The white trans daughter of a science professor, Osterweil told a credulous NPR interviewer that looting was justified because it "strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police," and also "provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure."

She added riots reveal how "without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free."

I was so sure the Osterweil book was satire - a clever comic doing a Marxist Andy Kaufman routine - that I bought it. It's not a joke!

In Defense of Looting is supposed to be the woke generation's answer to Steal This Book, another anarchist instructional published in an epic period of unrest. But the differences between the books are profound.