In a remarkably opportunistic op-ed today in the New York Times, sociology guru Richard Sennett claims that public-spending cuts lead to riots:
The American right today is obsessed with cutting government spending. In many ways, Mr. Cameron’s austerity program is the Tea Party’s dream come true. But Britain is now grappling with the consequences of those cuts, which have led to the neglect and exclusion of many vulnerable, disaffected young people who are acting out violently and irresponsibly — driven by rage rather than an explicit political agenda.
America is in many ways different from Britain, but the two countries today are alike in their extremes of inequality, and in the desire of many politicians to solve economic and social ills by reducing the power of the state.
Britain’s current crisis should cause us to reflect on the fact that a smaller government can actually increase communal fear and diminish our quality of life. Is that a fate America wishes upon itself?
At ConservativeHome, Tim Montgomerie has a terse response:
This is a nail that has to be lied. For the third year running the UK state is spending more than 50% of national income. Our problems are problems of a bloated and inefficient state. Taxes are meaning businesses can’t afford to employ extra workers and parents need to work extra hours away from the home.
Indeed. Meanwhile, it is interesting to do a quick review of what Professor Sennett has argued in the past. Here is a short Guardian review of one of his books, with the revealing title The Uses of Disorder (I have not read the book myself):
“Suburbanites are people who are afraid to live in a world they cannot control.” In their flight to the more socially homogeneous suburbs, people are choosing a morally and psychologically impoverished environment. Only in “dense, disorderly, overwhelming cities”, with their rich mix of different classes, ethnicities and cultures, do we learn the true complexity of life and human relations: “The jungle of the city, its vastness and loneliness, has a positive human value.” Sennett speaks eloquently of the benefits to individuals and society of diverse, even “anarchic”, urban communities.
Hmmm.
Iain Murray’s latest book is Stealing You Blind: How Government Fatcats Are getting Rich off of You
The only thing revealed by these riots is how violtent liberals get when they aren't receiving sufficient amounts of other poeple's money.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse100 years ago, govt was 1 or 2% it's current size, and we didn't suffer from this so called "communal fear".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's absolutely true, but even 230+ years ago, many of the Founding Fathers understood the dangers that large, metropolitan centers posed to a truly "free society".
Jefferson discussed the corrosive aspect of large metropolitan centers in a famous letter to James Madison (his first letter to Madison after the Constitution had been adopted, written in December of '87), and he said in part about uneducated masses gathered in cities...
"Enable them to see that it is in their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them...
...When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe and go to eating one another as they do there."
The entire letter is worth reading if you have the time. It may be found on page 329 of this Google-book.
External Link
Jefferson discusses all the things in that aren't in the Constitution, but wishes were. And, his words of caution to Madison turned out to be very prescient. His postscript is especially interesting considering our last debt-limit bill, and TARP. Jefferson was clearly not a fan of "emergency" legislation or having to pass it to know what is in it, at all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat the London riots have proved is that Britain needs a Second Amendment right to bear arms! (Had a few of these lawless yobs had their carbon footprints reduced to zero by a 9mm/.357/.44/.45/ etc. projectile, the riots would have stopped fairly soon!)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusetiredturtle - Britain did have a second amendment right. It was in the English Bill of Rights passed by parliament in 1691 after the Glorious Revolution. Indeed, our 2nd Amendment is based on the right of Protestants in England to bear arms, except in the US it was not restricted to Protestants. What England has never had is a written constitution. So, nothing can stop Parliament from undoing rights that are long standing, as it did when in 1996 it for all practical purposes abolished the right to bear arms.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSuppose for a moment that we are willing to stipulate that Sennett's central thesis - that cutting funding leads to violent unrest - is right on the nose. Doesn't that still argue for an essentially small government conservative position? After all, if we accept that cutting programs will lead inevitably to riots in the streets, should we not be exceedingly reticent to create any new programs?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePreposterous. On so many levels. But I'll stick with the communal fear baloney. Sennett says:
"Britain’s current crisis should cause us to reflect on the fact that a smaller government can actually increase communal fear and diminish our quality of life."
This is extortion straight up. The big giant government that fails at everything except taking its citizens' money then says we have to keep paying for it to protect us from the nightmare it alone created.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@What.Ever. - Preposterous indeed. The argument for elephantine government is the same argument Al Capone made for his "clients" paying protection money. It explains clearly why some folks view taxation as theft.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI find this Straw Man to be presented by left-wing trolls often when conservatives call for fiscal restraint: "If you hate Government so much, why don't you move to Somalia!" As if there is no middle ground between Anarchy and Totalitarian Welfare State.
The central question is, would you rather have a Government that did a limited number of things fairly well at a reasonable cost, or a Government that attempts to do a large number of things, poorly, at great expense?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'd like to see the home in which Richard Sennett lives. I wouldn't be surprised if Sennett a) lives in a gated community and/or b) he's got some kind of fence or wall around his property.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo cutting spending causes riots, Mr. Sennett? So, apparently, does sticking your head in the sand until global debt markets turn loanshark on you, demanding junk-level interest rates for you to NOT cut spending. Look at the streets of Athens, you dolt!
On a similar note, I understand that withdrawal from heroin addiction is agonizing. Therefore we should keep shooting up, by your logic, right??
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseProfessor Sennett will never, ever see the disconnect between his current calls for more government and his previous praise of urban disorder and anarchy. I have heard these types before, Left-leaning idealists who envision local societies that are liberated communes without authority or want--yet it is implicit that the paternalistic state is always waiting in the wings to provide for these idealized communities when the need arises. Ironically, anarchical societies need more government to create the space necessary for them to exist--yet this irony is always lost upon their proponents.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh, this is rich. Check out this bit from Sennett's Wiki bio:
"Richard Sennett [born 1943] grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago, coming from a family of Russian emigres."
As many of us know, Cabrini-Green utterly epitomizes the failure of New Deal-style public housing and has since been demolished. You'd think Richard Sennett would have learned from this fiasco, but noooooooooo.....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, the good professor would have lived in the project when they placed requirements upon the residents. Requirements such as cleanliness, orderly behavior, etc. All the requirements those of the good professor's age group sought to dispose of as oppressive. We now see the outcome of social welfare without moral education or requirements.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"... benefits to individuals and society of diverse, even “anarchic”, urban communities."
Two words, "urban planning" Seems the very world the professor yearns for is the very world the urban planners, code enforcers, licenser, inspectors and historic preservation committees seek to stamp out. Or is the anarchy going to be built into the urban plan?
Little factoid. Much of the science and innovation that ultimately became the steam engine and the industrial revolution came from individuals neglected and excluded from Oxford,etc, due to their religious beliefs as such they held an open mind when it came to physics and innovation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe rioters in England are only doing overtly what they have up to now done covertly, through government handouts: redistribute income. I think that is the motivation of thieves: you got more than I do, so I'm going to take some of it. It's all the same, whether the tax man does it or a mob that will not be controlled does it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePoignant observation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have always wondered why the UK is described as a Constitutional Monarchy when in fact, there is no Constitution. As you say, rights of the people are (perhaps) entirely dependent upon the whims of Parliament.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOops. My comment was meant for your earlier post about bearing arms in the UK, not this one. Sorry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's a constitutional monarchy (small c) because monarchical power is limited by the Magna Carta, as opposed to the more traditional monarchy in which the sitting monarch was absolute sovereign.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse