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October 7, 2023

Straight from A Clockwork Orange, the prescient Anthony Burgess novel (and equally visionary movie by Stanley Kubrick), a caravan of hundreds recently spent two days looting dozens of stores in Philadelphia.  A social media influencer even livestreamed it to thousands.

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Clockwork Orange questions whether an authoritarian government should reprogram humans to make evil impossible.  This is in response to a revolt by part of society (the “Droogs”), devoted to “a bit a’ the ol’ ultraviolence” by adopting nihilism, a deliberate absence of morals and values.

Fifty-one years after Burgess’s novel, the Droogs seem starkly familiar: menacingly dressed sociopaths, speaking near-incomprehensible dialect, who burn, loot, and murder their way across the urban landscape.

But Burgess got the conundrum only half right: the question today is not whether authoritarianism can engineer morality but instead whether governmental leftists can destroy rational incentives for mutually beneficial behavior with the goal of engineering nihilism.

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Why would any government do that?  Because nihilism promotes civil disorder which, in turn, justifies more governmental intervention to “solve” the problem it created.  As Saul Alinksy, strategist for the Left, put it: “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”  To create the socialist utopia they envision, leftists must first degrade existing society.

‘Success’ in social engineering

The answer as to whether government can create nihilism, as demonstrated by the last three years, is “yes.”  Starting with Antifa and BLM riots of 2020 — fully supported by leftist local governments — urban centers in Democrat-led cities like San Francisco have spiraled into a “doom loop” wherein urban business flees “flash mob” looting and skyrocketing violent crime.  A few examples:

  • San Francisco: After flash mobs looted Neiman Marcus and other stores, two dozen retailers have left.  Walgreens closed 12 San Francisco stores, while upscale Nordstrom pulled its two stores, including its Westfield mall flagship. Australian furniture retailer Coco Republic, which invested heavily in its showroom off Union Square, abruptly closed the store less than a year after opening across from Macy’s.  Once fashionable Union Square is now a ghost town.
  • Los Angeles: Even two years ago, 20+ robbers at the popular Grove shopping center used a sledgehammer and assorted weapons to smash one of a Nordstrom’s windows, reportedly taking men’s clothing.  That was child’s play, however, compared to the recent flash mob of 100+ that looted a 7-Eleven.
  • Philadelphia: Even the examples above pale in comparison to the two-night Philadelphia flash mob spree featuring caravans of hundreds who wrecked dozens of stores, including T-Mobile, Apple, Lulu and Footlocker outlets.  One of the looters, a social influencer calling herself “Meatball,” gleefully livestreamed the event to 181,000 Instagram followers, rationalizing it by explaining “Everybody gotta’ eat.”  A tearful “Meatball” seemed less gleeful when charged with six felonies.

Nor are these isolated phenomena.  In 2022, crime in New York City increased by 31%, including increases of 41% in grand larceny, 36% in robbery and 34% in burglary. Similarly, Chicago experienced a 35% increase in violent crime, Seattle’s increased by 23%, Baltimore by 8%, and the District of Columbia by 21%.  In D.C., mayhem reigns, with increases of 38% in violent crime, including 63% in robberies, 27% in homicides, 14% in sexual abuse, and 4% in assault with a deadly weapon.

Meanwhile, as Target closes stores in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco-Oakland, and Portland, OR, the National Retail Federation concludes, “Retail crime, violence and theft continue to impact the retail industry at unprecedented levels,” detailing increasing “shrink rates” resulting in $112.1 billion in 2022 losses.

Leftists love to hide this phenomenon by citing national statistics rather than for urban centers they control or, with homicide, by citing declines from 2021 without noting that 2020 and 2021 experienced horrendous increases over previous years.  According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, nationwide homicide increased by 30% in 2020. In 2021, 12 major U.S. cities achieved record homicides.