tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3534970434503513102.post2725755858498404896..comments2023-09-21T04:52:34.034-04:00Comments on Fight Entropy: What's causing the English riots?solhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00936469103707728475noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3534970434503513102.post-46451207144469693782011-08-10T19:11:57.884-04:002011-08-10T19:11:57.884-04:00An old and much-respected friend pointed me to a r...An old and much-respected friend pointed me to a representative counter-story op-ed by The Australian's Brendan O'Neill, here: <br />http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/less-political-rebellion-more-mollycoddled-mob/story-e6frg6zo-1226111939883<br /><br />with the comment "People are turning to violence after the state lowers their subsidies. That is the objective fact." Since I took the time to write him a reply, and since O'Neill's viewpoint is fairly widely espoused, I thought I'd post it in its entirety here: <br /><br />Any explanation of violent action that rests on large numbers of people choosing unemployment over viable employment opportunities (which is what "subsidized vs. those that work" framing implies) is verifiably flawed. The unemployed are measurably less happy (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2234639) and less healthy (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2136531) and they know it (see paragraph 2: http://www.slate.com/id/2155111/). Saying that rioters riot because they're just trying to hold onto their government benefits dehumanizes their choices. And I don't mean that in some abstract "let's talk about our feelings" way, I mean it as a very literally-minded economist. It implies that the poor value their leisure time at such astronomical rates and undervalue (or even less believably, don't know) the health and happiness costs of being unemployed to such an extent that they will engage in violence to stay in their "privileged" position of being cared for by the welfare state. It makes being poor sound rather enviable, which as anyone who's ever talked with poor people about being poor (much less looked at actual data) knows is false.<br /><br />I think you're right that fear of cuts to the social safety net is one of the factors contributing to people's decision to riot. That said, pointing that out without simultaneously pointing out how structural unemployment drives the issue hides a very important half of the story. Moreover, it conveniently hides the half of the story that would make the case for non-punitive government policy intervention, i.e., focusing on creating jobs and improving the lot of the poor. But that would fundamentally be a form of redistribution, which is why someone like O'Neill would rather use a line of logic that rests on the assumption that the poor are simply lazy.<br /><br />I should note, lastly, that this isn't some armchair liberal view that ignores the thuggishness of the rioters; anyone following the news has seen quotes like "We're not all gathering together for a cause, we're running down Foot Locker" right along side the quotes about being disaffected and mothers stealing baby formula. But the point is that thuggishness and property crime cannot be disentangled from bad living conditions, especially unemployment (empirically: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/jlecono44&div=16&id=&page=), and saying something like "poor people need to just suck it up, start working for real, and stop acting like scoundrels" is akin to English viceroys identifying unrest in the colonies as merely the product of violent and ungrateful natives who don't understand how much better they are under British rule. It ignores what people's actions are actually revealing about their preferences and, as such, provides no meaningful way of dealing with the problem in the long run. And we know, to stretch the colonial British analogy, how well that attitude works in the long run.Jesse Anttila-Hugheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02957313306576759914noreply@blogger.com