Shannon Love offers useful free-market insights into the root causes of the increasingly widespread riots in France:
Via Instapundit comes a discussion on whether the riots in France, and the general breakdown of law and order in some sections of other European countries, are primarily the result of Islamo-facism, runaway multiculturalism or the welfare-state. All three factors play into the problem but I think the primary driver is the welfare state.
One might ask, however, why should anyone riot when the welfare state provides all the basic material necessities of life? It’s not as if the residents of the suburbs of Paris are starving, exposed to the elements or deprived of medical care. By the standards of most of humanity, they live quite opulent lives. Why doesn’t the welfare state make them happy?
The short answer is that human beings are not cows. Cows are quite content if their material needs are met but people have hopes, dreams and aspirations. It is precisely these psychological benefits that the welfare state ultimately cannot provide. People are rioting not because they are deprived of material benefits but because they are wholly dependent on the whims of others for the benefits they do receive. They have no status and no control. It is these social, psychological and spiritual deprivations that they are ultimately striking out against.
Keep reading… (via Instapundit)