The Warehouse Arsonist Is No Working Class Hero

People on numerous subreddits have rallied to support the recent warehouse arson in Ontario, California. This fire, allegedly started by a disgruntled employee, destroyed a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse that supplied toilet paper to approximately 50 million people. According to the United States Attorney’s Office, this fire caused approximately $500 million in damage. As he started the blaze, the suspected arsonist recorded a video of himself saying, “All you had to do was pay us enough to f***ing live.” On the r/antiwork subreddit, a post with more than 10,000 likes refers to the culprit as “warehouse Luigi,” in reference to Luigi Mangione. Comments have also referred to this individual as a “working class hero.”

While the cost of living has certainly increased significantly in recent years, destroying inventory that provides value to millions of people is not the solution; it is a serious injustice. In addition to dismissing the grave dangers of such a fire to other persons and property, those celebrating this vandalism demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of economic principles. If people on Reddit truly cared about the struggle of the working class, the last thing they should do is champion the destruction of critical supply chains. Instead, they ignore real drivers of economic frustration: regulatory-induced housing shortages, inflationary effects, and decisions people make that prevent them from accumulating capital.

California has the second-highest cost of living in the nation, behind only Hawaii. With a median single-family home price of approximately $900,000 and an average monthly rent of $2,695, it is no wonder that workers in the state feel squeezed. When residents spend so much on housing costs, it limits their ability to save meaningfully, invest, or consume other goods and services.

In fact, with a 20% down payment—more than $190,000—the monthly cost for the median-priced California home, assuming a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.4%, with property taxes, would be roughly $5,260 per month (excluding homeowners’ insurance). According to the Department of Justice, the median salary in California for a single-person household is around $79,000. This means that after taxes, the cost of a mortgage would exceed the entirety of a typical California resident’s post-tax salary (using the single filer standard deduction).

The Golden State’s sky-high housing costs are the result of an artificial shortage fueled by zoning restrictions, NIMBYism, and other regulations that limit supply and prevent the development of multifamily housing. Likewise, CEQA is frequently used by various interest groups to target multifamily housing projects under the guise of environmentalism. Single-family homes typically contain 3 housing units per acre, whereas multifamily housing can provide well more than 100 units per acre. As of 2024, over 95% of residential property in California was zoned as single-family only. Eliminating those barriers and increasing housing supply would significantly reduce the cost of living.

Residents across the country continue to feel the lingering effects of inflation and its redistributive consequences. When the Federal Reserve expands the money supply and suppresses interest rates, the benefits accrue disproportionately to asset holders, as the real value of wages is eroded. This dynamic is further amplified in a low-interest-rate environment, where asset owners can leverage their existing holdings—using them as collateral to acquire even more assets—thereby compounding their advantage. This is exactly what happened during the COVID-19 response when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 0%.

Critics of capitalism often argue that wages have stagnated while shareholders reap disproportionate gains. Among other things, this claim overlooks a critical shift: access to financial markets has never been more democratized. The average individual can now access a wide range of investment vehicles that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. 

It is also worth noting that the company targeted in this incident, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, is hardly a hyper-profitable monopoly. It’s a consumer staple provider that offers relatively homogeneous products subject to the dynamics of perfect competition. In fact, the company’s net income is down by more than 14% from 2020. Unlike a company in a highly profitable sector like software, the company’s net margin is very modest—just over 8%. The suspect didn’t even work directly for Kimberly-Clark, but instead for a logistics company that ran the warehouse on their behalf.

This incident also directly harms the alleged arsonists’ co-workers. His decision has impacted their employment and ability to survive. As a Yahoo News article indicates, “What it actually did was torch the workplace of the exact people he claims to speak for.”

While the economic frustration the suspect and people on Reddit feel is perhaps understandable, they should blame the real culprits behind the cost-of-living crisis, not a toilet paper company. Targeting and destroying the very companies that create value for consumers ultimately backfires—it erodes economic well-being and drives the cost of living even higher.