The destruction that vandals and looters in Wisconsin (and in Minnesota and a number of other states) have carried out in the last few weeks is horrendous. The destruction has largely been wreaked on innocent people. I found very moving the video of the guy, posted the day after the destruction began, whose family business in Kenosha was destroyed even though he had done nothing to deserve it.
What heartens me is that a very large percent of Americans see what’s wrong with this.
What disheartens me is that many of those same people don’t have anywhere near the same amount of outrage when the U.S. government rains destruction on innocent people and businesses in other countries. In a typical U.S. bombing of people in another country, the bombing is not so targeted that it hits only criminals and terrorists. It hits a lot of innocent people too and, in some cases, mainly innocent people. If anything, our outrage at the U.S. government should be greater because the destruction is so much greater.
READER COMMENTS
Barbara Zito
Aug 30 2020 at 6:50pm
David, Please help my naivete. When is the last time the USA bombed another country like you are describing?? Does it happen often and if so why are we not hearing about it??
David Henderson
Aug 31 2020 at 8:53am
Barbara,
I’m not sure when the last time is. It happens quite a lot though.
Yes, it happens often.
I don’t know why you haven’t heard about it because I don’t know what you watch and read.
Jon Murphy
Aug 30 2020 at 7:49pm
I suspect there might be two things going on:
First: a Smithian social distance story. Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments talks about how we care about different groups of people different amounts. We care about our family and friends firstly, our neighbors and town secondly, and it expands outward to the nation and eventually the world (pg 237, paragraph 6 of the Liberty Fund edition). The riots in Wisconsin and other states are happening to people close to us in social distance; they are part of our country. Wisconsin is a place we “know.” Whereas the Middle East, Yemen, Mogadishu, etc., these are just abstract concepts. They’re dots on a map. We would, of course, not spare our pinky if we thought it could stave off a disaster that could kill billions, but many of us do not lose a wink of sleep over their suffering while a much smaller issue would keep us sleepless (see pages 136-137, paragraph 4). In short, there is less outrage because the innocents of the Middle East (or wherever else the US government is dropping bombs) are much further removed from us.
Second: the riots are the act of a mob. The bombings are an act of a government. There appears to be a justification for the bombings (“we must fight them there so we do not fight them here”). There appears to be less so with the mob. The former appears to be lawful; the latter, lawless. There is an air of legitimacy to the bombing of innocents. I think there is a tendency to defer to government, for better or for worse. (Of course, one can argue, as David Henderson does, whether such deference is right, whether such legitimacy is just. He says “no,” and I agree. But that is a different question. I am trying to explain why the disconnect noted in the post exists and I think Adam Smith and his student John Millar get us there)
David Henderson
Aug 30 2020 at 8:29pm
I think your reasoning is correct.
I would point out, though, that Smith was discussing natural disasters in other countries that the government he was under had nothing to do with. He wasn’t discussing actual destruction wreaked purposefully on other countries by the government he was under.
Jon Murphy
Aug 30 2020 at 8:56pm
Oh absolutely. I agree 100%. I was bringing up the China passage as a way of thinking about why people do not lose sleep over the bigger crime but do over small inconveniences.
David Seltzer
Sep 2 2020 at 12:09pm
Jon, fair analysis, but the hypothesis of distance is somewhat diminished as we are instantly brought closer to collateral loss of life via social media. To an extent, the reaction to the Vietnam war was Dan Rather interrupting our 6:30 dinner with images of bombings and death. I served in Southeast Asia 1962-1964. What one saw on television was a small percentage of the carnage I witnessed. It has been conjectured, the war was ended by 19 year old kids who saw it played out on CBS.
Phil H
Aug 30 2020 at 10:34pm
Skin colour is also a parsimonious explanation.
BC
Aug 31 2020 at 2:04am
I guess one difference is that the vandals and looters are deliberately targeting innocent civilians while US bombs are targeted at military and terrorist targets, hitting civilians as accidental “collateral damage”. Maybe Americans have not shown much outrage at the bombings, but they certainly have taken a lot of actions to avoid bombing civilians. Americans have spent billions, maybe even trillions (?), of dollars to develop “smart” bombs to reduce civilian casualties. Maybe, one could argue that if Americans really cared, they would have spent even more to develop even higher precision weapons, but many critics already think that the American defense budget is too large as it is.
RPLong
Aug 31 2020 at 11:12am
One highly effective action the US government could take to avoid bombing civilians is to just not drop any bombs in the first place. That would save civilian lives and businesses, and it would also save the US government the trillions of dollars involved in developing more bombs.
Floccina
Aug 31 2020 at 3:12pm
I hate vandalism. Stealing is more understandable. It seems to me theft hurts the victim as much but vandalism hurts everyone.
Colin Fraizer
Sep 2 2020 at 5:30pm
But think of how much all the rebuilding will boost the economy! 😉
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