Looting: Economic Desperation During A Global Pandemic or A Gravitas of Poverty 

 

 

3 Minute Read

 

Modern society is based on organisation; mobilising individuals through order, action, and or a system towards a common purpose.

 

Organisation is a means for humans to fulfill their basic and complex needs (water, shelter, safety, love food, etc.). Through platforms of authority, politics, religion, and education, to name a few, organisation is actualised. Here, human productivity and economic advancement are salient to industrialisation; which is understood as contributing to the betterment of humankind. However, organisation is vulnerable to human cooperation. Specifically, for organisation to be achieved, humans are required to cooperate be it through choice, coercion, or deception. 

 

 

Cooperation and organisation are the pillars of the social fabric (the morphing of individuals in the public into a collective through interaction). When individuals begin to feel a sense of panic, threat, or dissatisfaction the social fabric is abandoned. Events, such as looting, that have taken place during the COVID19, in South Africa, are examples of this.

 

The unrest that COVID19 resulted in was evident through behaviours of individuals in the public. However, these behaviours appear to be treated differently based on a class bias.  Although we were all alarmed by the empty shelves and peculiar toilet paper purchases in the grocery stores when plans of lockdown were announced, there were quick explanations for such radical behaviours headlined as 'Panic Buying' in our local newspapers. 'Panic Buying' was explained as individuals purchasing goods in bulk from the grocery stores in fear that there would not be enough essentials, or luxury goods to sustain them through the lockdown period. Again, here we are referring to how the fulfilling of needs motivates human behaviour. However, for the poor communities there was less of this 'Panic Buying' and in most, none at all due to a lack of affordability. Instead, the lockdown limited movement, and for a poor community of individuals that rely on others' waste or a helping hand from individuals in the community; isolation meant living with what they had until relief packages or the day of social grants arrived.  

 

 

Daily, poor citizens are seen rummaging through waste bins, something that makes affording individuals uncomfortable, yet it is tolerated to a large extent as it does not threaten organisation. However, during a crisis, poor citizens may shift from rummaging through waste to the looting of shops. This is symbolic of disturbing the peace and actively engaging in disorganised behaviour to communicate the refusal to cooperate in a society that is not meeting their needs. Through this, poor citizens demonstrate their economic frustrations and accumulated anxieties aggravated by the global pandemic of COVID19. 

 

The social fabric of order is only possible through human cooperation, and it is during a crisis that we are reminded of this. During a crisis, poor citizens will disorderly take things to survive when they feel unsafe or threatened. Thus, the social fabric of order is abandoned. Looting can be seen as a reminder of how far are yet to come in reaching equality. It also serves as a gravitas of poverty (not only in South Africa but also globally). 

 

 

 

Picture by: Oscar Chan

 

Centered Consciousness