Thursday, September 9, 2010

Rioting and Looting

Since I got wrapped in revolutionary fervor last time, let’s talk about something a little fun: rioting and looting.

Rioting (per Martin Luther King) is the language of the unheard. In general it does seem to be the case that riots start when a large group of people congregate, and at some point there is a spark of dissatisfaction that they do not feel is being addressed by the authorities. Rioting of course, can than often turn to looting:

Social Scientists distinguish different types of looting, including:
• Looting of goods needed for survival

• Opportunistic theft of good such as TV sets

• Collective action, conditioned by the political environment

An exceptional video showing the first two activities can be found here:

Chili Looter Video

You will also note that organized neighbors were the first effective early response.

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