I'd make the distinction at the point where it stops being a needful thing for survival.
If you want to argue the breakdown is going to be so complete as to destroy all law and order, and that trading things like the string of pearls will be needed to get food.... deal with it as it comes.
But I doubt the people snagging jewelry are thinking they will need it to get food in a month, but rather they will get to keep it, or sell it, when this blows overs.
If the people in New Orleans are still there in three weeks, with the water around them, the issues will be a whole lot more severe than some looting. They will be dying, in droves.
Hypothermia, dysentery, starvation, and all of the other horrors which arise from a Hobbesian state will manifest.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 04:25 pm (UTC)If you want to argue the breakdown is going to be so complete as to destroy all law and order, and that trading things like the string of pearls will be needed to get food.... deal with it as it comes.
But I doubt the people snagging jewelry are thinking they will need it to get food in a month, but rather they will get to keep it, or sell it, when this blows overs.
If the people in New Orleans are still there in three weeks, with the water around them, the issues will be a whole lot more severe than some looting. They will be dying, in droves.
Hypothermia, dysentery, starvation, and all of the other horrors which arise from a Hobbesian state will manifest.
TK