John Robb -- no flaming lefty, just a real smart guy -- has another post on the ongoing rioting in France. If you're interested in this sort of thing, you should be reading his blog, Global Guerrillas. Here's the nut:

As the state loses its ability to monopolize the provision of economic opportunity, it will soon lose its monopoly on violence.

This has deeply frightening implication for the rest of us. Essentially, if we don't open-source our existing economic and political structures to increase equality and opportunity, we will face a networked revolution (the ugly violent kind that I don't advocate) which we will be unable to defeat without going in the totalitarian direction.

How France resolves this crisis will have crucial implications for the future.

As unhappy populations and governments realize that the contemporary democratic state is totally fucking powerless to stop a network bent on propogating entropy, things could go downhill rather rapidly. This isn't new news, by the way. Thomas Jefferson got it, which is why he was all for running the natives off some land and giving it away to former peasants after the American Revolution. Without a moral stake, there's no reason to play by the rules, especially if those rules are screwing you and your family over. If people don't play by the rules, civilization breaks down. In the modern context, it's not as easy as giving away land. We'll need something more innovative to re-invest much of the worlds population.

The alternative is trying to force people to abide by the existing status-quo. This would be bad, because what we'll get is something like this:

I don't relish the thought of living in a country that deploys stormtroopers, but if you've ever seen a major metro police department gear up for a "public demonstration," it's impossible not to draw the paralells. The state won't give up its monopoly on violence without a fight, but if it comes to that, we've all already lost.