[Marxism] Prison guards (was: Police unions etc.)

[Sayan Bhattacharyya]

On 8/2/07, Jscotlive at aol.com <Jscotlive at aol.com> wrote:


> It is also doctrinaire not to differentiate between a low wage occupation
> that doesn't involve repressing the poor and the working class on behalf of the
> ruling class, consciously or unconsciously, and one that does. Putting food
> on  the table as an excuse for police officers and prison guards sounds eerily
> reminiscent of the excuse offered by Nazi concentration camp guards at the
> end  of the Second World War that they were only obeying orders.

I'm not sure the comparison is valid. All concentration camp victims
were innocent. However, we do need police to nab those who run red
lights or drive drunk, for example. And there *are* sociopaths who
commit crimes and should be in prison. So, of the inmates in bourgeois
prisons, a significant percentage *should* in fact be there (and would
need to be guarded).