Revisiting white collar criminality from a social harm perspective

Abstract

Social harm approach seems to be the only promising proposal to deal with white collar crimes. By overwhelming the “crime – schema” an end is straightly put to a long lasting “war” of the white-collar crime criminologists, arguing since the late of ‘40s whether white collar crime is a crime or not, while the harmful results from white collar activities follow an uncontrollable trajectory. A second “end” is destined for the stalemate that critical criminology is remained locked since the deconstruction of crime. The critical arguments about the systemic origins of the crimes of powerful loose not only faith but also validity when the proclaiming solutions end up at the same tools and structures with their very cause. Under this prism, social harm approach does not represent the “anti-paradigm” of critical criminology but a new step beyond. White collar crime may be used as a typical example of the allegation that crime lacks any ontological substance while the reality of its social harms may function as stable basis even for seemingly utopian goals.