Social Injustice And The French Riots

[IdeaSave]

My understanding of this situation is that the people who are rioting have isolated _themselves_ from the rest of the country. In fact, as in many other nations, they moved to France with no intention whatsover of assimilating themselves - their intent was to recreate their own culture inside of France. Racism, intolerance and much worse is being perpetrated in France, but it is being perpetrated by the people who are rioting.

As has been mentioned in this thread before, this represents the chickens of multiculturalism coming home to roost. Advocacy of "tolerance" has given a free pass to the most intolerant of cultures, and that culture is now destroying France from the inside out.

The original incident that sparked this was clearly a pretext for the rioting. Two kids who accidentally electrocuted themselves to death while hiding from the police in no way justifies the rioting.

Mark Peters

[gags]

As an added bonus in terms of the alienation of these rioters, it appears that many of them favor the culture of "Gangsta Rap".

http://cracksinthefacade.blogspot.com/

So now we have muslim Gangsta Rappers. The contradictions just keep piling up on themselves.

[AisA]

I have found this piece, written in 2002, to be particularly enlightening. It paints a horrifying picture of the cités and points a finger squarely in the face of the State. I found this passage to be especially telling:

Thanks for the link. It was an interesting article. However, I did not see anything that suggests racism or xenophobia on the part of the French people.

For instance, here is what the article says about the unemployment problem.

Indeed, French youth unemployment is among the highest in Europe—and higher the further you descend the social scale, largely because high minimum wages, payroll taxes, and labor protection laws make employers loath to hire those whom they cannot easily fire, and whom they must pay beyond what their skills are worth.

I've been managing a business for 30 years and I know exactly what the author of that article means. Though the U.S. has not gone as far as the French, in the last two decades we have enacted numerous employment laws that have served, primarily, to eliminate many employment opportunities. The Americans with Disability Act, for instance, makes is very risky to hire the handicapped. If they do not work out, the Act gives them all sorts of grounds for suing the employer. The Civil Rights Act and the EEOC make it terribly risky to hire black females; they are almost impossible to terminate without a lawsuit that can cost you $50,000 or more. The Family Medical Leave Act makes it risky to hire young, married people; they are the most likely to start a new family and then depart on leaves of absence, with the employer forced to hold the job open.

Thus it is statism that accounts for the chronic French unemployment, not racism or xenophobia. Who is to blame for the statism? Certainly the French people deserve blame, but most of the guilt rests with the philosophers and intellectuals who have succeeded in promulgating a host of myths about capitalism, such as the Marxist notion that workers must be protected from capitalist "exploitation". No doubt the labor unions were instrumental in getting these "protections" put in place.

The question for the French now is who will protect them from the non-workers?

[Mandrake]

Thus it is statism that accounts for the chronic French unemployment, not racism or xenophobia.

You're right. I've come to agree with those of you who have said this all along. The more I read the more apparent it becomes that France's socialist mismanagement is the root of the problem and that the racism and xenophobia are merely responses to its effects.

[Inspector]

Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim. But it has separated and isolated immigrants and their descendants geographically into dehumanizing ghettos; it has pursued economic policies to promote unemployment and create dependence among them, with all the inevitable psychological consequences; it has flattered the repellent and worthless culture that they have developed; and it has withdrawn the protection of the law from them, allowing them to create their own lawless order.

(From the article mandrake linked)

I think that covers it. Add to that the fact that Islam is now stepping into this vaccuum and you've got some major trouble brewing. (which the author of the article, I noticed, also realizes!)

Notice also that racism is actually absent from that list of causes, and rightly so. The French had every socialistic bit of "good intent" in creating those ghettos... the situation is obviously the fault of socialism and multiculturalism. The racism that will now ensue is merely a reaction... a side-effect... a desparate realization by the French that their multiculturalist ideals are wrong, but a failure to understand WHY and HOW.

Notice, however, how socialism and multiculturalism CREATE racism.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Inspector

[Inspector]

Certainly the French people deserve blame, but most of the guilt rests with the philosophers and intellectuals who have succeeded in promulgating a host of myths about capitalism, such as the Marxist notion that workers must be protected from capitalist "exploitation".

That got me thinking... this situation has laid bare what it means to be "protected from capitalist exploitation:" Being unemployed in a government-built ghetto where crime walks the streets openly and in broad daylight. Certainly, these people aren't being exploited by any capitalist; I will give them that.

[Spano]

If the French are indeed xenophobic, its no surprise. After all, what could cause one to be more xenophobic than adopting wholesale the creed of multiculturalism, which ingrains in people the fundamental differences between various groups. Add socialism to this mix, and you have a potent brew. Not only does one view immigrants as having a culture inextricably linked to their skin color and upbringing (which negates the possibility of assimilation), you have decided that they should be supported by your earnings as well. Hence, immigrants represent a threat to the cultural and financial survival of the country. Actually, the more I think about it, the more surprised I would be if they did NOT detest all immigrants on this basis.

I think asking what an Objectivist government would do to rectify the situation is posing an unlikely scenario. The situation is caused by so many things that would simply not be present to any significant degree in an Objectivist country: welfare, multiculturalism, racism (not hating people, but viewing them as inferior), a lack of a value structure and purpose in life, and the resulting social stratification that allows one group to feel they have nothing better to do than go to war with "the others." The problem is certainly deeper than economic or racial factors alone. Judging by how much the French buy into the things that are destroying their country, its hard for me to see much hope long term.

[AisA]

That got me thinking... this situation has laid bare what it means to be "protected from capitalist exploitation:" Being unemployed in a government-built ghetto where crime walks the streets openly and in broad daylight. Certainly, these people aren't being exploited by any capitalist; I will give them that.

That is a great point, Inspector.

[BurgessLau]

If we assume that there was genuine private irrationality and injustice in both cases, what is the key difference between the old black ghettos (or even today's "projects") and the ghettos in which the jews lived?

As Lane's Venice: The Commerical Republic shows, at least some ghettoes for Jews in Europe were established by law. In other words, the coercion was explicit and codified. The black "ghettoes" in the U. S. were in part established by the power of statist government (as I suggested before), but not in a way that was explicit and codified. There is a second factor creating such "ghettoes" -- To some extent (according to some of the black Americans I met many years ago), some black Americans"chose" to live in a "black ghetto" out of self-defense.

The reasoning is this: If I live in a culture that is violently hostile to me because of the color of my skin and I have no recourse to a system of justice (police and courts), then, in self-defense, it makes sense to congregate with other potential victims so that, to some extent, we can protect each other.

P. S. -- The "projects" are a special case: a "community" deliberately created by government, a community that by definition excludes successful people. A "black ghetto" in major U. S. cities, according to what I saw and read, often included wealthy and middle-class blacks as well as impoverished ones. The same was true of the biggest Jewish ghettoes. Everyone was forced into them: rich and poor alike. Now, in the U. S., as time passed (perhaps after 1960), more prosperous blacks began moving out of the ghetto, though some initially had to endure (or suffer) intimidation and attacks.