White-Collar Crime and Social Structure

The major theoretical significance of white-collar crime lies in its ambiguity as simultaneously crime and not crime. This is symptomatic of a diversity of status systems peculiar to the social structure. Research can begin with the ambivalent attitudes of individuals to white-collar offenses and to the laws against them. A Norwegian study revaled in businessmen a strikingly ambivalent attitude to price control and rationing and to violations of the regulations. Another study showed ambivalent attitudes on labor legislation among legislators. The function of law is to preserve peace in the face of these conflicts.