Source: (2012) Fundamina. 18(2):77-107.
…the argument for restorative justice relies on history. This essay
will attempt to evaluate this argument in terms of the materialist conception of history,
as demarcated by the governing concepts and methodological resources of classical
Marxism. It is an axiom of historical materialism that material production determines
mental production. There is always an objective basis, sometimes patent, often latent,
of our thought products. The concepts which the human mind invents are invariably
responses to historically specific material conditions.” The analysis of concepts must
proceed, therefore, from the material conditions in which they were created and
elaborated. Thus the aim of this essay is to map the history of the concept of restorative
justice in relation to this basic premise of historical materialism.(excerpt)
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