“Looters” and Food in an Emergency

This seems to come up every time there’s a major natural disaster:

The Chilean military is attempting to restore order in the country’s second city, Concepcion, Chila.

Troops have fired tear gas at looters attempting to flee with food and other goods from wrecked stores, as a major rescue effort is under way in the city.

You really have to ask yourself, how is a person trapped in a city that’s been destroyed by an earthquake supposed to feed his family if not by “looting?”

If you’re lucky, of course, your house is undestroyed and it happens to be well-stocked by canned goods and bottled water. But say it’s not. It’s not like the people of Concepcion can walk down to the ATM machine, withdraw some cash, take it the store, and then go buy food. Nor can you just say “well, they should have power back on in a few days, we’ll just eat on Thursday.”

I think it’s clearly preferable to have police and the military keeping a lid on the situation, and authorities handing goods out in some kind of organized way, rather than everyone just grabbing what they need. But until that gets done, people have no choice but to grab what they need. The idea of “looting” or criminal theft needs to be put into contrast with some kind of reasonable law-abiding alternative. When there’s food in the shops, and people need food, and none of the shops are open to sell anything, then of course people are going to take food.