Social murder (German: sozialer Mord) is a concept used to describe an unnatural death that purportedly occurs due to social, political, or economic oppression.
The phrase was coined by Friedrich Engels in his 1845 work The Condition of the Working-Class in England. He wrote, "the class which at present holds social and political control" (i.e. the bourgeoisie) "places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death". According to Engels, this type of death in a different category to murder and manslaughter committed by individuals against one another, as social murder explicitly was committed by the political and social elite against the poorest in society.
When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when...