Murdering People in the Third World

 

The broken windows fallacy of economics has often been discussed in these pages, but it does not go far enough. First, for those who are new to Ricochet or only read the funny stuff, the broken windows fallacy is the thought that all types of economic activity are equal. So, a restaurateur who has a brick thrown through his window has to hire people to replace the window. This is good, because he is spending money, right? Except that this is spending money that would have otherwise gone into the economy in higher value ways. Maybe he could have hired an executive chef to make his food better. Maybe he could have afforded to buy higher-quality meats. Maybe he would have used that money as a down payment on a delivery truck. Maybe he could have invested in stocks for a start-up that would have invented and marketed the next great thing. Whatever the restaurateur would have done with his money, it’s not going to happen now, because he is buying a new window and paying to have it installed. Besides his costs, that window and work installing it could have gone into a new commercial building instead of to repairing his building. Everything cascades from there. Windows may cost more because of higher demand. Installation may cost more because of higher demand. What we see of lost opportunity costs is merely the tip of the iceberg in what is lost to the overall economy because someone decided to throw a brick through a window. And we recognize that all types of economic activity are decidedly not equal.

Now, let’s multiply that by a million times by having riots across the nation. While we are at it, let’s deliver pallets of bricks to shopping areas to ensure the rioters have plenty of ammunition for breaking windows. Let’s also deliver supplies of Molotov cocktails to those same areas to ensure stores can be burned after being looted. (This is seriously happening.) Many of the businesses are not going to replace the window and move forward, because it’s not just one broken window they have. Some have been looted and others have been burned to the ground. While some may rebuild, many will not bother. Keep a store in a bad neighborhood that is prone to riots? No, thanks; it costs too much. Insurance rates will be up. Jobs are lost. It costs more for people in the riot-torn neighborhoods to reach the stores that are in another neighborhood, either until stores are rebuilt in their neighborhoods or until West Texas freezes over.

But that is not where this ends. The United States, while dancing on the economic brink as it may be, is still an extremely wealthy country. Our poor people have enough food to be fat. We do not only have a United States economy, though. We have a world economy. As jobs are lost in the United States and goods go unbought, factories in the Third World shut down, and the employees are set free of having to work for a living in countries where the choice is work or starve. And make no mistake: some of them will starve. And while it is difficult to trace the path of causation of that starving person in some hellhole country, it started with rioters in the United States burning down our places of work, our jobs, and destroying our wealth.

There are thousands of stories that could be told. A bookstore went up in flames in the Twin Cities during these riots. It was full of first editions, signed first editions, out-of-print books, and they have all gone to smoke and ash. We are all poorer this day than we were yesterday. Not just the Twin Cities, not just the United States. The whole world. Some of our history has been destroyed, never to exist again. We can’t take those ashes and reassemble books from them. Even if the insurance pays to rebuild that bookstore, the owner cannot replace that burned stock. Those special items no longer exist. But probably, it’s too much heartache to bother rebuilding, and all his employees will have to scramble to find new jobs, if they can. And at a hundred or a thousand removes, a few more people starve in the Third World.

The rioters are burning our past. They are destroying our wealth. They are leaving us with no future to look forward to. And they never count the cost. They only look forward to the glorious revolution that will fix everything in the future. They do not see that they are destroying the most glorious of all revolutions, the one that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other. That was the revolution of private property and free markets. They spit upon it and call it evil capitalism. But it is the only revolution that has brought evolution, true change. It is the only revolution that has brought fat poor people. It is the only revolution that has brought poor people with two cars in their garages. Yet, they have been taught that the private property and free-market revolution was bad, because although everyone is wealthier, the wealth is distributed unevenly. It does not accord with the Gospel according to Marx and Engels. (Where did Engels get his money again? Oh, yes, exploiting the working class in textile factories. “Do as I say, not as I do.”)

They are not revolutionaries; they are thugs, thieves, and murderers. They are regressionists. They want to take us back to the age of autocracies. They may call their czars something else, commissars and high party officials. They may give their czars titles such as General Secretary of the Communist Party or President of the People’s Republic, but the czar is still the czar. They are true monarchists, and they aren’t even smart enough or educated enough to know it. And when their day comes, they will wonder why they are now the targeted other. “If only the Czar General Secretary knew!” they’ll exclaim. But their General Secretary does know. They were expendable tools all along.

But there are some who see all of this. There are some who understand the effects these looters and rioters are having. But when we call for a whiff of grapeshot, the governors and mayors mostly ignore us. Our betters know better. They shall get out in front of the parade and lead it. Philippe Égalité tried that, too. It led to his introduction to Madame la Guillotine. So it will end for these Progressive office holders when the revolution comes. They should have tried the whiff of grapeshot.

Those who study history are doomed to repeat it, too, because everyone around them doesn’t pay attention to the history or thinks they are special and can “get it right” this time. The particular doom of those who understand history and how it applies to today is that they know what is going to happen and have no power to influence it. It is like watching a situation comedy where one knows what the character is about to do is stupid and will have ill effects, but the character cannot hear our advice as we yell at the television or movie screen. He goes ahead and does it. So it is with our leaders.

We who see the true costs, who see people starving in a year or two in countries that Antifa members cannot name and shall never care about, we know the true cure for all of this: “Looters will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.”

Published in History
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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Somewhere in here, I wanted to include this:

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Arahant: They are not revolutionaries; they are thugs, thieves, and murderers. They are regressionists. They want to take us back to the age of autocracies. They may call their czars something else, commissars and high party officials. They may give their czars titles such as General Secretary of the Communist Party or President of the People’s Republic, but the czar is still the czar. They are true monarchists, and they aren’t even smart enough or educated enough to know it. And when their day comes, they will wonder why they are now the targeted other. “If only the Czar General Secretary knew!” they’ll exclaim. But their General Secretary does know. They were expendable tools all along.

    They should have read Darkness at Noon. At least then they would know what fate awaits them.

    And as for the would-be “leaders” …

    They’ll be tolerated … for a while.

    • #2
  3. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Percival (View Comment):

    And as for the would-be “leaders” … They’ll be tolerated … for a while.

    Just as Phillipe Égalité was.

    • #3
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Arahant: We who see the true costs, who see people starving in a year or two in countries that Antifa members cannot name and shall never care about, we know the true cure for all of this: “Looters will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.”

    “But our words, like silent raindrops fell…”

    • #4
  5. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    A minor query about the economy of those who have been looted or burned to the ground or had their windows broken: If you read insurance policies, there in the small type is the disclaimer that the insurance company is off the hook if the damage-causing activity is related to an  act of war or civil unrest? So how will the Big Insurers deal with these riots?

    • #5
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    A minor query about the economy of those who have been looted or burned to the ground or had their windows broken: If you read insurance policies, there in the small type is the disclaimer that the insurance company is off the hook if the damage-causing activity is related to an act of war or civil unrest? So how will the Big Insurers deal with these riots?

    That is a very good question. I hope we have someone on Ricochet who can answer it.

    • #6
  7. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Arahant: It is the only revolution that has brought fat poor people. It is the only revolution that has brought poor people with two cars in their garages.

    Or two-car garages, for that matter.

    • #7
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Arahant: It is the only revolution that has brought fat poor people. It is the only revolution that has brought poor people with two cars in their garages.

    Or two-car garages, for that matter.

    Yep. Private property and free markets have really created an amazing world for us to live in. Too bad some folks want to tear it down.

    • #8
  9. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    A minor query about the economy of those who have been looted or burned to the ground or had their windows broken: If you read insurance policies, there in the small type is the disclaimer that the insurance company is off the hook if the damage-causing activity is related to an act of war or civil unrest? So how will the Big Insurers deal with these riots?

    This isn’t civil unrest.  It’s mere protesting.

    • #9
  10. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    A minor query about the economy of those who have been looted or burned to the ground or had their windows broken: If you read insurance policies, there in the small type is the disclaimer that the insurance company is off the hook if the damage-causing activity is related to an act of war or civil unrest? So how will the Big Insurers deal with these riots?

    Coming back to this, past history indicates that several things may happen:

    • Insurance does come through, at least with some policies.
    • The lootee/riotee can try to sue the rioters. (You probably recognize problems with this.)
    • They can try to sue the city government/police for not protecting property/not acting aggressively enough.
    • Some private organizations/charities may help to make them “whole” again.
    • They can lobby a higher level of government, such as the Federal Government to give them money.

    My bet will be that the Federal Government intervenes, so we all pay for it over time.

    • #10
  11. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Arahant (View Comment):
    My bet will be that the Federal Government intervenes, so we all pay for it over time.

    So I get to pay for the acts of rioters, even though those acts are anathema to me.

    • #11
  12. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    This isn’t civil unrest. It’s mere protesting.

    I suspect it is more of a rebellion. Protests and unrest are not this organized.

    Let us go back to the chart @bossmongo presented the other day:

    Are we on step three? Or step thirteen?

    • #12
  13. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    My bet will be that the Federal Government intervenes, so we all pay for it over time.

    So I get to pay for the acts of rioters, even though those acts are anathema to me.

    Probably. Fun being a taxpayer, isn’t it?

    • #13
  14. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    And as for the would-be “leaders” … They’ll be tolerated … for a while.

    Just as Phillipe Égalité was.

    He was useful. Then he wasn’t.

     

    • #14
  15. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Percival (View Comment):
    He was useful. Then he wasn’t.

    Just like the Old Bolsheviks. Just like the Brownshirts.

    • #15
  16. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    He was useful. Then he wasn’t.

    Just like the Old Bolsheviks. Just like the Brownshirts.

    Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung.

    • #16
  17. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Arahant (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    A minor query about the economy of those who have been looted or burned to the ground or had their windows broken: If you read insurance policies, there in the small type is the disclaimer that the insurance company is off the hook if the damage-causing activity is related to an act of war or civil unrest? So how will the Big Insurers deal with these riots?

    That is a very good question. I hope we have someone on Ricochet who can answer it.

    Usually the property damage is covered but not any expense due to lack of business.  

    • #17
  18. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Arahant: The rioters are burning our past. They are destroying our wealth. They are leaving us with no future to look forward to. And they never count the cost.

    They do count the cost though – for them, burning and erasing the past IS the way forward.  We’ve seen this time and time and time again, from France to Russia, from Nazi Germany to China, from Cambodia to Venezuela – the past must be erased and rewritten so that the future can be made on a clean slate.

    For these monsters, even millions dead here at home, to say nothing of anywhere else, is simply trimming the fat.

    • #18
  19. MichaelHenry Member
    MichaelHenry
    @MichaelHenry

    Well-written and reasoned, pal, but the best thing about this post is the “FIRE IN THE BELLY” it reveals. Your righteous anger is spot on.

     

    • #19
  20. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Arahant: So, a restaurateur who has a brick thrown through his window has to hire people to replace the window. This is good, because he is spending money, right?

    Well, it’s good for window makers.

    I take your point about the impact on the global poor – though rioting will have had a tiny effect compared to the covid lock down.

    • #20
  21. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    • #21
  22. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    I was think “Ready…Aim”

    • #22
  23. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I take your point about the impact on the global poor – though rioting will have had a tiny effect compared to the covid lock down.

    Agreed.

    • #23
  24. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    I rather like, “Grapeshot! Grapeshot!”

    • #24
  25. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    You and Dougie MacArthur.

    • #25
  26. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    “They don’t like it up ’em.”

    • #26
  27. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Now that the NG and possibly active duty units are going to be participating in the maintenance of our public peace, I’m hoping we hear two magic words. Two words that will quell any riot, will vanquish any mob. Two words that helped forge civil society and give fair warning to thugs.

    “Fix bayonets.”

    You’ve probably heard of the Gurkhas. They are the perfect riot control armed forces (when the army has to get involved) because when they draw their Khukris (like a sword) they cannot re-sheath them until the khukri has tased blood.

    It’s a serious thing for them.  If a khukri is drawn in anger or thoughtlessness they cut themselves before putting it away.

    But as a result: if you hear their battle cry (Gurkhali Ayo – which means the Gurkhas are coming) you get out of the way.

    otoh – they’re good at crowd control, but that doesn’t resolve why the crowds keep getting restive in the first place. 

    • #27
  28. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    If I had to recommend to anyone one economist (that doesn’t get a lot of press) for understanding the world it’s P.T. Bauer. He worked a lot in the field of developing economies and how to help them continue develop (hint: it wasn’t rioting or massive aid packages). If anyone is interested in the data backed proof of the kinds of arguments that @arahant is talking about, and just getting a better understanding of economics on a large scale in general, Dissent on Development and Reality and Rhetoric are masterpieces. (I also feel a little obligated to promote him because we’re alumni of the same institution).

    • #28
  29. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Arahant: It is the only revolution that has brought fat poor people. It is the only revolution that has brought poor people with two cars in their garages.

    Or two-car garages, for that matter.

    I heard a Sikh business owner many years ago explain why he came to the USA: “I wanted to live in a country where poor people were fat.”

    • #29
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    If I had to recommend to anyone one economist (that doesn’t get a lot of press) for understanding the world it’s P.T. Bauer. He worked a lot in the field of developing economies and how to help them continue develop (hint: it wasn’t rioting or massive aid packages). If anyone is interested in the data backed proof of the kinds of arguments that @arahant is talking about, and just getting a better understanding of economics on a large scale in general, Dissent on Development and Reality and Rhetoric are masterpieces. (I also feel a little obligated to promote him because we’re alumni of the same institution).

    Thank you.

    • #30
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