The French Riots--Posner's Comment

It is tempting to attribute the recent riots to the failure of the French (more broadly the Continental) economic model, in particular job protections (mandated fringe benefits, minimum wage, and tenure) that make employers reluctant to hire (because labor costs are so high and bad workers so difficult to fire). The least productive workers are hurt worst by such a system--hence the enormous unemployment rate among French of African (mainly Algerian) origin--20 percent or higher. But the United States, with its much more open economy, has its own history of race riots. The riot in 1965 in the Watts district of Los Angeles resulted in 34 deaths. Race riots in Detroit and Newark in 1967 resulted in another 70 or so deaths. The race riots that broke out in April 1968 after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated spread to 110 cities, the worst hit being Washington, D.C. And in 1992 the beating by police of Rodney King led to another major race riot in Los Angeles. The recent French riots, however, have been more widespread even than those of April 1968, though they have involved remarkably few deaths (one, at this writing) and apparently very little looting. Riots either of the American race-riot variety or the recent French ethnic-riot variety (most Algerians are white rather than black) are mysterious phenomena. They are not concerted, and so, in contrast to political riots such as the one that occurred at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, they are difficult to understand in instrumental terms, as efforts to extract concessions from the government. Although the April 1968 race riots involved looting, the net economic effect, according to a study by economists William Collins and Robert Margo mentioned by Becker, was to depress the value of black-owned property. Undoubtedly insurance rates for stores in black neighborhoods rose as well and were passed on in part to consumers. Other things being equal, one would expect unemployment to increase the likelihood and scope of a race riot, because the unemployed have lower opportunity costs both of rioting and of being jailed. Becker, however, cites a study that finds that the likelihood of a race riot in the United States is not correlated with black unemployment. Residential segregation can be expected to increase the likelihood of rioting, because it produces a concentration of people having similar propensities. The rioters don't have to assemble far from their homes in order to form a critical mass of rioters; the need to agree on a time and place at which to assemble would reduce the likelihood of a spontaneous riot. Poor information, which allows inflammatory rumors to spread, is still another plausible causal factor in riots; likewise youth, because young people have less aversion to risk and violence than mature people; and of course anger, which may be induced or aggravated by discrimination and inequality. But so far as economic differences between France and America are concerned that can be traced to our more open labor markets, probably the only significant one, so far as bearing on the likelihood of riots is concerned, is the much higher French unemployment rate, though even its significance is somewhat doubtful, in view of the lack of correlation between riot propensity and black unemployment in the U.S. history of race riots. Several other differences between France and the United States may be as important as or more important than the difference in unemployment rates. One is that the French appear to have a much greater propensity to riot, or to engage in other riot-like direct action, than the citizens of other countries. French truckers and farmers are notorious for direct action, as in blocking roads, in order to enforce their demands. In 2003, a plan to reduce civil servants' pensions provoked wildcat strikes by tens of thousands of civil servants. Why the French have this propensity I don't know (it probably is not French economic policies, which are similar to those of most European countries), but it suggests a lower riot threshold than in the United States. Another relevant consideration is that the French, like most Europeans, are much less welcoming to foreigners than Americans are. This is one reason that we have not experienced and are unlikely to experience riots by Muslims, even though there are several million of them in the United States. Direct comparison with France is difficult, however; because Muslims are a far higher proportion of the French population (roughly 10 percent to our roughly 1 percent). There is little discrimination against American Muslims, in part because most of them are solidly middle class. No doubt our free labor markets have enabled them to achieve middle class incomes. But it is possible that even if the French had free labor markets, French insularity would result in discrimination. After all, that was the U.S. experience with blacks: our race riots invariably occurred in northern states, in which blacks had the same legal access to jobs and education as whites but nevertheless were still being subjected to serious private discrimination in the prime riot era of the 1960s. Another factor in the recent French riots may be the French refusal to engage in affirmative action. The French are reluctant even to collect statistics on the number of people in France of various ethnicities, their incomes, and their unemployment rates. No effort is made to encourage discrimination in favor of restive minorities (as distinct from women, who are beneficiaries of affirmative action in France) and as a result there are very few African-origin French in prominent positions in commerce, the media, or the government. Affirmative action in the United States took off at approximately the same time as the 1967 and 1968 race riots, and is interpretable (so far as affirmative action for blacks is concerned) as a device for reducing black unemployment, creating opportunities for the ablest blacks to rise, promoting at least the appearance of racial equality, and in all these ways reducing the economic and emotional precipitants of race riots. Of particular importance, affirmative action was used to greatly increase the fraction of police that are black, while the "community policing" movement improved relations between the police and the residents of black communities. French police, traditionally brutal, have by all accounts very bad relations with the inhabitants of the Muslim slums. The French riots are a reminder that affirmative action, although offensive to meritocratic principles, may have redeeming social value in particular historical circumstances.

Comments

[Studyholic]

On what statistic and reasoning do you base your claim that most Algerians are "white" rather than "black"? Why resort to those woeful generalizations when you did such a clear job identifying them as Algerians and North Africans? Are you speaking of some preception of their own identifications and based on what specific evidence?

[Dave Schuler]

Riots either of the American race-riot variety or the recent French ethnic-riot variety (most Algerians are white rather than black) are mysterious phenomena.

If you've got evidence that the rioters are of Algerian descent, I'd certainly like to see it. The news reports (both in English and in French) have not included such breakdowns. Judging by the pictures there are a lot of people of sub-Saharan African or Caribbeans descent among the rioters. Can you determine their religion by looking at pictures?

In the absence of better information I think the reasonable inference is that the parents or grandparents of the rioters might have been Muslims but that these French-born young men are Muslim in the same sense that their peers of French stock are Catholics which is to say not at all.

[irishhistory]

I agree that these riots do not follow the "American" model (race), nor typical protests by poor oppressed ethnic groups.

It does follow well Prof Martin van Creveld's "Decline of the State" model.

See "Rioting in France and the Decline of the State" for a different (& apolitical) perspective.
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_rioting_in_france.htm

The DNI site features article by and for military and intelligence professionals.

[irishhistory]

Sorry -- the above should read

"by the poor or oppressed ethnic groups."

[Daily Texican]

"Another factor in the recent French riots may be the French refusal to engage in affirmative action."

Quite an interesting comment seeing how our own government is slowly, but surely leaving affirmative actions programs behind. You mention more cops. Good point, however, I think even more importantly is the fact that more people of color get educated. Education gives a sense of value and self-worth, even if you're not the one receiving the education, but rather sitting back watching someone who looks like you, having received the education.

[robert]

The riots in France may end up being seen as something other than rioting 'per se' but, instead, the first shots in a Eurabic civil war in which the re-establishment of the Caliphate is the ulitmate goal.
The fact is that the present French (and, by extension, European) social welfare system is simply unsustainable from a demographic standpoint. More young immigrants from Islamic countries are needed to pay the taxes for ever increasing numbers of retiring baby-boomers and the luxurious benfits to which they believe themselves entitled. That they would be unwilling to do so suggests that the system has to give--reality is the ultimnate arbiter of all events--and probably sooner rather than later.
The irony of all this was that France purposely created this situation in the early 1970's when it aligned itself with the Arab world in an attempt to create a Eurabic hegemon (with France at its head) as a counterweight to the United States. However, the chickens are now coming home to roost.

[Bill]

"No man differs more from another than he does from himself at a different time."

I'm confused. After reading the May 2005 Blog I was led to conclude that there is no relationship between economic development and social unrest.

Now, in this editorial, there seems to be a relationship.

Which do the authors wish to retract?

[Tom Rekdal]

With all due respect, I believe that Judge Posner is over-analysing this problem. There are two questions here: What are the causes of the discontent, and what are the dynamics of the rebellion?

Judge Posner has himself already answered the first question in a very thoughtful earlier posting that locates the relative success of American ethnic integration in the balance it strikes between economic opportunity and the consequences for economic failure.

The second question--why does the outburst occur, and why does it proceed in the manner it does?--has received its best answer in Edward Banfield's essay, "Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit," in his book, "The Unheavenly City (1970)." Banfield's essay, reflecting on the American race riots of 1965-70, points out that the riot almost always starts with a police confrontation, and is fueled primarily by young males who are excited by the conflict.

Banfield's analysis is not meant to diminish the seriousness of the social problem, but merely to point out that an insurrection of juvenile delinquents cannot be quelled by treating it as either a form of social protest, or as the beginning of a revolution.

Unfortunately, the French are inclined to embrace both theories, just as we were in the 1960s. De Villepin is the French equivalent of the Kerner Commission, calling for more governmental assistance to assuage the riots, while the political Right in France warns of a jihadist "intifada," just as the American Right blamed the riots on left-wing ideologies.

The former, of course, merely invites more of the same, while the latter threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Joe Merchant]

Community policing is a hugely effective measure - as I witnessed firsthand in Miami. It does not stop the occasional race-based protest march, but lack of connection between the police and the community they are supposed to be serving led to much of the rioting seen in Miami.

Affirmative action may be required the same way that school busing was at the start of desegregation. It should be a single-generation corrective measure, able to fade away after 30 to 50 years, if it is implemented as effectively as it was in the United States.

Then again, a man named Adolf had another solution in mind....

[Kirk H. Sowell]

Just a point about comments 1 & 2 above regarding Posner's assertion that Algerians were predominant among the rioters:

No statistics are available, as the second commenter notes, but we can confidently say that North Africans - meaning mainly Algerians, but some Tunisians and Moroccans - are the bulk of the protestors. Smaller numbers are immigrants of African descent or native whites. I've been watching the coverage on French and Swiss television, and those in the neighborhoods from which the rioters came are clearly Arab. And it is known that the Arab immigrant communities are mainly from Algeria, some from Tunisia and Morocco, and very few otherwise.

Also, it is my understanding that in Europe, as under the U.S. Census, Arabs are defined as being racially Caucasion. They may or may not look white, but that is just a regulatory definition.

And I don't think that Posner, in that paragraph, was talking about their religion.

[N.E.Hatfield]

"LIBERTE, FRATERNITE, EQUALITE" Ahh, how nice they sound! But the reality is that they were created in the street riots of the 1790 Revolution, the 1830 Revolution, the 1848 Revolution, the Commune of 1871, the May revolution of 1968, and now the Suburb Revolution of 2005. The Republic has a long and ongoing history of street riots as a part of National Policy. Where is the surprise?

The majority of these rioters are simply the poor and down trodden that exist in any economic order. If the French didn't want this to occur, they should have gotten rid of this surplus work force (deported) when they finished cleaning up and rebuilding France after the end of WWII. Instead, they allowed it to stay on and fester in the suburban slums until it broke out into the street riots of 2005. They really have no one to blame but themselves.

Is there a moral in this sordid tale for America and the rest of the industrialized world. Perhaps!

[Pi˘ Messenger]

Gracias a Dios alguien que informa sobre algo!

[Per XBOX]

No creo que las noticias buenas vuelen tan rapido!

[Tutto Playstation]

Justo lo que nos faltaba!

[Telecharger Emule]

Justo lo que nos faltaba!

[Telecharger Emule]

Nada m·s y nada menos

[Arun Khanna]

The underlying calculus of French riots seems to be simple: Muslims instead of integrating are differentiating themselves from French mainstream culture.

[dw]

"Our own government is slowly, but surely leaving affirmative action programs behind."

And replacing it with 'unofficial affirmative action' that stereotypes 'ethnics' according to presumed poverty, discrimination and handicap as well as credits them for simply being of ethnic origin.

[day4night]

A French friend insists that the riot police (the CRS, etc.) were more than capable of putting down the riots, but that the administration -- esp. Nicholas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin -- benefitted politically from allowing the banlieus to burn. In this (cynical) view, the riots were tolerated precisely in order to demonstrate the need for economic reforms, and potentially social reforms, and to demonstrate the results of so many years of welfare socialism: a hell paved with good intentions.
Apparently the intended results is an epiphany by voters that concludes, "less economic rigidities, more growth" -- and that Becker and Posner's comments on the riots would be exactly what was wanted.

It seems noteworthy that the Socialist candidate for the 2007 elections, Francois Hollande, seems to have publically taken up this view, accusing the right (Sarkozy, de Villepin, Chirac) of "creating social disorder so as to incarnate public order themselves" and turning the crisis into "an opportunity to choose the field for the next confrontation", i.e. the elections.

The right is already using the opportunity (the riots, that's to say) to call for "positive discrimination" (affirmative action) and a lessening of economic rigidities.

Quotes from: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-707639,36-712227@51-710810,0.html

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