The London Hanged Book

Peter Linebaugh explores the links between Capital Punishment and the rise of wage labour and a form of global capitalism in the 18th Century with this magisterial book. Let me be frank, this is not an easy read, and provided you can sit through the academic prose, you will find this book to be a treasure trove of nuggets of great information.

As someone who studied criminal law to a Masters level, this history of crime (although it is arguable if the book is this) was one that had me riveted from start to finish. Linebaugh starts with the rise of finance capitalism in 1690 onwards. The start of the 18th Century also saw the rise of Capital Punishment being doled out for crimes against property. Thus was born the edifice of State Terror (that Linebaugh calls the Thanatocracy) that symbolised the awesome power of the sovereign. The hanging tree, or gibbet scaffold was a place that was designed to instill terrors in to the hearts of those who would break the laws of the sovereign, and in the aftermath of the Restoration, this meant the King.

Linebaugh exposes how the bulk of the London Hanged were apprentices, especially within trades such as food and drink, weaving and tailoring. These apprentices were drawn into London by the rise of wage labour, but with the rise of Wealth (and thus creation of Poverty), they were easily immiserated. As the customary forms of remuneration (such as 'chips' of wood for shipbuilders) were lost, the plight of the poor became more and more untenable, and with it rose 'crime'.

Indeed, the bulk of the hanged were hanged for crimes against property, designed to alleviate the poverty being wrought by enclosure and factory. Sadly, women play a peripheral role in Linebaugh's tome, but they are present on the margins, their voices softly sighing through the pages. What is evident, throughout this book, is how the notion of crime went from detection to prevention, and how customary rights to part of the fruits of labour were replaced with notions of 'moral fortitude' and payment in lieu. Linebaugh presents a wonderful history of the roles of Patrick Colquhoun (the father of police), and the Bentham brothers' roles in seeking to create the primacy of the wage (or in Marxist terms, the alienation of labourer from product).

Overall, this is a great and well researched piece of history, showing how migration to the City, colonial repression, the ideology of the "free market" and the moral sensibilities of the propertied classes combined to provide technical, economic and legal/moralistic arguments to ensure that as the forces of Capitalism extended their tentacles, those tentacles were placed firmly around the necks of the working classes.