disenfranchised by globalisation (o encanto, quase conservador, dos parágrafos abaixo linkados, dizem bem do meu leninismo old school...)

Britain's disturbed and profoundly unequal society is one in which many feel they have no stake. Youth crime is a problem for all developed countries but, as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in their survey of inequality, The Spirit Level, the problem is worst in those societies in which the gap between rich and poor is greatest.

The looting was, on one level, pure nihilism; on another, it was a crude attempt by rioters to mimic the conspicuous consumption exercised by the affluent and credit-rich. It was an expression of the values of a society in which we have been taught that, in the words of the former Labour minister Alan Milburn, to lead a good life is to "earn and to own".

Labour and the wider left must pay greater attention to those cultural factors - most notably family breakdown - that they have too often downplayed. All of our politicians need to think deeply about how the urban poor have been disenfranchised by globalisation; how our culture has been coarsened and debased by life­style libertarianism.

New Statesman (via o tempo das cerejas)