The Riot Index and austerity

[mooncliff]

Titled “Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009,” the study assembled masses of data on historic protests, riots, assassinations and revolutions, and uncovered what the authors called “a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability.”

Economic downturns in themselves are not enough to spark riots, they found. The tinder box is government fiscal retrenchment, and its relation to social eruption is causal. “Once you cut expenditure by more than 2 per cent of GDP, instability increases rapidly in all dimensions, and especially in terms of riots and demonstrations,” Prof. Voth wrote on his blog this week

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...0/?from=sec431

[metalman]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Titled “Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009,” the study assembled masses of data on historic protests, riots, assassinations and revolutions, and uncovered what the authors called “a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability.”

Economic downturns in themselves are not enough to spark riots, they found. The tinder box is government fiscal retrenchment, and its relation to social eruption is causal. “Once you cut expenditure by more than 2 per cent of GDP, instability increases rapidly in all dimensions, and especially in terms of riots and demonstrations,” Prof. Voth wrote on his blog this week

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...0/?from=sec431

The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood

[c1ue]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Along the lines of what is noted above:

If you look at history, it isn't the rapid descents into poverty which drive people to revolution.

It is generally long and slow ones.

The rapid ones lead to tyrants.

Good news or bad news given the present economic state of the US?

[Andreuccio]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Along the lines of what is noted above:

If you look at history, it isn't the rapid descents into poverty which drive people to revolution.

It is generally long and slow ones.

The rapid ones lead to tyrants.

Good news or bad news given the present economic state of the US?

Which one are you thinking would be the good news choice, revolution or tyranny?

[c1ue]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Which one are you thinking would be the good news choice, revolution or tyranny?

If the ongoing stagflation continues for another decade, it would point towards revolution.

If said revolution means returning to the right path from the wayward one we are presently on, then perhaps this is good.

If on the other hand a Sudden Stop occurs, it would point instead towards the tyrant.

Of course in theory the tyrant could be a Cincinnatus, but the last millenia or so hasn't been too encouraging - assuming even the Cincinnatus was a real person as opposed to hagiography.

[mesyn191]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Competent benign dicators are almost unheard of throughout history...I wouldn't bet on another Cincinnatus either.

[don]

Re: The Riot Index and austerity

Wasn't the King in the 1938 version (with Charles Laughton) of the Hunchback of Notre Dame a nice guy, benevolent . . . up to a point. He saw the danger in the printing press - the threat of the broad dissemination of ideas. Well played by Harry Davenport.