In the aftermath of the London riots, Peter Oborne proffers a provocative column contending that "the moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom":
Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians. Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. …
Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates. The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet.
Rod Dreher interviews Birmingham University dean James Arthur, who also finds that the rich in England "appear to have no moral compass and young people see this." Along the same lines, Umair Haque diagnoses an era in which social contracts are being "torn up":
There are many kinds of looting. There's looting your local superstore — and then there's, as Nobel Laureates Akerlof and Romer discussed in a paper now famous among geeks, there's looting a bank, a financial system, a corporation…or an entire economy. (Their paper might be crudely summed up in the pithy line: "The best way to rob a bank is to own one.") The bedrock of an enlightened social contract is, crudely, that rent-seeking is punished, and creating enduring, lasting, shared wealth is rewarded and that those who seek to profit by extraction are chastened rather than lauded. Today's world of bailouts, golden parachutes, sky-high financial-sector salaries — while middle incomes stagnate — seems to be exactly the reverse. Perhaps, then, our societies have reached a natural turning point of built-in self-limitation; and this self-limitation is causing a perfect storm to converge.
London mayor Boris Johnson pushes back against this notion of moral equivalence, but wants Londoners to be "less squeamish about the realities of young people's needs." Theodore Dalrymple simply isn't buying the banker-looter analogy:
[T]he comparison fails to recognize the rawness of the injury that looting and arson inflict upon their victims and their surrounding communities. Like almost everyone, I suffer if the stock market declines and a recession occurs. But if you were to ask me which I should prefer—to live through a recession whose human cause was diffuse and imperfectly clear, or to have my house looted or burned down by a mob of young people—I know what I would answer.
Taking a broader view, Joel Kotkin anticipates global class warfare:
The prospects for a widening class conflict are clear even in China, where social inequality is now among the world’s worse . Not surprisingly, one survey conducted the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences found that 96% of respondents “resent the rich.” While Tea Partiers and leftists in the U.S. decry the colluding capitalism of the Bush-Obama-Bernanke regime, Chinese working and middle classes confront a hegemonic ruling class consisting of public officials and wealthy capitalists. That this takes place under the aegis of a supposedly “Marxist-Leninist regime” is both ironic and obscene. …
Many conservatives here, as well as abroad, reject the huge role of class. To them, wealth and poverty still reflect levels of virtue — and societal barriers to upward mobility, just a mild inhibitor. But modern society cannot run according to the individualist credo of Ayn Rand; economic systems, to be credible and socially sustainable, must deliver results to the vast majority of citizens. If capitalism cannot do that expect more outbreaks of violence and greater levels of political alienation — not only in Britain but across most of the world’s leading countries, including the U.S.
(Photo: A damaged Barclays bank branch is pictured in Handsworth, Birmingham, central England, on August 9, 2011, following a third night of violence on the streets of London and other parts of Britain. By Andrew Yates/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 