No, I just point out that extreme inequalities that do not appear to have any sound justification make a fertile breeding ground for crime.
Does that specifically have support in the data? I have various thoughts related to this which I’ll simply list:
1) People have an amazing ability to rationalize what they want to do. That being the case, someone who is committing a crime is likely to rationalize it by claiming that the existing inequalities do not have any sound justification. High crime periods will then likely be times in which a lot of people—namely criminals and would-be criminals—will say that inequalities are unjustified, even if the causality goes in the opposite direction (from the prevalence of crime to the popularity of the claim that inequalities are unjustified).
2) We have a tendency to approve of what happens, whatever it is. We favor the strong horse, and find nice things to say about it. Two possible examples of this phenomenon are (a) that the winners are the ones who write the histories, and (b) Stockholm Syndrome, in which a victim comes to identify with their victimizer. That being the case, a time of high crime, which for economic reasons I expect to be a time in which crime is successful, should tend to be a time in which crime is looked upon more favorably by at least some parts of the population (though not all—specifically not by the victimized groups, aside from those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).
3) There is one bad, very bad kind of situation in which it is widely believed that inequalities are unjustified, and this belief is obviously (to me) wrong. In particular, if some identifiable and somewhat foreign sub-population proves (by its actual merit) to be disproportionately successful relative to the majority population, this can cause resentment in the wider population (demonstrated by historical examples), which will favor explanations which purport to prove that the sub-population got their wealth by illegitimate means. I believe that Jews in Europe have long been an example of this. I have also read that Chinese subpopulations of non-Chinese populations are sometimes disproportionately successful and are resented and persecuted on that account. I know of other examples of this.
4) The idea that the distribution of wealth is unjustified is well known propaganda spread by revolutionary groups, propaganda which is not necessarily true. Those same groups are liable to perpetrate violence, thus establishing a correlation between societal chaos and the spread of the idea that the distribution of wealth is unjustified. The causality here is that both the violence and the spread of the theory have a common cause, namely the rise of the revolutionary groups which are attempting to take over the state.
Does that specifically have support in the data? I have various thoughts related to this which I’ll simply list:
1) People have an amazing ability to rationalize what they want to do. That being the case, someone who is committing a crime is likely to rationalize it by claiming that the existing inequalities do not have any sound justification. High crime periods will then likely be times in which a lot of people—namely criminals and would-be criminals—will say that inequalities are unjustified, even if the causality goes in the opposite direction (from the prevalence of crime to the popularity of the claim that inequalities are unjustified).
2) We have a tendency to approve of what happens, whatever it is. We favor the strong horse, and find nice things to say about it. Two possible examples of this phenomenon are (a) that the winners are the ones who write the histories, and (b) Stockholm Syndrome, in which a victim comes to identify with their victimizer. That being the case, a time of high crime, which for economic reasons I expect to be a time in which crime is successful, should tend to be a time in which crime is looked upon more favorably by at least some parts of the population (though not all—specifically not by the victimized groups, aside from those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).
3) There is one bad, very bad kind of situation in which it is widely believed that inequalities are unjustified, and this belief is obviously (to me) wrong. In particular, if some identifiable and somewhat foreign sub-population proves (by its actual merit) to be disproportionately successful relative to the majority population, this can cause resentment in the wider population (demonstrated by historical examples), which will favor explanations which purport to prove that the sub-population got their wealth by illegitimate means. I believe that Jews in Europe have long been an example of this. I have also read that Chinese subpopulations of non-Chinese populations are sometimes disproportionately successful and are resented and persecuted on that account. I know of other examples of this.
4) The idea that the distribution of wealth is unjustified is well known propaganda spread by revolutionary groups, propaganda which is not necessarily true. Those same groups are liable to perpetrate violence, thus establishing a correlation between societal chaos and the spread of the idea that the distribution of wealth is unjustified. The causality here is that both the violence and the spread of the theory have a common cause, namely the rise of the revolutionary groups which are attempting to take over the state.