The London Riots...

[ASL Veteran]

It's far from the only example.

I don't know anything about this incident of an undercover police officer causing mayhem as a faux anarchist. I'm sure a link can be produced, so let's just say that I accept that this happened as a fact. What relevance does it have to the London riots? I'm not sure what your point is here JonS. Are you implying that

1. All the looters in London are undercover police officers

2. Anarchists do not destroy property or loot, only undercover police officers posing as Anarchists do

3. Anarchists are a peaceful lot and only damage property and loot because they are oppressed or encouraged to do so by the Police.

4. Something else ....?

I'm just curious what your line of reasoning is for bringing that incident up. There is probably hours of video evidence of anarchists destroying property so your comments are a bit puzzling to me. Having said that, I don't get the impression that the London riots have anything to do with Anarchists. There may be a few in there, but it doesn't seem like a coordinated anarchist type of thing. If it were there would be things of political importance being vandalized.

One comment about "Capitalism". There was no such thing as "Capitalism" before Karl Marx came along. Yep, amazingly enough business actually happened dating all the way back to before the time of the Pharoahs and guess what? Amazingly enough business and commerce actually worked before the writings of Karl Marx appeared in the mid 1800s. That's because what some are referring to as Capitalism was just known as economic activity before Marx and was not representative of a political philosophy. "Capitalism" is just a construct of Karl Marx and it's the way business and commerce happens in a natural environment so it's impossible for 'Capitalism' to 'go down the tubes'. What we are now referring to as Capitalism even happened in the Soviet Union under Smokin' Joe Stalin .... imagine that! It was known as "The Black Market". Now some here may think that full state control of all economic activity (communism) is the way to go in order to ensure "fairness" and "equality", but I think that the history of that approach seems to have a poor track record.

[JonS]

That comment was specifically in response to Boeman's attack on Anarchists, the Black Bloc, and his reference to Toronto. I doubt that the UK police were actively involved in that way last week. Instead they seem to have been caught very flat footed. On the other hand, they same to have behaved like total boofheads in response to the initial protest, and that boofheadedness seems like it was the trigger.

But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, triggers aren't root causes. If the killing of Duggan - and especially the response to it - hadn't become a trigger, something else would have, and soon.

[costard]

One comment about "Capitalism". There was no such thing as "Capitalism" before Karl Marx came along. Yep, amazingly enough business actually happened dating all the way back to before the time of the Pharoahs and guess what? Amazingly enough business and commerce actually worked before the writings of Karl Marx appeared in the mid 1800s. That's because what some are referring to as Capitalism was just known as economic activity before Marx and was not representative of a political philosophy. "Capitalism" is just a construct of Karl Marx and it's the way business and commerce happens in a natural environment so it's impossible for 'Capitalism' to 'go down the tubes'. What we are now referring to as Capitalism even happened in the Soviet Union under Smokin' Joe Stalin .... imagine that! It was known as "The Black Market". Now some here may think that full state control of all economic activity (communism) is the way to go in order to ensure "fairness" and "equality", but I think that the history of that approach seems to have a poor track record.

The Pharoahs still taxed, and I'm sure they understood the need to be somewhat equitable with the design of the taxation regime. After all, it makes no sense to tax only those people that don't have any money, nor does it make sense for the rich to argue that the expectation of "fairness" is delusion and (at the same time) complain that any taxation of their own personal wealth is unfair (indeed, their expectation that their wealth will not be wrested from their cold, dead hands flies in the face of their previous stated philosophy.) Because the rich are (loosely speaking) stupid, they are afraid; because they are afraid, they seek power. [because they are rich, they can more easily gain power.] Because they seek power, they excuse any of their behaviour that leads them to their goal. This leads them to propagandise about the level of danger inherent in being alive, they begin to believe their own propaganda, the cycle perpetuates.

ASL, the institution of checks and balances on behaviour through the establishment of a legal system enjoying the support of a populace (society) can hardly be described as communism, just as the devolution of that same legal system to the point where it only applies to some of the populace can hardly be described as capitalism. What we have is corruption, corporate and political rot eating out the foundations and substance of our society. To pretend that this is a good thing is stupidity, to state that it is the only way things could possibly work out is to surrender to a fatalism that leaves you with no stake in the future and no intellectual position to argue.

[Michael Emrys]

Well said.

Michael

[Wicky]

Elite or green??

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/9194854.Colchester_paratrooper_remanded_in_custody_on_burglary_charge_following_Manchester_riots/

[Tero]

Stealing/robbing on this scale is the norm in those neighborhoods? Really? Outrage is hypocritical? Having your store destroyed is normal? Every looted store was a corporate store? And mom and pop stores were not looted? The mom and pop stores that provide what few jobs there are in those neighborhoods? What kind of gibberish is this?

Please reread what I asked:

Percentagewise, how many of the looted businesses are privately/family owned and how may belong to nationwide/multinational chains who lose on a weekly basis more to shoplifting and inventory discrepencies than to these kinds of on-off calamities ?

There are severe economic inequalities in modern societies, of that there is no doubt. And that those wealthy and influential people who perpetrate these inequalities influence the government to make things worse for the economically disadvantaged, is also probably the case. Further that those same wealthy and well-positioned interests mostly own the media is true, so the media largely trumpets what the high-and-mighty want it to say.

But in the end, I'm not going to forgive someone for looting just because they are jobless or angry about their socio-economic situation, no matter how unfair or unjust it may be. Looters' angst may explain their negative attitude, but the decision to participate in the looting is entirely their own.

With all that in mind: I do not condone looting, I do think the looting was neither unforeseen nor unpredictable. As a good conspiracy theorists I think the people in power may even have had a plan to make things worse over time so that the rioting would ensure they could/would get laws passed enacting restrictions to human rights which they have been suitably abhored about in less developed countries (dictatorhips). Here in Finland the powers that be had a nasty wake up call when the party most noted for supporting nationalism and anti-immigration views won a land slide victory.

It is no more morally correct to put down others because they are less well off than you are, than it is for the poor to strike out violently at those who despise them.

When does such an assault become just and defendable ? When it is YOU who have lived under suppression ?

As I see it, wrong is wrong. There may be things more wrong than others, but they are still all on the wrong side of the ledger.

The problem with this "wrong" is a relative term in no way connected with tangible and measureable parameters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/17/looing-with-lights-off

[dieseltaylor]

As to the percentage of local businesses attacked and looted here in my borough the losses were almost entirely local businesses not chains. Call it 90%. My neighbour lost his shop, nine others went in the same parade and 18 flats.

However on the sense of something is not right/fair etc and why people are pissed off read this and weep - seriously:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817

Whilst they are on opposite sides of the Atlantic the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism is pretty much the same and some of the same firms are playing all around the world.

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – "Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?" No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.

That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – "18,000 ... including Madoff," as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history.

And that is just the start of an unbelievable story showing one law for the powerful and screw the rest.

[bruce90]

The knee jerk reaction of the politicians grabbed my attention. I think for a few hours/days they saw scenes that they could only have dreamed in their worse nightmares. A Britain where the population, sick to death of all the Establishments hypocracy and profiteering took to the streets and though their target this time was the rioters and looters ( with whom incidently I have no sympathy), these politicians with their heavy handed justice, were hoping to get a message across to all of us.

[Stalins Organ]

Except of course a bunch of people now feelign guity and sheepish were not in htat class at all - they were just opportunistic looters - like the girl who went out for Mcdonalds & helped herself to a TV on the way ....or the various graduates & well paid employed types appearing before the courts.....

As one correspondant wrote:

I wasn't convinced by nihilism as a reading: how can you cease to believe in law and order, a moral universe, co-operation, the purpose of existence, and yet still believe in sportswear? How can you despise culture but still want the flatscreen TV from the bookies?

The idea that it was an underclass of discontent with the establishment, disaffected youth, etc., seems to be fading away in the harsh glare of prosecution!

[JonS]

The idea that it was an underclass of discontent with the establishment' date=' disaffected youth, etc., seems to be fading away[/quote']

Ah. Of course. That would explain why riots, looting, and burning are such a common feature of or daily news fodder.

Oh, wait ...

[Tero]

The knee jerk reaction of the politicians grabbed my attention. I think for a few hours/days they saw scenes that they could only have dreamed in their worse nightmares. A Britain where the population, sick to death of all the Establishments hypocracy and profiteering took to the streets and though their target this time was the rioters and looters ( with whom incidently I have no sympathy), these politicians with their heavy handed justice, were hoping to get a message across to all of us.

IMO there was no knee-jerk reaction but a planned response to get laws passed which are directed to secure and safe guard the ruling class and corporations, NOT civil rights of the populace.

[dieseltaylor]

I disagree Tero. The reaction of Cameron is to illustrate what a wanker he is to the general public. I do not see any special laws being brought in from this and I am hopeful that people will realise that policing needs to be freer of politicians.

It also has reminded people in general that without police anarchy is not far away.

[Stalins Organ]

Ah. Of course. That would explain why riots, looting, and burning are such a common feature of or daily news fodder.

Oh, wait ...

Relevance?? :confused:

[Bigduke6]

Crowd psychology is a really interesting subject.

There is a problem with the argument "there were plenty of college students and office workers and drunk yobs among the looters, therefore, the looting was not particularly linked to to class and social inequality in Britain."

The problem is, people like this almost always are followers, not initiators. Speaking generally, they are quite law-abiding on their own, but when they find themselves in a situation where a substantial number of people around them are not obeying the laws, they decide it's okay for them to break the rules as well - usually to enrich themselves by looting.

Which is pretty much basic mob psychology. The more people in the crowd that are breaking the rules, the braver (and, as the police would say, more dangerous) the crowd becomes.

Add to this the second basic rule of mob psychology - the more the crowd outnumbers the law enforcers the braver (or, if you like, more inclined to commit crimes and/or defy authority) the crowd becomes - and the class aspect of this street violence becomes very clear.

Every one (well almost) is human, and so every one to a greater or lesser extent resents not being allowed to do whatever he/she pleases. This includes obeying the law. If the law enforcers are perceived by a sub-section of the population to be vindictive/unfair/running dogs of the elite/racist goons/what-have-you, then that sub-section is going to be more inclined to take advantage of holes in law enforcement. But not every one is inclined to take advantage to the same degree, some are really angry, others are just opportunistic, some are inherently brave or happy to seek conflict (drunk young men are especially appropriate for this) but much more are basically cowards who have always wanted to break a rule or two but have been too scared to try it for fear of retaliation by authority.

So, if the coppers are not around or if they are around but in small numbers in defensive formations, you are going to get, on average, a large number of people willing to take advantage of that a bit (the not so brave/angry ones) and grab something from a shop, and a smaller number of people willing to take advantage of that a lot (drunk or testosterone-wealthy males) who will confront the coppers and throw objects at them and if an individual law enforcer can be separated out of his defensive formation, beat him to a pulp.

This is, unsurprisingly, why police numbers increase relative to crowd size, i.e., the bigger the crowd all things being equal a larger ratio of policemen are considered necessary to keep it under control. Not all people are inherently law-abiding, and they are willing to commit "crime" to differing degrees, but the more people there are together, the more violent and crime-prone the group gets.

Shops and loot are an easy target if the crowd's overall willingness to obey law fails, and objects of authority - first and foremost a policeman - are the hard targets. Get enough people together with a critical mass of angry ones willing to start things off, and you will - unless the society itself is really inherently law-abiding - get plenty of followers to push the violence and law-breaking into a spiral.

Thus, from a law enforcement (or, as the police would say, "keeping the peace") POV, the key question is how do you control the people with a low threshold for abiding the law, the ones who are likely to break the rules at the first opportunity? Keep them down in sufficient numbers, and the masses will never follow.

If the society itself is relatively peaceful, accepting of authority and law-abiding, the task is relatively easy, you simply identify and prosecute the criminals. Japan is a terrific example, they had tsunamis and earthquakes and massive loss of life, yet for practical purposes no looting. Heck, I read yesterday the Japanese over the last six months or whatever it is turned in to authorities tens of millions of dollars of cash they found while digging through earthquake rubble. So it is safe to say that the Japanese generally consider authority legitimate and laws and their enforcement fair - which makes law enforcement there pretty damn easy compared to most places.

But - and this is the key bit - if the society is perceived as unfair by enough people, or if authority is perceived as unfair by enough people, then law enforcement is more difficult. Sometimes, a whole lot more difficult. If your job is prevent or at least keep law-breaking under control, you have to worry about not just the habitual criminals who would break laws no matter what, but the opportunistic potential criminals who will break laws if it appears enforcement is lagging.

Worse, if disgruntlement with authority is widespread enough, you have to worry about basically law-abiding people who, if among themselves will be honest and won't steal or destroy property, will certainly do just that if those acts seem to them to be sticking it to authority. If you as a law enforcer have those people going out of control then tacitly the police are out of business, they have lost control over society. Or more exactly, a critical mass of the population has abandoned the social assumptions that allow the police to keep the peace.

The people in charge can keep that from happening lots of ways - by hiring more police, by emphasizing (or even inventing) outside threats, by marginalizing a small portion of the population, by appealing to the majority's sense of patriotism, by calling out the army, by spending money to make the angry people happier and so reduce the number of people willing to participate in a street mob, etc. etc.

Appeals to the majority's sense of law and order and disassociation from the (usually poorer) minority are relatively cheap, that's just words after all. Increasingly law enforcement capacity is more expensive but often a popular choice as it increases authority's ability to control society not just in case of street violence, but all the time, and if people in authority have businesses that benefit from increased law enforcement spending then so much the better.

Calling out the army is almost always effective but it carries a very serious risk for the decision-makers. If the soldiers refuse for whatever reason to use force against the crowd, then authority is out of options (short of calling in foreign troops I guess) and the mob will know it, and trust me the mob will make straight for the rulers' property, and indeed the decision-makers' own personal life and limb.

As a general rule, the more often the army (or paramilitary police, which amount to the same thing) is called out, the more violent and deadly for the (former) decision-makers when and if the army's willingness to fire on the crowd fails.

Social engineering so that most people are happy and law-abiding, and so unwilling to join law-breaking crowds, is quite possibly not even the most expensive option BUT it requires political commitment by the decision-makers to commit resources to the economic and social betterment of the less-well-off, which sounds fine by itself, but at the expense of committing resources to things that benefit the decision-makers, for instance their salaries or exclusive access for their children to become decision-makers themselves. Decision-makers (or as they are sometimes called in England, the "power elite") are people too and just as greedy and self-serving as poor people. They are not saints and if they have the ability to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and social rules don't say that's a bad idea, then they will do so and hang the general social discontent.

There is also the "expanding pie" approach, which assumes that if every one can be made to become better off over time, then those who have less will still be satisfied, as the basic human desire is - and this is debatable, but it's an assumption of this approach - just to have one's personal life become better over time, rather than have social equality.

The US tried this and it worked pretty well for about two centuries but I would say that based on the last 50 years or so this strategy appears to be becoming increasingly untenable. The Chinese are attempting it and you can bet dollars to dim sum the Communist Party bosses are really hoping it works out, as if it does not there are several not centuries but millenia of Chinese tradition of what comes next: The poor get really angry, revolt, and kill off the people in charge and replace them with another set of despots drawn from their own ranks. There is no proof the People's Republic has broken that cycle, and I think it is safe to say pretty much all 1.4 billion Chinese are aware of it.

At a distance it looks to me like the British authority's approach to this street violence is to ignore the social aspect, declare it all simple crime, punish as many perpetrators as possible, increase police capacity, and hope that will keep a lid on things. Certainly, that's cheaper and better for the short term interests of the people in charge than attempting to reduce the number of people not in charge who have a grudge against authority. That's hard and expensive and is pretty much Socialism defined, so even if the decision-makers thought the funds were available it would not be politically unacceptable to them, it would after all directly undermine their position as the upper class.

Maybe the "keep the lid on" approach will work, it has after all done fairly well so far. Then again, maybe it won't.

[REVS]

Some good letters to the editor here in my local paper in Sydney from very old Londoners who remember the looting during the Blitz in WWII. It was a major problem back then, and it seems not a lot has changed. It's just another British sport.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

regarding relation of poverty to the riots:

A Liverpool University urban planning lecturer, Alex Singleton, analysed the Guardian's preliminary data by overlaying the addresses of defendants with the poverty indicators mapped by England's Indices of Multiple Deprivation, which breaks the country into small geographical areas.

He found that the majority of people who have appeared in court live in poor neighbourhoods, with 41% of suspects living in one of the top 10% of most deprived places in the country. The data also shows that 66% of neighbourhoods where the accused live got poorer between 2007 and 2010.

The findings are backed up by research carried out by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) published this week. The thinktank looked at the relationship between different indicators of poverty and deprivation and the boroughs where violence and looting took place.

Researchers found that in almost all of the worst-affected areas, youth unemployment and child poverty were significantly higher than the national average while education attainment was significantly lower.

"Child poverty rates in local authorities where riots flared are stubbornly high," it stated. "While poverty is no excuse for criminality, it places additional pressure on families not only to make ends meet but also to spend time together … The political debate is likely to rage on for some time but there is also an urgent need to understand what is happening in communities where violence flared."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/18/england-rioters-young-poor-unemployed

[bruce90]

'At a distance it looks to me like the British authority's approach to this street violence is to ignore the social aspect, declare it all simple crime, punish as many perpetrators as possible, increase police capacity, and hope that will keep a lid on things. Certainly, that's cheaper and better for the short term interests of the people in charge than attempting to reduce the number of people not in charge who have a grudge against authority. That's hard and expensive and is pretty much Socialism defined, so even if the decision-makers thought the funds were available it would not be politically unacceptable to them, it would after all directly undermine their position as the upper class.'

Nicely summed up Bigduke6

[Bigduke6]

Thanks, but it is not like the people in charge are pushing a particularly coherent ideology. It makes them pretty easy targets.

Sometimes I think the people in charge just believe that whatever they say will have the force of fact, simply because they said it, no matter how goofy. I don't do that, all my friends don't do that. Why do they?

I wonder: "Do these people tell their children the world is flat and expect their children to believe it? Since they don't, why do they keep saying such idiotic things to the general public that undermine the very authority they depend on to ensure a comfy life for themselves and their children?"

The big mistake of the leader class was educating the masses. Sure it gave them easier to train factory workers but once your factory worker stops accepting what the person in charge says at face value, as the factory worker inevitably must once he is taught reading and given even the most superficial understanding of democratic theory, the person in charge can't just blather on forever and say whatever he pleases, and not risk getting caught out as contradictory dolt.

[Vanir Ausf B]

As an outsider sitting here watching the British government be compared with Middle Eastern autocracies, I have to ask: isn't the British government elected? Are the suppressed "masses" not allowed to participate in the political process? Are the government's policies not supported by the majority of the British population? How is this kleptocracy able to perpetuate its hold on power election after election?

[costard]

Um. The House of Lords has most of its positions assigned by circumstances of birth (i.e. hereditary titles), as is the Privy Council. And, of course, there is the House of Windsor.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Ah, then perhaps the problem is a lack of democratic institutions, or at least a preponderance of legacy undemocratic ones? Not saying it is, I really don't know. But if so it is a shame the British Spring just got crushed in under a week. Maybe NATO should have bombed Windsor Castle

[bruce90]

As an outsider sitting here watching the British government be compared with Middle Eastern autocracies, I have to ask: isn't the British government elected? Are the suppressed "masses" not allowed to participate in the political process? Are the government's policies not supported by the majority of the British population? How is this kleptocracy able to perpetuate its hold on power election after election?

Our problem as an electorate is that all British political parties are now to all intents and purposes the same party. The old socialist Labour Party died with Blair whos first act as Prime Minister was to pay a respectful visit to Margaret Thatcher, one of the most divisive and anti working class political leaders this country has ever had. Her favourite target was of course the miners of this country who as a Union had far too much power for her liking and who she once famously called 'the enemy within'. It's ironic isn't it that where people like Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler and the miners themselves failed to bring this country down, ultimately it could just be the Tories great friends and supporters, the Bankers who might.

[Vanir Ausf B]

The old socialist Labour Party died with Blair

Why and how did that happen? Did socialism lose popular support? Was it banned or were the movement's leaders imprisoned?

[womble]

As an outsider sitting here watching the British government be compared with Middle Eastern autocracies, I have to ask: isn't the British government elected? Are the suppressed "masses" not allowed to participate in the political process? Are the government's policies not supported by the majority of the British population? How is this kleptocracy able to perpetuate its hold on power election after election?

This particular government is, in fact, a coalition. And IIRC even the coalition didn't get anything like a majority of the votes cast, as is usual for a Government in this country, though it has a majority in the Commons. And the votes cast were nowhere near 100%. So no, the government's policies are not (necessarily) supported by the majority of the British population. I voted for the Lib Dems (the junior partner in the coalition) and I don't agree with very many of the coalition's policies. I agree with more than I would have if the Tories had formed a single party Government, though.

The Lords is, in the end, an advisory body. It has become almost impossible for them to force any changes to legislation on the Government. A lot of good work goes on there, though. Could do with some reform, but none of the options presented by the political parties are attractive to me, since they just seek to entrench the power of the political parties, creating a mirror of the Commons which would serve no purpose whatsoever. I believe we need a non-partisan 'Upper House' with its members selected in very different ways to those we use to select MPs. A mixture of elections where the population are divided other than geographically (age, maybe), as well as by geographical divisions other than the current boundaries (counties rather than boroughs, say), as well as appointments by eminent bodies other than the Government - Trades Unions and other professional bodies, Charities, the Armed Forces, the Police. Judges need to be there. Academia needs representation.

The Socialist party can be considered to have died with Tony Blair, as he took the Labour party into a 'New Era' of cooperation with business. He turned an 'activist' party into what could almost be considered a cult of personality and moved away from leftist ideals, because a large proportion of the electorate still remembered some of the Union excesses of their '70s heyday (Who'd expect a night shift to actually work? Night's for sleeping, dummy) and blamed that attitude for the decline in British manufacturing and conflated that with our decline in world status. This made (even mildly) 'radical' socialism unelectable in this country at that time. Can't blame him for seizing the day. Until someone like him came along, the Tories were just going to keep winning elections by raising the fear (real or otherwise) of the Union of Godzillas wrecking the country further. Part of Blair's success was in getting the Murdoch press to support New Labour rather than the Tories as they had previously.

[bruce90]

Why and how did that happen? Did socialism lose popular support? Was it banned or were the movement's leaders imprisoned?

I believe it was simply opportunism on the part of Labour Party politicians who, recognising that they were fighting a largely hostile popular press managed by Murdoch and with unpopular policies that went against Thatchers 'greed is good' and 'let market forces decide' ideas, lurched subtly but definitely to the Right in order to get themselves elected as an 'alternative' to her and her successors.