Popular illegality formed a continuum running from tolerated evasion to outright crime

Evidence

This necessary illegality, of which every social stratum bore within itself specific forms, was caught up in a series of paradoxes. In its lower regions, it was identified with criminality, from which it was difficult to distinguish it juridically, if not morally: from fiscal illegality to customs illegality, to smuggling, to looting, to the armed struggle against the government’s taxation agents, then against the soldiers themselves and, finally, to rebellion, there was a continuity, in which it was difficult to mark the frontiers; or, again, vagabondage (severely punished according to the terms of ordinances that were never implemented) with the pillage, aggravated theft, even murder that went with it, provided a welcome environment to the unemployed, to workers who had left their employers in irregular circumstances, to domestic servants who had some reason to flee their masters, to ill-treated apprentices, to deserting soldiers, to all those who wished to escape the press-gang. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 139

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: New crime literature dispossessed common people of their criminal glory — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 124; Rising wealth raises tolerance for violence but intolerance for property crime — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 131; Tolerated illegality was a structural condition of Ancien Régime society — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 138 (+8 more)

Related

• Tolerated illegality was a structural condition of Ancien Régime society (similarity 0.90)
• Eighteenth-century popular illegality shifted from attacking rights to attacking property (similarity 0.86)
• Organized ordinary masses out-crime professional criminals under totalitarian rule (similarity 0.85)
• Bourgeois economic growth depended on tolerated popular illegalities (similarity 0.84)
• Capitalism recast tolerated popular customs as criminal property theft (similarity 0.84)
• Ambivalence toward criminals marked the popular attitude to illegality (similarity 0.83)
• Elite circles reframe as fashionable vice what the masses punish as crime. (similarity 0.82)
• Rising wealth raises tolerance for violence but intolerance for property crime (similarity 0.81)
• New crime literature dispossessed common people of their criminal glory (similarity 0.81)
• Poorer classes would revolt to defend their tolerated illegalities (similarity 0.81)
• Enclosing delinquency in a supervised group neutralizes broader popular illegality (similarity 0.79)
• Society tolerated Jews by tolerating crime, not by revising its prejudice (similarity 0.78)
• The law prosecuted lower-class crime while sparing refined upper-class spoliation (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Ambivalence toward criminals marked the popular attitude to illegality #expands (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 139
• Capitalism recast tolerated popular customs as criminal property theft #complicates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 143