Tombs - Social Protection after the Crisis

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Policy Press University of Bristol 1-9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK Tel +44 (0)117 954 5940 e-mail

North American office: Policy Press c/o The University of Chicago Press 1427 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA t: +1 773 702 7700 f: +1 773-702-9756

Policy Press 2016

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 978-1-4473-1375-5 Hardcover
ISBN 978-1-4473-2148-4 ePub
ISBN 978-1-4473-2149-1 Mobi

The right of Steve Tombs to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press.

The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication.

Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality.

Cover design by Soapbox Design
Front cover images: iStockphoto

Readers Guide
This book has been optimised for PDA.
Tables may have been presented to accommodate this devices limitations.
Image presentation is limited by this devices limitations.

Steve Tombs is Professor of Criminology at the Open University, UK. He has a long-standing interest in the incidence, nature and regulation of corporate crime and harm. His publications include The corporate criminal (Routledge, 2015), Regulatory surrender: Death, injury and the non-enforcement of law (Institute of Employment Rights, 2010), A crisis of enforcement: The decriminalisation of death and injury at work (Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2008) and Safety crimes (Willan, 2007) (all co-authored with Dave Whyte); Corporate crime (Longman, 1999) with Gary Slapper, and Toxic capitalism (Ashgate, 1998, Canadian Scholars Press, 1999) with Frank Pearce. He co-edited State, power, crime (Sage, 2009), Beyond criminology? (Pluto Press, 2004), Criminal obsessions (Crime and Society Foundation, 2005, 2008), Unmasking the crimes of the powerful: Scrutinising states and corporations (Peter Lang, 2003) and Risk, management and society (Kluwer-Nijhoff, 2000). He works closely with the Hazards movement in the UK, and is a trustee and board member of Inquest.

This book is a new venture for me my first attempt at a sole-authored monograph. I have, however, been publishing for over 30 years with a diverse group of co-authors and co-editors. Having joint names on any piece of writing is an honest acknowledgement of the fact that none of us autonomously produces nor can claim sole ownership of our ideas, nor how we translate them into words. This book owes something to all of those with whom I have been lucky to work over the years.

Within and beyond those co-authors, however, are people who deserve special mention. These include colleagues, comrades and dear friends; and I am privileged to be able to say that each of these terms could apply to many of the individuals whose names I list here. As I have had a strict rule during my career of publishing by alphabet only, so I want to acknowledge the contributions to my life and to my work of the following, by the same convention:

Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi, Grietje Baars, Andrea Beckmann, Cad and folk at the Institute for Employment Rights, Gregg Barak, Steven Bittle, Jon Burnett, Bree Carlton, Kit Carson, John Clarke, Roy Coleman, Deb Coles and all those who worked at the CCA , Linda Cooke, Deb Drake, Vicky Canning, Vickie Cooper, the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, Ross Fergusson, Samantha Fletcher, Richard Garside and all at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Pete Gill, Harry Glasbeek, Penny Green, Lynn Hancock, Paddy Hillyard, Hilda, John, Rory, and all associated with the Hazards movement, Ritchie Hunter, Phil James, Janet Jamieson, Dave Jones, Ron Kramer, Kris Lasslett, Linzi, Dawn and Paul and others all of the other inspirational campaigners of Families Against Corporate Killers, Jo Mack, Ray Michalowski, Gerry Mooney, Simon Pemberton, Paddy Rawlinson, Susanne Soederberg, Laureen Snider, Andre Spicer, Colin Sumner, Colin Toogood and the Bhopal Medical Appeal, Louise Westmarland and Joe Yates.

Frank Pearce, Joe Sim and David Whyte are among my closest friends. Its a privilege to be able to write that sentence. Its been a pleasure and inspiration to have worked alongside them over many years; as teachers, researchers, and as people, I am genuinely in awe of each of them.

My thanks go to all at Policy Press who have worked on and borne with this project notably, Laura Greaves, Victoria Pittman, Rebecca Tomlinson and Laura Vickers. And to Anne Grundy, and more generally the Leverhulme Trust, for the financial (and other) support which made this possible, via a research fellowship, RF-2011-173.

I dedicate this book to my brother Dave, along with Christine, Matt and Ryan. They know why.

Capitalist Society faces a dilemma, either an advance to socialism or a reversion to barbarism. (Rosa Luxemburg, 1916, The Junius Pamphlet , in Waters, 1970, 269)

In August 1914, the German SPD the great shining jewel of the Second International (Waters, 1970, 257) voted in favour of funding Germanys participation in the great imperialist war of 191418. For Rosa Luxemburg, and other revolutionary socialists, it marked the end of parliamentary social democracy. For her opposition both to the war itself and to the SPD for supporting the war, Rosa Luxemburg was imprisoned. From her cell, she wrote the pamphlet, The Crisis of German Social Democracy , widely known as The Junius Pamphlet . Probably mis-quoting Engels, she marked this watershed as one of a descent into barbarism or a turn to socialism.