Willem Adriaan Bonger

Willem Adriaan Bonger (born September 6, 1876 in Amsterdam ; † May 15, 1940 ibid) was a Dutch criminologist and sociologist . He is considered an early Marxist criminologist and became the first professor of sociology and criminology in the Netherlands in 1922.

Life

Bonger came from a middle-class , culturally interested family. His father Hendrik worked in an insurance company in Amsterdam and was only able to enable him, the youngest of ten children, to study at university. Willems older brother Andries was friends with the brothers Theo and Vincent van Gogh and with the painter Odilon Redon , his sister Johanna was married to Theo van Gogh.

Willem Bonger attended the Barlaeus Gymnasium in Amsterdam and began studying law at the University of Amsterdam in 1895 , where he heard, among other things, criminal law from GA van Hamel . He became involved in the Amsterdam Student Corps and joined the CLIO brotherhood, in which many students at the time were interested in socialism . After the parliamentary elections in 1897, Bonger joined the social democratic SDAP and was particularly active in the socialist reading society .

In 1900, Bonger took part in a writing competition advertised by the University of Amsterdam. The task was to analyze and criticize the literature dealing with the influence of economic factors on crime . Joseph van Kan won the gold medal . Bonger received an honorable mention and extended his lines to his dissertation criminalité et économiques conditions with which he at van Hamel 1905 doctorate . He then joined the Brak en Mees insurance company , where his father also worked , as an authorized signatory . At the same time he continued his university studies, among others with the ethnologist and sociographer S. R. Steinmetz . He also published in various magazines such as De Kroniek , Tijdschrift voor Strafrecht , Die Neue Zeit , Het Volk and De Nieuwe Tijd .

In 1916, Bonger became editor of De Socialist Gids magazine , a position he held until 1938. He represented a reformist intellectualism and pursued a parliamentary course of social democracy, which was characterized by a cautious approach to the bourgeois parties. Together with Emanuel Boekman and Jan Goudriaan, Bonger played a key role in the reorientation of the SDAP, which gave up pacifist positions. In his book Problems of Democracy. Een sociologische en psychologische studie (1934) he warned of autocratic tendencies and expressed his conviction that democracy could also be defended with arms.

In 1922 Bonger was appointed professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Amsterdam. In 1936 he was one of the founders of the Nederlandse Sociologische Vereniging and served as its president until 1940.

Bonger belonged to the Comité van waakzaamheid , which was active against National Socialism. After the German invasion of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, Bonger saw no future for himself. He considered an escape spineless; Given his advanced age, he did not dare to play a role in the Dutch resistance. The day after the Dutch surrender, he and his wife committed suicide.

plant

With his dissertation, which was also translated into English in 1916, Bonger made a name for himself as one of the first Marxist criminologists. In his reception of Karl Marx , influenced by Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky , Bonger emphasized the unequal distribution of power between sexes and classes in capitalist society. He emphasized that the classification of certain behaviors as criminal does not depend on their moral character, but on their relationship to the prevailing socio-economic order. Based on Kautsky's concept of altruism , Bonger saw in capitalism a strengthening of egoism, which weakens people's morality and promotes certain forms of crime, especially among the socially weak.

In other works, Bonger dealt with the influence of religion on crime and the relationship between race and crime. In 1913 he presented Geloof en misdaad , in which he critically dealt with the claim that secularization would lead to more crime. He also campaigned for the decriminalization of abortion and homosexuality . He had already sharply criticized Cesare Lombroso's criminal anthropology and later also dealt critically with the racial theory of National Socialism . In 1935 he sharply opposed tendencies to adapt elements of the National Socialist criminal law in the Netherlands. In 1939 he published Ras en misdaad ( Race and Crime ), in which he explained the statistically increased crime of blacks with environmental influences.

Fonts

• Criminalité et conditions économiques. GP Tierie, Amsterdam 1905.
  • english transl. by Henry P. Horton: Criminality and economic conditions. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston 1916.
• Marxisme en revisionisme. Some psychological and sociological opmerkingen. , Amsterdam 1910.
• Geloof en misdaad. A criminological study. Brill, Leiden 1913.
• De Oorlog en de schuldvraag. 'Ontwikkeling', Amsterdam 1917.
• Evolutie en revolutie. "Ontwikkeling", Amsterdam 1919.
• Geen illusionisme maar realisme. , Amsterdam 1919.
• Over de evolution of morality. Speech uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het hoogleeraarsambt aan de Gemeentelijke Universiteit te Amsterdam on 12 June 1922. NV Boekhandel en Uitgevers-Maatschappij, Amsterdam 1922?
• Vermogen en inkomen in Nederland gedurende den oorlogstijd (1913-1920). Ontwikkeling, Amsterdam 1923.
• De onvolwaardige labor force in hair sociological betekenis. , Amsterdam 1928.
• De oorlog as sociologically absurd. De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam 1930.
• Inleiding Tot de Criminologie. De Erven F. Bohn, Haarlem 1932.
• Technical obstacles van de democratie. , Amsterdam 1933.
• Problems of democracy. A sociological and psychological study. Noordhoff, Groningen [etc.] 1934.
• Ras en misdaad. Tjeenk Willink & zoon, Haarlem 1939.
• Promises written. De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam 1950.
• Johan Winkler and Joris in 't Veld: "Lessen uit de oorlogscrisis van september 1938". Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam 1938.

literature

• BC van Houten, Bonger, Willem Adriaan , in: Wilhelm Bernsdorf / Horst Knospe (eds.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon , Vol. 1, Enke, Stuttgart ² 1980, p. 48.
• Entry in the Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland (Dutch)
• René van Swaaningen: Critical Criminology. Visions from Europe. SAGE, London [u. a.] 1997, ISBN 0761951458 .
• Willem Adriaan Bonger , at Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbewegung in Nederland (BWSA)