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Labeling and Marxist scholars have traditionally maintained an uneasy alliance with one another. There is much that groups them together: while each had their precursors, we see both groups develop into movements in the 1960's and 1970's, in part a response to the conflictual politics of their times. Both presented themselves as an alternative to structural-functionalist criminological theory, and both problematized the production and differential application of criminal law, employing "power" as a central concept. Finally, each adopted a stance of empathy or solidarity with their subjects.
Yet the two groups have had serious differences. Labeling scholars have focused on those groups whom society has defined as "deviant," seeking to explain their "normality." Drawing on symbolic interactionism, they have explored the processes by which deviant groups have negotiated social stigma and developed subcultures, emphasizing the activities of "moral entrepreneurs" in rule-making. In contrast, Marxist theorists have focused on those corporate and governmental bodies which are not defined as criminal, have focused more systematically on the relationship between law, punishment, and social structure, and have sought not to return to the labeling theorists' more "pluralist" vision of society, but—driven by their stance of praxis—to advance society to a more equitable social structure. Finally, with an epistemology which holds both individualities and intellectual scholarship to be constitutive of underlying material conditions and class conflict, Marxist theorists have tended to be very suspicious of labeling theorists as sustaining the status quo, thereby co-opting criminology's critical potential.
In this overview we reconstruct (B) labeling theory and (C) Marxist scholarship with regard to their epistemological, theoretical, and substantive concerns, and (D) provide a critical analysis of their similarities and differences. We then turn (E) to a broader analysis of the role of "social response" in the criminological tradition, emphasizing its continuities with labeling and Marxist concerns.