Practical and Theoretical Aspects of the Question of Control

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that various forms of proactive and reactive control of undesirable and harmful phenomena cannot be considered problematic solely because of their ineffectiveness or unjustness, or because of the fact that they reproduce hierarchical structures of domination, exploitation and oppression, based on class, gender or other inequalities. The key problem is as follows: actual social formations are not able to autonomously control their own destinies. Instead, they allow control by exterior, objective, quasi-natural "economic laws", generated regularly by market competition. The first part of the text highlights the question of control regarding dominant webs of meaning, including conceptions of good and bad, being of particular importance also for criminology for they determine the normative borders of its scientific "objects". The second and central section deals with state, self-governing, and market mechanisms of social control within the Yugoslav social, political and economic system, and in the context of post-socialist restauration of capitalism. The last section refers to the social control of culturally unacceptable human motivations, particularly legally forbidden ways of satisfying individual desires.