Picture this: shouting in the streets, Immigrant vegetable sellers running down one side of the street, abandoning their makeshift vegetable market, police entering the street on the other side, shouting threats, batons swinging, police car sirens going, . The immigrants flee, fearing arrest, leaving all the vegetables they were selling on the street. The police continued to confiscate all the vegetables and some passers-by looted a bit for themselves. I wonder what happened to all the vegetables that went into the municipal police's truck.
My opinion: the state takes responsibility of regulating commerce and does a bureaucratically bad job at it. One one hand people wanting to enter the market are unable to do so legally, so they do it anyway in the uncontrolled niches of public space. On the other hand, by being forced by illegality into these areas where there is no check on their natural activities they often contribute to some intolerable civic situations, such as the unhygienic conditions at the makeshift market in question. The state is subsequently summoned to restore "order" to the situation it engendered through violence and oppresion.
Tom Preston-Werner
Cofounder of GitHub
tom@mojombo.com
