Progressive Gets Mugged by Reality

The Reality that lawlessness is not a good way to live. CEO says San Francisco is a 'city of chaos' where retail workers are 'terrified'

The progressive CEO of a clothing store chain announced yesterday that he would be closing the San Francisco store because of the frequent break ins by gangs of thieves. Davis Smith who runs the active-wear chain Cotopaxi, described San Francisco as a “city of chaos” and one in which his retail workers are “terrified.” He also described how practical efforts to deal with the problems, such as private security, don’t help because the thieves have learned they won’t be physically stopped or arrested.

And so the workers are terrified, the businesses are losing money, and the system starts to collapse around the edges.

When businesses have to beg the city to stop criminals from robbing them on a weekly basis, it’s just not sustainable. Until some sort of order is restored running a business just doesn’t make sense.

This perfectly captures Hobbes' state of war. When there is no force maintaining law and order, business, commerce, research, and more all come to a grinding halt. You can't run a business if you can't keep employees from quitting due to fear. You can't run a business if everything you work for can be stolen in an instant by a gang of drug-addicts looking for money to supply their next fix. You can't have civilization without security.

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

This is not a new concept. The Leviathan was published in 1651. That is 371 years ago. But somehow people in the 21st Century are unclear on the idea of law and order as being a bedrock of civilization.