I appreciate what Naomi Kritzer wrote below. As to the present question, looting, aside from being unjust to business owners who never told any police officer to asphyxiate an alleged minor criminal, is otherwise destructive. Granted, I can see people being quite rightly infuriated when yet another black man is murdered by police, and peaceful protests are ignored, but speaking of the ethics of looting, what are the consequences likely to be?
If a store in a minority neighborhood is looted and burned, would you rebuild it? The answer may be no, in which case the people of that neighborhood will then have to go an extra distance, and maybe pay bus or cab fare, to buy what they need. Or if the store is rebuilt, the merchandise may be sold at a risk premium, to cover the danger of periodic riots destroying the place, and the cost of extra security measures. The looters, whatever their motives, are in effect imposing a tax on the poor.
Secondly, when people see rioting and looting on TV, and feel threatened, how are many of them going to react? They’re likely to support hiring more cops, and cracking down on the violent hoodlums — which sometimes involves cracking down on those guilty of trivial offenses, or of walking on the sidewalk while black.
Somehow, we need to make crime reasonably dangerous for real criminals, and to include grossly abusive policemen in the real criminals whose behavior will not be tolerated. We need to break the feedback of crime, oppressive policing, and periodic rioting.
no subject
If a store in a minority neighborhood is looted and burned, would you rebuild it? The answer may be no, in which case the people of that neighborhood will then have to go an extra distance, and maybe pay bus or cab fare, to buy what they need. Or if the store is rebuilt, the merchandise may be sold at a risk premium, to cover the danger of periodic riots destroying the place, and the cost of extra security measures. The looters, whatever their motives, are in effect imposing a tax on the poor.
Secondly, when people see rioting and looting on TV, and feel threatened, how are many of them going to react? They’re likely to support hiring more cops, and cracking down on the violent hoodlums — which sometimes involves cracking down on those guilty of trivial offenses, or of walking on the sidewalk while black.
Somehow, we need to make crime reasonably dangerous for real criminals, and to include grossly abusive policemen in the real criminals whose behavior will not be tolerated. We need to break the feedback of crime, oppressive policing, and periodic rioting.