Hobbes Again

 Yglesias examines the concept of "Broken Windows" policing: where it came from and what it really means. It's one of his "good" pieces where examining progressive shibboleths is probably warranted. 

The one concept he doesn't mention is the idea of legitimacy, especially as it relates to Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was the 17th century philosopher who argued that a state/monarch must preserve order to the state/monarch was no longer legitimate. Order, argued Hobbes, precedes everything. Some of that trickled down to Madison and others at the Constitutional Convention, when they considered widespread unrest in the years preceding 1787. 

The "Broken Windows" theory originated in an experiment in 1969. I'll just quote at length:

Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, reported in 1969 on some experiments testing the broken-window theory. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by “vandals” within ten minutes of its “abandonment.” The first to arrive were a family—father, mother, and young son—who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours, virtually everything of value had been removed. Then random destruction began—windows were smashed, parts torn off, upholstery ripped. Children began to use the car as a playground. Most of the adult “vandals” were well-dressed, apparently clean-cut whites. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. Again, the “vandals” appeared to be primarily respectable whites.

What's interesting about this is that it is not linked to race, which belies that the roots of Broken Windows is racial control. What it links to is a sense that in this space, rules no longer apply. Once the window was smashed in Palo Alto, the same thing happened as happened in the Bronx. 

It's the thinness of "rules" that matters. Rules are internalized when they are legitimate. An illegitimate rule simply isn't followed - we had that issue with the dress code at our school, few students felt it legitimate to police clothing. Even if a rule IS legitimate - don't vandalize shit - once the rule rolls back with Zimbardo breaking the window, the rule evaporates.

All of this recalls Hobbes' assertion that life in a state of nature (without enforced rules) is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Without a policing mechanism, rules can erode, which corrodes basic ideas of community and shared civic life. I see it in my MAGA-town among Whites terrified of people driving down their streets, because car thefts have risen. You see it in the horrific spate of people being shot and killed for knocking on the wrong door or pulling into the wrong driveway.

Property crimes are directly tied to poverty and the poor do not live in an economic system that is legitimate in their eyes. Addressing poverty would obviously help restore some sense of legitimacy to laws. The fewer criminals there are, the fewer crimes there are, the more legitimate laws become (this offer does not apply completely to low grade sociopaths).

Simply addressing poverty, however, is likely insufficient. There has to be a cohesive policy package that increases police effectiveness in stopping crime, while creating community resiliency for times when crimes do happen.

A clear example of this is a post-Covid/post-George Floyd reluctance of police to really go after traffic violations. Sunday night, we were passed by two cars that were racing in speeds likely in excess of 100 mph. I understand the argument that if police were to give chase that only increases the number of cars going 100 mph, but allowing a certain lawlessness (I'm not talking about rolling stops or illegal right-on-red at 1:00am) creates more lawlessness, because the rules no longer apply.

My hope is that - for obvious political reasons - the leadership we need on this issue arises from Black civic leaders, because the racial overtones of Broken Window Policing under Rudy Giuliani have made aspects of strict enforcement intolerable in Black neighborhoods. I'm just not sure the proper lens is being applied.

For progressive politics to work, people have to feel secure enough in their person and homes to extend generosity to the broader community. That was what Hobbes' idea ultimately leads to. I'm not sure that's been internalized by progressive thinkers.