist radical social critique holds that the structures of society and the material conditions of existence block most people from accessing social goods, which are owned by the top social classes that own resources and means of production. Both rich (capitalists) and poor (workers) are alienated, the former because they feel superior and the latter because their options are so limited. The gap between rich and poor is the norm but is unjust, and the problem is amplified where oppression is experienced by minority constituencies. Social justice requires radical transformation of society so as to equalize access to social goods.
The authors cite Marx's view that workers become so indignant that they unite to seize some control over their economic lives: via regulation of corporate finance and work rules; via remedies such as affirmative action that bridge the gap between privilege and oppression; via fair application of laws to all classes, more equal distribution of social goods, and proactive attempts to eliminate poverty and the social envy that comes with it and that can induce crime.
Chapter 2: Jurick, N. C. (1998). Socialist feminism, criminology, and social justice.
While Jurick acknowledges that socialist feminist theory initially adopted the Marxist idea that class warfare and capitalist oppression of the masses explained social injustice, she explains that the women's liberation movement led feminist theorists to the view that patriarchy, or engendered inequality, did not so much trump class-based oppression as the fundamental category of social theory but rather was institutionalized because of prevailing social arrangements. With regard to women and criminology, feminist theorists responded to research positing that women's liberation had increased female crimina...