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Relative deprivation refers to inequality: the idea that people are deprived (materially or in other ways) compared with others in society. Left realists suggest that this, alongside marginalisation and subcultures, is a significant cause of crime. It differs from a more traditional Marxist view that poverty (and therefore capitalism) causes crime because they argue that people are richer today than they were in the 1930s, and yet crime is much higher now. The difference is not that people are poorer, but that they live in close proximity with people who are much richer.