A just riot is like saying a just mental breakdown. They happen for all kinds of reasons, typically stressors, but not always injustice. People have rioted beca

A just riot is like saying a just mental breakdown. They happen for all kinds of reasons, typically stressors, but not always injustice. People have rioted because they've feared social change, political change, religious change, they've rioted because they've run out of bread, they've rioted due to systematic abuse and racism, and they've rioted because a black man and a white woman wanted to date. Rioting should never be normative or just. Protest, direct action, striking, sure. But setting a random person's storefront on fire because you're unhappy with something completely unrelated is not just. If rioting has to happen (and I would agree that it does), it should not be seen as normative or just. It should be seen as an extreme and unjust but necessary action to wake society up to a problem which must be dealt with. If it was considered just, that would be rationalizing the abuse of some members of society by others as a way for them to "vent" about their "injustice". Today the riot could be for civil rights, but tomorrow it'd be for white supremacists. This article takes great pains to position its argument as "The Crowd" versus "The State". But it's not the state that is harmed by a riot, it's the people. The state is fine! They have a military and can defend themselves. But the innocent people who are the victims of riots can't defend themselves against either the crowd or the state. Some riots don't involve the state at all. Genocidal riots have happened within social groups without the intervention of the state time and again. Which side of a riot is just? A racist riot and an anti-racist riot are still both riots; how do you tell which one is just? Your own personal morals are not a rational basis for justice, because somebody else's personal morals are going to throw your whole theory out of whack.