Riots

For some time now London has been rivaling Manhattan as the epicenter of international wealth and high living. The wealth hoarders of the world have used the city as a playground. Expensive hotels, chic shops and an elegant cafe society. In my own city, Boston, the Back Bay has become a small version of this high-priced oasis for wealthy internationals. 

The spark of resentment against the disproportionate distribution of wealth in a society which preaches materialism through its media has been lit in London. And the British government is obviously at a loss. Reports of small bands of police helplessly watching shop rows being looted by armies of thugs in ninja gear.

While criminals seem to be behind the looting, the anger which has fired this outbreak of lawlessness is not criminal in the least. It is predictable and purely human. When law only represents the privileged, when law allows men in business suits to steal the common wealth and flaunt their theft, anger and acting out of anger are eventually predictable and inevitable. 

The neglected responsibility of government fuels these situations. The Libertarians in the U.S. could learn an important lesson. Free markets are driven by greed, selfishness and aggression if unchecked by enforced regulation by government. Economic justice, like racial justice or justice for GLBT people, will not emerge in a society without a government which takes an enlightened interest in the common welfare. This is a crucial role of government in the life of a society. And, in Britain, as in America, the government has abandoned the common welfare to appease the wealthy who pay for elections and keep politicians ensconced in their jobs. 

Riots will lead to repression inevitably. Repression will lead to more anger, which will inevitably find its own course, like dammed water. It will spill into the society in any number of ways. Squashed protest becomes violence. Violence begets more instability. The net result is a deep loss of potential progress for everyone in society, including the wealthy. In an overpopulated, densely urbanized world with diminishing resources and degrading environment, lack of mindful governmental management and no application of social justice will lead to disaster.