Rioting for Fun and Profit

by John T. Bennett (September 2011)

The immorality of ghetto culture combines with the false compassion of liberal elites to create lower class people with incredibly poor character.

glorify and emulate lower class ghetto culture, a bizarre and self-destructive phenomenon that we in America can recognize. With that toxic combination of cultural factors, poverty seems rather unconvincing as an explanation for riots. When the welfare state has given generations of Britons everything they need to subsist, economic deprivation can’t possibly play a significant role in these riots.

Philadelphia’s Mayor Michael Nutter said of the flash mobs here in the U.S.

Banfield wrote about the race riots in America which exploded in urban areas during the 1960s. Even though they took place in an era of widespread racism and social tension, Banfield presented evidence that the riots of that period were often driven mainly by materialism, with no political motive whatsoever. His analysis was supported by copious evidence, and it matches with the reality that most of us live- as opposed to the ruminations of sheltered academics and comfortable liberals.

PlayStations or computer games. An English social worker has said that “In Britain we have no real punitive measures… There’s loads of carrot and absolutely no stick. You need a mix of both.” But Nanny State doesn’t use a stick. When Nanny State takes over the function of law enforcement, her offspring will predictably be out of control.

Gautam Malkani notes that this generation’s “digitally reduced attention spans have also contributed to a culture of superficial ‘bling.’” The bling culture, combined with impulsiveness and entitlement, produces a feral instinct for robbery.

neglect and exclusion of many vulnerable, disaffected young people who are acting out violently and irresponsibly.” What Sennett fails to realize is that those young people reject the mainstream values of self-control and hard work. They’re not being excluded by anyone or any social system; they’re refusing to be included.

deprivation implies that there is an external force making the decision to deprive groups of people. It would be more accurate to say that the rioters were self-deprived. They lack material things because they won’t work, and they won’t work because they have poor character.

Young men from all backgrounds will raise a ruckus, as they have always done. The only question is what they will break and whether anyone will be hurt in the process. The answer to those questions has everything to do with culture, and almost nothing to do with poverty or inequality. On that point, if you want a vivid illustration of the power of culture, contrast the Japanese response to the tsunami with the reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the London riots.

Nathan Glazer, The Limits of Social Policy 15 (1988)

Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City Revisited (1974)

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