Randall CollinsThinkers

Looting is an act that gives large numbers of people something to do during a riot; it is an act of defiance against authority, and thus joins the looters into the the moral holiday.

Looting is largely Durkheimian ritualism done for the sake of the activity itself, and as a symbolic expression of membership; the objects stolen can be nearly worthless in every other respect, but they represent one's partnership in breaking the law.

Looting is an example of a moral holiday, a breakdown of normality which possesses a tone of egalitarian saturnalia; a widely shared atmosphere of ebullience that violence brings to a peak.

Looting is conducted by what could be called the foot-soldiers of a riot. The looter is half-hearted and uninsured in the politics and yet serves to keep alive the emotional atmosphere.

Looting is an event that develops in a spontaneous form of organization similar to other aspects of crowd violence, with 'looting leaders' acting as facilitators who seem to be aware that much of the crowd will not engage in frontline violence, even against physical objects, but only will take part once someone else has taken the earlier step of establishing a free zone and a looting situation.

Looting is a brilliant tactical invention which takes the relatively useless part of the supporters and onlookers of an insurrection and turns them into activists of sorts, keeping alive the emotional atmosphere that is where a moral holiday lives or dies.

Looting is the best way of keeping a riot going and drawing in actors who reject the use of violence against people. Rioters must have something to do, otherwise the riot Peters out.

A Moral holiday is made up of a free zone in time and space, an occasion and a place where the feeling prevails that everyday restraints are off; individuals feel protected by the crowd, and are encouraged in normally forbidden acts.

Moral holiday is a classic concept in collective behavior where there is a temporary breakdown in normal social controls; police authorities are absent, or they are ignored or actively disrespected by the crowd.

A Moral holiday is often pervaded by an atmosphere of celebration, or at least exhilaration; it is a heady feeling of entering a special reality, separate and extraordinary, where there is little thought for the future and no concern for being called to account.

A Riot is an event necessitating arson because fires are the device for assembling people for witness to the moral holiday

A Riot is an event requiring arson because destruction is a way of generating a center of attention and its attendant collective effervescence.

A Riot is sparked from a situation in which rioters are generally alienated in their social milieu from state institutions and the arenas of political debate and are generally not connected to mainstream politics by functioning channels of communication which could provide the concerns of residents with public representation.

A Riot is only able to be sustained if there is a particularly large amount of looting or property destruction over shifting geographies so that new participants can be recruited, and new targets for looting and arson (and, in some cases, massacres) can take place.

A Riot is impossible to sustain without looting and arson at work in its dynamics. If the riot took nothing but the form of violent confrontations against the police, it could easily be dealt with by police withdrawing until the crowd became bored, drifted away, and disassembled; or it could be put down by putting in overwhelming force against the inevitably small group that would actively confront it