The author argues that these theoretical perspectives have become prominent because the etiological approaches have not produced satisfactory answers. For advocates of the labeling perspective, criminality is less a matter of law- violating activity than a status negotiated between individual and society. Power generally determines the upper hand in such negotiations. The resultant stigma attached to the labeled individual may have any number of consequences, not the least of which is the individual's movement into deviant activity as he/she adjusts conceptions of self and role in response to the label. Critical criminology more broadly examines the issue of social order with the underlying assumption that social relations reflect the many dimensions of the economic structure of society. Criminal activity in Western societies must be viewed as a structure. Ultimately, critical criminologists have attacked traditional criminology itself for asking the wrong questions, specifically for focusing on etiological problems and thus distracting attention from the conflicts that are the real basis of law and law violation.