Dalrymple on the U.K. riots

Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of a man who spent several years working as an M.D. in both the U.K. prison system and in the poorest neighborhoods of that country. He writes for City Journal, and for many years he's warned about the state of whatever passes for "mind" among the stoned, strung out "yob" culture in the U.K.

Short answer: No one has formulated--much less tested--a workable recovery mechanism for these people.

They believe they're entitled to a high standard of consumption, even if they do nothing all day but drink and get high. And if they don't receive the things to which they feel entitled, they see it as proof that society is being unfair to them.

They believe these things because leftist intellectuals and left/liberal politicians constantly tell them they're true. And a huge social-welfare industry--compose of public employees and a core of sharp attorneys--make a good living catering to the needs of these people and ensuring that the government continue to pay them as much as possible.

These are people who have never held a job, who were raised in single-mother households where no one in their circle had a regular job. The notion of getting up early and going to work for eight or ten hours is absolutely beyond belief for them.

They have lived their entire lives on the taxpayer's dime, but lack the education and perspective to find this fact the least bit unsettling--let alone alarming. On the contrary, they understandably want the government to give them more money so they can buy more things.
They've gotten an expensive education but have no skills that would command more than minimum wage. And in the U.K., being unemployed and on the dole pays as well as a minimum-wage job. Thus all unskilled labor in England is done by foreigners, while low-functioning locals remain permanently unemployed--and permanently subsidized by taxpayers.
Lacking any sort of discipline or ambition, marriage is unheard of. As in the U.S., children are raised by the mothers and trigger higher welfare benefits. The sperm donors rarely play any role in raising their offspring, thus ensuring that those children will follow exactly the same path as their parents.

With essentially no positive role models nearby, no one can even imagine any other way of living. And as long as the welfare state keeps it more lucrative to stay on the dole than to work, why would anyone take a more difficult road?