Steven Hayward of Power Line reports an interview National Public Radio did with the author - Vicky Osterweil - of a new book In Defense of Looting. As you can imagine, much of what Osterweil says defending looting is total psychobabble, for instance her comment “... without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free ...."
Who does she believe will produce or stock desirable things for which they are not paid? In the absence of security, why will manufacturers exist, why will the shopkeepers bother? Short answer: They won’t.
Magical thinking is fun in fiction, in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings; in real-world economics, it is not helpful. The depth of magical thinking on the left is nearly impossible to exaggerate. It’s a willful refusal to understand how and why things get produced and people actually work.
Osterweil does say one thing with which I agree, “A part of it that doesn’t really get talked about—that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory."
Too bad she doesn’t call it what I believe it to be - revenge. Happily ripping off a society that holds them at arm’s length, briefly getting even. While to looters it feels justified by victimhood, our society cannot excuse or ignore someone appropriating (or destroying) anothers’ property.
