There's a fascinating article in the Guardian that attempts to make sense of the London looting, and why poor Londoners are cleaning out H&Ms and JD Sports, and leaving Tiffany's and Gucci untouched. The answer is more complex than just criminality, entitlement, or—on the other end of things—an at-wit's-end response to poverty. It has to do with what happens when people feel like they have no ways of participating in a consumerist society, and yet they still believe that material things will make them happy. Says the article, "Perhaps they're rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can't afford it." (The Guardian)
