The slippery metaphor of “broken windows” is in play again because of the recent death of James Q. Wilson, American academic political scientist and an authority on public administration, who was probably best known for his work as a criminologist in the development, with George Kelling, of the "broken windows" approach to law-breaking.
The essence of the Wilson/Kelling thesis:
public order is a fragile thing, and if you do not fix the first broken window, soon all the windows will be broken...
But, there were other considerations of other broken windows from earlier times.
Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas (That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen) illustrates why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is actually not a net-benefit to society. The parable, also known as the broken window fallacy or glazier's fallacy, demonstrates how opportunity costs, as well as the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are "unseen" or ignored, presenting a comme ci, comme ça state of affairs:
On the one hand:
it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it...
But, on the other hand:
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
Merde!
My most favorite of all metaphors of the broken window comes from the pen of regency romance writer Sheila Simonson, on page 154 of Lady Elizabeth’s Comet, 1985, portraying a dialogue between a Tory, Lord Featherstonehaugh, and Clanross, Earl of Brecon, presumed Tory by virtue of his acquisition of a lordship:
“You’re a dashed Radical,” my brother-in-law uttered, more shocked than angry, “Good God, Clanross, what would you have, anarchy?”
“Peel’s civil police sound a sensible solution.”
Featherstonhaugh choked.
“Of course, the obvious cure is to give the rioters a bit of land and a cottage. It’s surprising how owning windows undercuts one’s impulse to throw brickbats.” ...
Simonson, something of a political scientist herself, includes a nice discussion of “levelers” in her romance, Clanross showing some levelering tendencies himself:
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil War which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First English Civil War and were most influential before the start of the Second Civil War.
James Q. Wilson, to give the man his due, has posited on the power of ownership and property rights but, somehow, Wilson’s purview eludes the plight of the common man, the possible rioter, and focuses on the rights of the already privileged, the already well-endowed, to own property, which privilege, right perhaps, also seems to abound with selfishness, rather than serving as an antidote to selfishness:
Perhaps the most powerful antidote to unfettered selfishness is property rights. If we are grazing cattle, we will conserve the land if we own it. If we are catching lobsters off the Maine coast, we can restrict over-fishing by allocating space to groups who informally "own" each space. If we want to conserve elephants, we should let people own the elephants. If we wish to water our rice in Bali, we do better if each village has ownership in a part of the water. If we want to conserve our country's oil reserves, we do better if the reserves are owned by firms than if the government "controls" the whole deposit.
And, speaking of writing romance, Wilson seems to have continued the ongoing romance of conservatives with exclusive corporate ownership rather with private ownership, or, GASP! ownership in common, the commonwealth.