These are the original comments to the post "Is Shoplifting Wrong?" from "Alas, a Blog." 

(ack.)

Amp, next time you run out of pseudo-firewood, just give me a call, okay ? Yeesh. ;)
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/05/03 03:24pm
Here's a reason it's wrong: it causes the corporations to react in a knee-jerk fashion, bringing the Panoptic eye down on all of us. Everywhere you go now, there's surveillance, and people are starting to accept it, which is damned scary. And of course companies are prosecuting to the fullest, and in some places that means more jail time than the theft might normally incur. And finally, it means that employees themselves are under more surveillance, given less trust.

This cause and effect shouldn't have to happen, but it does. I feel no anger towards many of the individuals, but I do note that there are many (I know, because I've worked retail and been involved in helping catch them) who do not shoplift because of need, unless you count the need to steal because it's fun, or the need to pawn something in order to get their latest fix (which is of course a different issue). There have been very few who actually lift items needed to help get through the day, or feed a child; perhaps because good samaritans in our city, like yours and so many others, has been forced to contend with social problems by opening food banks and the like, as governments continues to offload on those below them.
Derryl Murphy [derrylm@shaw.ca] • 05/05/03 03:30pm
I can't really answer the question of whether you should shoplift, but I know why I don't. No matter how I rationalized, it felt wrong, and I couldn't get around the fact that I was taking something and giving nothing but grief in return. If you're stealing a walkman from Wal-Mart, that means come inventory time, some wage-slave is going to have to count that aisle 3 times instead of twice, and it'll probably be late at night, which means her kids'll go to bed without a story, or some other sob story.

Taking stuff that doesn't belong to you puts a little nick in your soul. Just being an American means I'm already taking more than I deserve from the world, which means my soul is already pretty bloody. Some folks say that means an extra nick won't mean anything. I say it means I can't afford to lose any more. I guess it's a judgement call.

For food, heat, and shelter, I think it's probably worth it on an emergency basis, but otherwise, it's better for the soul to do without.

If nothing else, it's the difference between "I worked really hard for that" and "Dude, I totally boosted it!" Sure, some folks prefer the latter to the former, and some can't tell the difference, but that's a whole nother issue.
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/05/03 03:42pm
While I don't have a problem with stealing time, I must confess I look upon stealing goods a little differently. If you're swiping from Wal-Mart or beating a subway or bus fare, you're not hurting the system at all; you're actually hurting all those people around the same income level as you are who *aren't* cheating.
Elayne Riggs [elayneriggs@yahoo.com] • 05/05/03 03:52pm
You know those annoying little individual-serving plastic packets of mustard and ketchup and the paper packets of salt and sugar that you get at cheap restaurants? Those sure suck, don't they? Why don't they just have salt shakers and bottles of ketchup, like they did in the old days? Answer: They were always getting stolen.

Thirty years ago, the post office had a quiet policy that if you forgot to put a stamp on a bill, they'd deliver it anyway. That lasted until people started taking advantage of it on a large scale, and then they stopped.

These are just tiny, trivial examples of the many ways in which the world becomes gradually less pleasant when people steal.

It's the Tragedy of the Commons. The same way individual shepherds have no incentive to preserve commonly-owned grassland, and so it gets overgrazed and ends up useless to everyone, the common trust that you can put something down and it'll still be there when you come back is eroded away by each small theft until finally that cultural value is no more use to any of us.

Not stealing is another kind of environmentalism.
Evan [ethanol=blog@armory.com] • 05/05/03 04:06pm
The money Wal-Mart is spending on those security guards (and camera, and other anti-theft measures) is money that could be spent hiring other people, or paying the people they currently employ higher wages.

Sure, maybe the actual damage done by one modest shoplifter is small enough to get lost in the noise of their accounting system, just like the damage done to democracy by keeping one person from voting is too small to count on a national level. That doesn't mean it isn't wrong, or that it wouldn't cause real harm if lots more people did it.
Avram [avram@grumer.org] • 05/05/03 04:11pm
I think it's wrong. Even if you are poor you have something to offer - what about bartering, or chopping wood in exchange for taking some? And if that's not worth your time and energy, then the thing that you stole wasn't really that important, was it?

Anyway, great blog!
Sage • 05/05/03 04:15pm
>Not stealing is another kind of environmentalism.

Nice comment, Evan -- rings true to me. I used to shoplift as a kid, oddly (?) only would steal things that were bad for me, mostly candy and cigarettes -- these were the easiest items to get away with.
Jeremy Osner [jeremy at xyris dot com] • 05/05/03 04:20pm
Evan wrote:

It's the Tragedy of the Commons. The same way individual shepherds have no incentive to preserve commonly-owned grassland, and so it gets overgrazed and ends up useless to everyone, the common trust that you can put something down and it'll still be there when you come back is eroded away by each small theft until finally that cultural value is no more use to any of us.

You do know that the only place the "Tragedy of the Commons" exists is in the minds of foolish economists? It's a made up example which in traditional societies effectively never happened.
John S. [sneadj@mindspring.com] • 05/05/03 04:20pm
In the "its bad because when everyone does it it has bad effects" catagory, is there any way that shoplifting is worse than, say, owning a personal car? Or eating meat?
Ampersand • 05/05/03 04:22pm
I think I remember reading a study that most shoplifting is done by young people. The real reason seems to be the adrenaline rush that they get plus it seems to be part of the coming of age thing. Don't really know how to explain it but that is when I did the shoplifting that I did.

There is a problem however. When I was a kid even if I had gotten caught there probably would have been little permanent damage done to me or my reputation.

Now however that is not the case and simple crimes of pilfering or shoplifting often end up on some arrest record somewhere. Add another slip and the kid is beginning to be marked as a troublemaker by society.

It does not take too many in our current moral climate to have that used against a person in employment selection processes.

My advice is that the risk of getting caught is just not worth the heat. Curl up with your dogs under a blanket or even better with each other to get through a few cold days. That was what I did during our ice storm a few years ago. Then my problem was not the lack of money but the lack of electricity on the grid.
Marie Foster [mfos1@attbi.com] • 05/05/03 04:23pm
Although I agree with everything said above about aggregate effects, universalizing behavior, etc., I'm going to try to explain why a single, individual act of theft, even if never repeated by anyone else, is still wrong. It may only be a small bit wrong, but it's wrong just the same.

Imagine, if you will, that I am the proprietor of a massive widget dealership. I sell thousands of widgets in stores all over the country, and I make gobs of money doing it. I'm so rich, in fact, that the cost of each individual widget is virtually meaningless to me. However, I worked hard to start my business. I put hours of my own sweat and money into it, and likely, when I first started it, I made about as much money at it as you had during your winter of theft. (Insert argument here about disincentives to start businesses if people start ripping companies off wholesale, but that's not the argument I'm making, just a bonus.) But still, I kept buying widgets to sell them. Now, according to your argument, it wouldn't be okay to steal a widget from my store early on, when the store was small and I wasn't making any money at it. However, you argue that once I'm making a lot of money, it's okay to steal from me. However, by acknowledging that I have a right to keep my widget, which I paid for, when my store is small, you've granted the essential premise that makes stealing wrong: the fact that someone else has ownership rights over the object in question. If all I owned in the world was one widget I was trying to sell on the street, under your rubric it would be wrong to steal. And yet, if a month later, I inherit a big corporation, I no longer have any moral claim to property ownership over that widget it would have previously been wrong to steal, simply because the widget is now on sale through the corporation? Where did my property rights go, and how did they pass to you simply in virtue of you wanting my widget?

Now, I doubt you're going to argue that we only have the right to own things we really need. (If you do, I'm not sure there's any hope for you, but I digress.) If that were the case, it would be equally alright for you to steal from a small store, so long as you knew that your theft wouldn't cause the store to go under. It would also be okay to go into rich people's houses and ransack them, because rich people probably only need a small portion of that stuff anyway. Hell, you could go into starving families' homes and steal their TVs, since no one needs a TV to survive. The only other option is to acknowledge that the reason you feel okay stealing from WalMart is just that you don't like WalMart. This argument doesn't hold up either. Otherwise, I could just say, "I don't like ampersand, so it's morally acceptable for me to steal his stuff."

The fact is, you may want the things WalMart has, and you may even not feel guilty for stealing from an evil corporation, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.
Amy Phillips [mail@50minutehour.net] • 05/05/03 04:25pm
I complete agree that shoplifing items from companies that literally will not notice the loss is in no way wrong. I find it honestly an extension of my belief that copying software and music is not wrong.

I see it in two ways:

1) Degree of harm: Stealing something from someone who would be seriously harme by the loss IMHO fairly dubious, but stealing low cost items from large and wealthy corporations does effectively no harm and so is not wrong.

2) Applied ethics: I strongly disapprove of stealing from any company that treats its workers well and otherwise attempts to run its business in a responsible and ethical manner. However, I see stealing from deeply vile corporations like Wal-Mart as both a way to redistribute their ill-gotten gains and a morally positive act.
John S. [sneadj@mindspring.com] • 05/05/03 04:29pm
Well, here's the problem with Amy Phillips' argument:

Amy P is looking at it from a purely capitalist economic viewpoint. A viewpoint from which you only have the right to things that you "earned" under the prevailing rules.

If you believe, as I do, that every person has the right to the basic necessities of life - then the purely capitalistic point of view does not hold water. Now, if you still go along with me, the question is how to get those things you need while inflicting the least possible amount of harm on others. My choice would be to go for the largest/wealthiest possiblity as my removal of wood or food would harm that entity less than one close to my level.

(Believe me, it was fucking cold that winter. I visited Amp & Co. and nearly froze to death before they returned home)

Of course I believe that everybody should be getting food, shelter & medical care gratis. That's one of the things I see as a basic tenet of society - making sure that nobody starves or freezes or dies of curable/preventable illnesses.

Let's face it - which one of you wouldn't steal fuel for heat or food if you had no other options? Given that people will do (and always have done) this under those conditions - where are the resources best appropriated from? Grandma or Drugco?

You can, of course, ignore this entire argument if you believe that you are not entitled to food, shelter, etc. unless you earn it under the rules of the system in which you live.
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/05/03 04:42pm
Amp, I find your approach troubling. Or maybe you're just pulling our collective chains, for the sake of a lively discussion. But if not, I find it troubling that you are not troubled by shoplifting.

I'm not going to get all theoretical here; the truth probably lies somewhere between "all property is theft" and "property is the guardian of every other right," and I'm not inclined to explore the exact point along that line. It's the practical aspect I'm interested in.

Back in college, someone decided they needed my bicycle... my primary transportation... more than I did, and liberated it. Maybe they did need it more than I did; I didn't get to discuss the matter with them. It was a difficult month until I came up with the money for another bicycle. And a better lock.

So that was personal, and lifting something at Wal-Mart is impersonal, or victimizes only an abstract commercial entity? What if it's your shop being lifted from instead of theirs? Your computer vanishes one day? Or, far more likely, someone starts pilfering your cartoons from your site and peddling them, e.g., to unscrupulous editors? Is that OK too?

For the record, in the words of the inimitable songwriter Dave Lippman, "I Hate Wal-Mart." I've posted about it, and I've even supplied Dave with source material on which he has based new verses of his ever-growing song on the subject. I am also on record as deploring the highly unfair distribution of wealth in America and between America and the rest of the world. But the problems are systemic, and I agree with several people above (they gave better examples than I could) that shoplifting as a response to poverty, far from addressing the systemic problems, is likely to worsen them. We need to fix the system that drives people with nothing to put in their fireplaces to have to shoplift in the first place. Otherwise, we're increasing the overall level of needless paranoia, among people of all levels of wealth, including the poorest, that whatever we have won't be where we left it when we come back, or that whatever we sell will have been sold out from under us, to the detriment of our livelihood. And we all know how the Wal-Marts of the world are liable to respond to increased paranoia.

I do hope you'll reconsider your position.
Steve Bates • 05/05/03 04:48pm
Well, I guess I wouldn't think it was ok. Anyone could be found "evil" if you wanted what they had bad enough. And the question that hasn't been answered is, was there any non-stealing way to get what the person needed...any local charities? Did they try other options first or go straight for the theft?

I'm wondering here, are we being asked to take an ethical or legal stance? Are we being asked to say that in "the right circumstances" petty theft should be legal? Because I couldn't get behind that...it would set a precedent that would then make it ok for someone to take what I have, because *they* think (or argue) that I need it less. You can see what kinds of abuses it would lead to.

Ethically, it makes me uncomfortable. Even if I were a full-on socialist, or completely anti-capitalism, I don't like this sort of back-door justification. If we are going to feed and house everyone, we should do so openly, as a whole society, not by looking the other way while people loot. Plus, it's not a sustainable strategy...eventually, the system would become too unbalanced.

As far as *this* individual situation, of course it rouses my sympathy. The wolf has been at my door, too, and if it had gotten much worse, I would have been tempted to steal. But I would have tried every other option first. It would definitely be my last resort to survive. I guess I would want to take the high ground...how can I be angry at corporate stealing if I do the same thing? Even if my actions make no economic difference, they send a message that I only care about fairness when it affects me, not as an ideal in itself.
emjaybee [emjaybee@grabapple.net] • 05/05/03 05:05pm
When I was young, I made out with a woman who was pretty drunk at the time. I had pretty great needs. In the greater scheme of things, I don't think I did any material harm; she was too drunk to notice. I am sure I did nothing wrong.
Mark [seligman22@msn.com] • 05/05/03 05:31pm
Mark,

I will sing my song to you here.

Analogies suck

Come on, everybody join in.

Anyhoo, are you saying you might not have survived if you didn't make out with the drunk woman? Your analogy doesn't scan for me. You don't know your audience well enough for the analogy to work. Avoid it.

emjaybee,

I don't thinnk that we are talking about petty theft in legal terms. Seems to me that we are talking ethics.

Given that we don't provide basic needs openly, can you condemn those that shoplift materials necessary for their survival? Also, many people don't know that there are charities, etc. and/or don't know how to find them. Or are embarrassed to be asking for assistance but figure if they shoplift and get away with it that nobody will know how badly off they are. That whole pride/shame/saving face thing that exists in nearly all societies really hits US citizens in the "need help financially" sector.
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/05/03 05:46pm
I've shoplifted before. I've done the old "dine 'n ditch" before. I've paid the consequences (I spent a night in jail and, AFAIK, I still have a bench warrant for me in NH because I never showed back up at court for one of these excursions).

Would I do it again (or support someone else doing this)? If I was in the situation I'm in now - no. If I (or another) was in the situation I was in then - yup. If I was in that situation again, I'd do it again in a second. At worst, I'd spend a night in jail -- with free food -- instead of going hungry for another night. Seems like a pretty simple decision, to me. If I didn't get caught (as is usually the case), all the better for me.

I would never shoplift (or condone shoplifting) from an individual, or a small, independent store. From a corporation -- fuck yeah. The bigger the corp., the more I'd support that shoplifting.

One could argue that it's a bit of the "chicken and egg" scenario -- but I figure, these corps. are already increasing prices to cover the expense of security and lost goods -- more often than not, they make out on that deal (not as many goods are stolen as they predicted). Many stores also instill lack of trust between co-workers by offering incentives to turn in co-workers for stealing (which can end up being used to get back at a co-worker you have a person beef with). At any rate -- they're expecting it, they're charging you for it, might as well go ahead and do it. (Of course, if you don't really need the item, I wouldn't support the stealing so strongly -- but if it's a necessity and the person can't afford it -- go for it).

Charities, etc. don't work. It takes time, energy, cutting through far too much red-tape, etc. I'm not saying people shouldn't find out what's available and apply for what they can. But, while waiting, take what you need. That's how I feel.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/05/03 06:53pm
bean, that may well be the most effective, if subtle, satire I've ever seen of the right-wing stereotype of those no-good, thieving liberals. Still, it's dangerous to do that subtle a satire. Some folks might not get the joke.
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/05/03 07:22pm
bean, that may well be the most effective, if subtle, satire I've ever seen of the right-wing stereotype of those no-good, thieving liberals. Still, it's dangerous to do that subtle a satire. Some folks might not get the joke.
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/05/03 07:25pm
When I was in high school, my friends and I practiced shoplifting as direct political action. When the Blockbuster music moved in a few storefronts down from the indie music store, we stole from there. Systematically and repeatedly. Same thing with the Barnes & Nobel that moved in a year later. Sometimes we shoplifted from the chin grocery store to supplement our Food Not Bombs supply. Were we just stupid, unethical, punk rock kids trying to justify ourselves? There was probably an element of that, but on the whole, no. Did we do some overall good in our community? Yes, I think we did. Do I feel guilty about it in retrospect? Not for a second.
guamgrl3 [guamgrl3@yahoo.com] • 05/05/03 07:26pm
Heh. If you want to think of it as satire, I guess you're welcome to.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/05/03 07:27pm
I've been the guy on the other end of the counter, the face of the faceless corporation, when it was that job or no job, and so I might have a slightly different perspective. But I can't help thinking that for every mass-produced, anonymous product I might steal from some cookie-cutter anonymous chain store, there are a bunch folks worse off than me, even when I was supporting two people on $6,500 a year, and their jobs depend on somebody paying money for the widgets in the boxes that they're loading on trucks at three in the morning.

There is no The Man out to screw you over, there's just a whole bunch of men and women trying to live life. Sure, some of them are assholes who take more than they give, and some of those assholes are rich, which means they do a hell of a lot more damage than the rest of us. But them taking more than they deserve doesn't justify my doing the same.
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/05/03 07:43pm
Barry, I haven't had time to read all the comments, but will hazard a brief remark. As a person of color, I am followed around by store security guards. I have been stopped and questioned several times. And, no, I had not stolen anything. So, briefly, you should consider that being able to steal without consequences may be a form of white privilege. If you decide to liberate faux logs from Freddy's Hawthorne, say, I am going to be the person being harassed and possibly arrested while you are being ignored.
Mac Diva [escritora@mac.com] • 05/05/03 08:58pm
I think it may make a difference why you were at such an extremity, Amp. Had you been looking hard for a job, but not finding anything? Were you disabled in some way at the time? Was there no public-assistance option available from the power company? I would be more sympathetic in such cases than I would be if your poverty was due more to pure lethargy.

As for your point that no one will starve due to the theft of a Walkman from Wal-Mart, it's just as true that you're not going to starve if someone steals a Walkman from you. Under your theory, why should possession of such luxuries (i.e., items other than food or clothing, etc.) be any more respected than Wal-Mart's possession thereof?

Finally, people who drive or eat meat internalize the cost of doing so, by paying for gasoline (and associated taxes; one can argue that those taxes may be too low, but the principle is the same) or for a hamburger. The thief, by contrast, does not bear any of the societal costs of his or her behavior.
Tom T. • 05/05/03 09:00pm
I think that Jake made a very important point earlier, and bean made a very important comment on it. The necessity of petty theft, and thereby the ethical and legal issue of trying to draw a distinction between justifiable theft and recreational theft, would be entirely negated if society (and by "society" I mean both the government and the popular ethical mindset) was willing to provide basic services for its people. However, as bean said (or, rather, to paraphrase what bean said) red tape is a bitch and it stands between needy people today and what facilities are available to help them. Until basic services are provided to our populace sans charge, sans red tape, petty theft for survival purposes will always be with us and will always, on some level, be entirely necessary.

Until such time as those things are available: let the faux-logs flow out the Caldor's doors.
PinkDreamPoppies [listentothecolourofyourdreams@hotmail.com] • 05/05/03 09:01pm
On the other hand, Mac Diva and Tom T. have great points against letting the logs flow (so to speak) at present. Guess we'll just have to work on fixing things the old, democratic way ...
PinkDreamPoppies [listentothecolourofyourdreams@hotmail.com] • 05/05/03 09:04pm
"In the 'its bad because when everyone does it it has bad effects' catagory, is there any way that shoplifting is worse than, say, owning a personal car? Or eating meat?"

That's a very good question. And probably it's a personal judgement call. But there's a difference that springs to mind: Living without a car is very very hard (I know, I've done it), but living without shoplifting is pretty darn easy.

Do I hold it against you that you stole duraflame logs to keep warm during a cold and impoverished winter? Nah. (Though if you'd asked me at the time, I would have dragged you by the ear to the nearest dumpster where you could stock up on pallets, cardboard, demolition debris and other flammable goodies for free.) But, even if the victim is WalMart, shoplifting *does* do harm to the community, and it's worth being aware of that.

I'm guilty about owning a personal car, but I can easily rationalize the guilt with the knowledge that I'd have trouble making a living in this stupid city without one. If I had to shoplift to survive, I'd feel guilty about that too, but would no doubt be just as skilled at rationalization. But I have the luxury of not needing to steal, so I choose to protect my community's feeling of security by not stealing, even when an opportunity to do so arises.


BTW, another commentor brought up the issue of sharing music online--seems to me that falls in a much fuzzier area, since copying music doesn't deprive anyone of anything but a sale they probably wouldn't have made anyway. It's not like stealing a bicycle.
Evan [ethanol=blog@armory.com] • 05/05/03 09:15pm
I do think that stealing is detrimental our communities and the individuals that comprise them. In a case of need, I don't think I would say it is *wrong* to steal. But it does suck for everybody. For the store, for the employees, for the non-stealing people who will suffer in price-hikes or nasty security procedures, and I think for the stealer also. Just because you *have* to do something doesn't make it a good or right thing to do.

I think I would say that stealing is wrong, but may be justifiable. If Amp says he felt that in his case it was justifiable, that's good enough for me. But it's a shame on everybody if a person ever really has to steal.
Tara • 05/05/03 10:06pm
a) The law is the law. I'm a great believer in this one. Societies need laws.
b) I agree with Thoreau that some laws are unjust and should be disobeyed.
c) Anatole France wrote, "The law, with majestic impartiality, forbids rich and poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges."
John Isbell [clayisbell@earthlink.net] • 05/05/03 10:31pm
Evan saith:
"(Though if you'd asked me at the time, I would have dragged you by the ear to the nearest dumpster where you could stock up on pallets, cardboard, demolition debris and other flammable goodies for free.)"

Problem is that lots of those flammable goodies will destroy your chimney and, worse, possibly poison you to death or cancer.

And TomT. saith:
"Finally, people who drive or eat meat internalize the cost of doing so, by paying for gasoline (and associated taxes; one can argue that those taxes may be too low, but the principle is the same) or for a hamburger. The thief, by contrast, does not bear any of the societal costs of his or her behavior."

Problem is it's not true. I, good vegetarian that I am, in large part subsidize hamburgers for all. Please read "Fast Food Nation" for supporting facts. Same thing with cars. Gasoline is artificially cheap in this country. All car owners/users and non-car owners/users subsidize this through our tax dollars.

MacDiva's point was spot on to something that I hadn't even considered (but used to witness all the time when). Although I'm not sure whether this is really a shoplifting induced result (rather than a racism induced fact 'o life). When employees follow the well dressed minority and ignore the unkempt, raggedy white hippy something other than theft prevention is at work. I tend to think it is a way to prevent "undesirable" shoppers from returning to the premises. But that is nothing more than my opinion.

But how many posters here have really been in a position where stealing food or fuel was really the difference between eating or not or living through the winter or not? If you ever are in that position I'd be willing to bet that you'll shoplift.

BTW Amp - how about adding the bit about the teeny ceramic space heater trading thing during that same winter? For most of the posters here that is equivalent to, or worse than the duraflame lifting.
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/05/03 10:48pm
Am I mistaken, or does that Anatole France quote have just the slightest tinge of irony?

Anyway, it's a great post. There's a number of ways to look at it. On one level, there's the absolutist position that stealing is simply inherently wrong. I actually think this is pretty much correct. Necessity, of course, is a valid defense (both legally and morally), so I'm perfectly comfortable with the pilfering of the Duraflame logs. It's a pity about the lost revenue (I mean, it isn't Caldor's or Duraflame's fault that you have no heat), but it would have been a much greater pity if you had died of exposure. I hope we can all at least agree on that.

But I think, ampersand, you are too quick to pooh-pooh the aggregation argument. It doesn't "arguably" increase costs to the consumer, it does increase costs to the consumer (that is, the "paying" consumer). Shoplifting is a loss incorporated into the cost of doing business. It's like a king of flexible overhead. I used to work at a department store, and we had shoplifting losses every month. Sure, we tried to prevent it (security cameras, etc.), but we just couldn't. It became a simple cost of doing business, no different from rent, advertising, payroll, supplies, inventory, the rest. That cost of doing business cuts against the bottom-line, and as a result, prices have to go up. The costs of shoplifting are split, to some degree or another, between the direct victim and the other, paying, customers. This is inevitable.

Now, I'm not saying we should shed a tear for the poor retailers of the world, but we should be aware that it's not simply massive corporations who are getting screwed. And they may not specifically notice the shoplifting of whatever particular measly consumer good *you* stole, but I guarantee that they notice shoplifting. Our store kept very specific track of losses due to theft, every month, every quarter, and every year. This is not uncommon. In fact, it's pretty standard.

As for the "is shoplifting any worse than owning a personal car" angle... that's a tough one. You targetted the question within the "it's bad because when everyone does it it has bad effects" category, and within that framework, the answer is probably no. But we come back to the absolutist position: there is nothing inherently wrong with owning and operating a personal car. There is something inherently wrong with stealing. When you steal, you are appropriating the property of another without compensation. Defending this view (i.e., the inerent wrongness of theft) does require me to assume certain non-obvious facts about how we treat property in our society, but taking our society as a given, I think this is a pretty firm principle.
Drew Vogel [drewblog@yahoo.com] • 05/05/03 10:57pm
Amp, have you *ever* worked in retail?

I have worked in retail most of my adult life. I have never worked in a place like Wal-Mart, that has its own in-store security, so, all of us employees are the closest thing to security. I take shoplifting absolutely *personally*. You steal at my store, you steal from ME, because it's my frickin' responisibility to keep my eyes open.

In one of my previous incarnations, I was actually management. Since I no longer work there, I can tell you it was at Radio Shack. The Shack pays its store managers shit for salary (17 grand, for newer managers), *all* the earning potential is in bonus. One of the bonus catagories is profit. (The other one is sales gains). Guess what *kills* profit? THEFT. You came into my store and stole stuff, you were taking money *right* out of my pocket. And I wasn't "the faceless horrible corporation", I was an underpaid overworked store manager.

Stealing firewood is a wee bit different. But blanket approval of shoplifting is ludicrous. It doesn't just hurt those faceless megacorporations you hate so much--IT HURTS REAL PEOPLE. My current store manager *also* makes quite a bit of her money in bonus, and theft affects that just as much as it did me when I was in her shoes. And *most* people who steal do *not* steal firewood, or food. I work in one of those chain/pharmacy-type places (think Walgreens, though I don't work there). You know what we get ripped off more than anything else? COSMETICS!!!! Yeah, *there's* a real necessity.

I have worked in retail far too long to have *any* sympathy for shoplifters.
Frank [fabfour.fan@verizon.net] • 05/06/03 01:12am
Um, is there a reason you didn't bust up old pallets? They're oak (usually) and are free for the asking and it would keep them out of the landfill.
harlan • 05/06/03 01:35am
But there's a difference that springs to mind: Living without a car is very very hard (I know, I've done it), but living without shoplifting is pretty darn easy.

Interesting. I'd have to say the opposite is true, to some extent, at least.

For one thing, Amp lives without a car quite easily. While I have a car, I rarely use it. I've gone weeks at a time without driving it at all, and when I do, it's just to go to the store -- sure, it's more convenient, might as well take advantage of the convenience since I have it. But it certainly wouldn't be much harder to jump on a bus or walk to the store. Personally, I hate driving, and do it as little as possible. I'd much rather take the bus to work in the morning -- I don't have to deal with traffic, I don't have to pay for parking, I can read and take some time to wake up before work while on the bus. It's definitely quite easy to live without a car. And if it's not -- perhaps you should simply move somewhere else.

That last sentence probably sounds a bit harsh -- and it is. But, IMO, so is saying that living without shoplifting is "easy" to do for all people, and if they are in the position to "need" to shoplift, they should simply do [whatever].

When I was doing the dine 'n dash thing, it wasn't for the adrenaline rush, it wasn't for a prank. It was the difference between eating one night that week, or going another week without eating. And no, charities were simply not an option. We applied for food stamps, but that takes a hell of a lot of red tape to go through -- and that takes time. It also takes a lot of paperwork, something I didn't necessarily have (I didn't have my birth certificate, for example, and couldn't afford to send away for it -- not to mention the time it would have taken to get it, seeing as how I wasn't even in the same state I was born in -- it's a lot easier to get one now, what with the internet and all -- but even then, you still need a credit card and money).

I wouldn't do it now, because frankly, as poor as I am, I'm not starving. Therefore, there is no need to do it, and the risks are too high.

And, ftr, I have spent quite a bit of my life working in retail. I know how it works in the big chains -- and that's what makes me less sympathetic towards the stores and more sympathetic towards the shoplifter.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/06/03 02:58am
Mike [mike@eterry.net] wrote:

There is no The Man out to screw you over, there's just a whole bunch of men and women trying to live life. Sure, some of them are assholes who take more than they give, and some of those assholes are rich, which means they do a hell of a lot more damage than the rest of us. But them taking more than they deserve doesn't justify my doing the same.

I'm of the opinion that no one has the right to be vastly wealthy when some people in the same society go hungry or homeless. If the government isn't going to redistribute sufficient amounts of wealth from the rich to the poor, then it only makes sense for the poor to do this for themselves.

The rich either inherit unearned wealth or earn it by exploiting the labor of people poorer than them. Therefore, I don't see them as being entitled to their wealth when someone else needs some of it to survive. Given that our legal system (foolishly) treats corporations as individuals, my feelings about stealing from wealthy corporations is the same.
John S. [sneadj@mindspring.com] • 05/06/03 03:39am
All through my 4 years at an elite private college in a small town I worked at the local convenience store. And I can say that my experience bears Mac Diva out: I was told on my first day to keep an eye on the (mostly town, not gown) customers of color because they stole from the store. A few days into the job, I noticed that the vast majority of the (attempted-- I stopped it) shoplifting I witnessed was from mostly white, mostly well-to-do college kids. And they were not stealing necessities: it was candy or cosmetics, that kind of thing: just the thrill of 'stickin' it to the Man'. And free lipstick trhough the Five Finger Discount.

A friend of mine wrote his dissertation on graffiti taggers in NYC, and he actually described an inversion of this: for these kids, paying for spray paint was dishonorable. It had to be stolen. So they would all go into a store, and the nonwhite kids would go off to a section far away from the paint and make a lot of noise as a diversion. Then the white kids would grab the paint and walk out unmolested.
Ruth [yugenue@yahoo.com] • 05/06/03 05:33am
I should also add, to be honest, that there was one couple who routinely stole from the store, and I always let them, because I knew they were dead broke and had kids, and they took soup and crackers and cans of juice.
Ruth [yugenue@yahoo.com] • 05/06/03 05:37am
I have a really hard time believing that you would need to steal to survive, Bean, unless you're saying that you didn't have $2.50 a day to spend on food. $2.50 will buy you two bagels, two bananas, a bag of pasta, and a can of veggies. Having a taste for restaurant food does not excuse the "dine and dash" approach to life.
Julia • 05/06/03 10:23am
Jake writes: "Also, many people don't know that there are charities, etc. and/or don't know how to find them. Or are embarrassed to be asking for assistance but figure if they shoplift and get away with it that nobody will know how badly off they are. That whole pride/shame/saving face thing that exists in nearly all societies really hits US citizens in the "need help financially" sector."

So basically, you're arguing that it's okay to steal to avoid the embarrassment of admitting you're poor? I'm sympathetic to the arguments people make about the basic necessities of life. A big part of the reason I think people shouldn't steal is that there are other ways to get those things, from charities, from benevolent neighbors, and in the case of stuff to burn, from the trash. But although it's still wrong to steal, I would find it understandable if someone does something wrong to feed his family. However, you argue that if people are poor, they should be allowed to steal from those who don't want to help them (or from big corporations) because they're embarrassed to ask for help from those who would help them willingly. Does that mean that if my car runs out of gas and I'm too embarrassed to call AAA and admit I was dumb and didn't fill the tank, it's okay to just take someone else's car, or steal one from a dealership?
Amy Phillips [mail@50minutehour.net] • 05/06/03 10:26am
An example: Right now I'm taking a difficult statistics class at college. Most of the students in the class have more math background than I do, and I suspect many of them were born with more intelligence than me. So they are much more likely to get an A in the class than I am. I also suspect that some of them cheat on the tests--thus gaining a very unfair advantage over me.
Does this mean that I am justified in cheating, even just a little bit? No. Even though they were born with an advantage over me (intelligence) AND some of them gain an advantage through cheating, I refuse to be unethical. I would much rather work harder, or accept that I will get a lower grade.
Julia • 05/06/03 10:55am
And that is equivalent to accepting not eating.

Ugh.
It seems to me that a big, bright line should be drawn between stealing to survive, and stealing for entertainment or making a statement.

I mean, it's not even worth arguing whether or not murder is wrong. Of course it is, and is by practically any standard worse than stealing. But killing in self defense, provided it was the only means available to ensure your own survival, is accepted as needful if regrettable. And the thing that makes it morally tolerable is the recognized need to protect your continued existence.

Hence, society already makes allowances for situations in which a person's life is in danger. Even many people who would generally oppose abortion grant that a 'life or health of the mother' caveat is needful.

I don't think that it is alright to steal for any other reason, as it can lead to a corruption of the social fabric. As it was discussed over at Making Light in one of the threads on looting in Iraq, about 30% of the population bases their level of behavior on what everybody else is doing. If they see people being law abiding, they will be law abiding. If they see people running riot, and nothing done to prevent it, they will get away with what they can.

Therefore, we have a responsibility as individuals to try and set the bar high if we want to live in a society in which our own rights are cared for. There is no telling that the example we set for others may harm us, particularly should it be obvious that need wasn't a factor in our behavior.

John S. - "You do know that the only place the "Tragedy of the Commons" exists is in the minds of foolish economists? It's a made up example which in traditional societies effectively never happened."

This is a good point regarding traditional societies, though the story applies much better today. Formerly, the people living together in a community had strong ties of accountability to each other. It was not ok to let your neighbors starve.

You still see this in some parts of the world, and in certain very small communities. But as social actors lose any sense of common interest, it applies more and more.
natasha [natasha_l_c@mail.com] • 05/06/03 12:25pm
Forget about $2.50 a day. I once bought two weeks of groceries with $4.15 cents in change. Actually, I only had $4.10 cents, and was trying to figure out what not to buy, but the folks in line behind us chipped in a nickel. And smiled while they did it.

Some of the rationalizing I see on this thread (I refuse to dignify it by calling it "thinking") is a much needed reminder that there are givers in life, and there are takers, and they're pretty much evenly distributed across the political spectrum.

The folks who gave me that extra nickel were givers. I don't know what their politics are, but I'd prefer their company to somebody who honestly believes something like "I'm of the opinion that no one has the right to be vastly wealthy when some people in the same society go hungry or homeless. If the government isn't going to redistribute sufficient amounts of wealth from the rich to the poor, then it only makes sense for the poor to do this for themselves."
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/06/03 12:32pm
"It was the difference between eating one night that week, or going another week without eating. And no, charities were simply not an option."
Our community center in my small town serves breakfast and lunch six days a week, all you can eat. People know about it (and we try to have baby food). I have no idea about other towns or cities.
John Isbell [clayisbell@earthlink.net] • 05/06/03 12:42pm
Mike wrote:

"Some of the rationalizing I see on this thread (I refuse to dignify it by calling it "thinking") is a much needed reminder that there are givers in life, and there are takers, and they're pretty much evenly distributed across the political spectrum."

This comment is a personal and uncalled-for insult against someone who hasn't insulted you in turn. If you're unwilling to post without insulting people who don't share your opinions, then please consider not posting on my website at all.
Ampersand • 05/06/03 12:52pm
Harlan, what are pallets? I honestly don't know.
Ampersand • 05/06/03 01:08pm
Julia:

Analogies suck. That's my song that I will keep repeating. Your analogy makes no sense to me. Are you saying that your life is immediately at risk if you don't cheat? If not, your analogy doesn't scan.

Amy Phillips:

Admitttedly, I started the tangent. I'll continue with it here, but be warned - I'm a tangent kind of guy and will happily fly along the tangential halls of debate.

Anyway.... it seems that there are 2 people here (Amp & Bean) who have actually experienced the options of go hungry/go cold or steal. If you haven't experienced it yourself or witnessed it firsthand, I recommend that you do so that you can get an idea of what it's like.

No, I'm not saying it's okay to steal to avoid the embarrasment of being poor. I'm saying that it's okay to steal the necessities in order to avoid the humiliation attendant with being poor. Don't shower for a couple of days, dress in raggedy clothing and go apply for foodstamps or welfare. Then come back and tell me how you were treated with respect and dignity. Tell me all about how our society finds it important to help the poor keep any sense of dignity, pride or self-esteem.

I'm saying that being poor is as much, if not more, work than not being poor. Go through the application process for any government assistance and then tell me how easy it is. Try to find a charity that will provide you with food and heat (without using your car to get to them) and tell me how much easier that is than going to work 8x5. Tell me how hungry or cold you need to be to steal food or fuel. Ask your neighbors to feed you for a couple of months. Ask your neighbors to pay your heating bills for the winter. How did that work out for you?

Your car out of gas analogy doesn't work either. I will continue to beat the dead large hoofed mammal on this. Is your life in immediate risk/danger because you ran out of gas? If not, the analogy don't work. If so, then yes you are allowed to steal another car.

This, to me, is an example of people's inability to imagine themselves in dire circumstances (or circumstances beyond their control).

Even bleeding-heart liberals have stopped bleeding. They have swallowed the propoganda blaming the poor for being poor. You have lost your ability to empathize and sympathize, people.

Ruth and MacDiva:

Ruth's comment lends credence, IMO, that theft is not the cause of the problem - racism is. If the employees know that it is not the local minorities stealing, well certainly the propietors do. It's just being used as an excuse to persecute. If they could, they'd have a sign that said "Whites Only". But they have to settle for their current actions.


In the end, I think that most of us are in agreement that it is ethically okay to steal the basic necessities if that is the only way to get them. It seems we have a disagreement on what those necessities are and how easy it is to get help from gov & charitable orgs. Am I getting this right?
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/06/03 01:16pm
i've been scanning the comments, so if i missed something someone said, please forgive me.

ironically, while i was hanging out with my step-daughters, i randomly asked them an ethical dilemma question when the conversation lagged. the question was, "if you are hungry, and haven't eaten in a while and have no money, is it ok to steal?" they asked some qualifying questions, such as whether or not it was life and death. the answer to that was no.

they ended up deciding that it was ethical to steal if you had exhausted all your options -- asked friends and family for food, gone to a soup kitchen and they ran out, or to pick up a box and there were none left. otherwise, they felt that it was incumbant upon the hungry person to try other options. i think there is a lot of wisdom in this approach, and i'm inclined to believe that bean was aware of her other options and sought them out, when making the decision to "dine and ditch".

on another note, amp, how the hell did you manage to steal something as large as faux logs??
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/06/03 01:32pm
I'm don't harbor any anger against you for doing what you had to to survive. I have to admit, though, I feel sort of disappointed. I say this as someone who has never shoplifted anything. But my partner did. He has really bad eczema, and he stole a tube of lotion that cost $7.99, because we had about $5 between us at the time, and we had to eat. Back in those days (early 90's) we spent about $20/month on food.

Anyway, he got caught, and ended up having to go to court, and the whole thing cost us personally about $300 between court costs and lawyer fees, etc. In retrospect, he really wishes he had just set aside his share of $5 for a few weeks until he could pay for it.

Of course, the real crime is that we live in a country with vast amounts of wealth in which some people would rather die than spend even a penny to ensure that every citizen has health care. But stealing? Doesn't help anyone. It doesn't make Wal-Mart treat it's employees any better, it doesn't hurt the corporations because they pass the costs on to everyone else, and I have to admit, I admire you in so many ways that I find this personally a little disappointing. But then again, I'm a mom, so I guess that's supposed to be how I react.
Maureen [maurinsky@yahoo.com] • 05/06/03 01:34pm
I'm wondering if defaulting on a credit card that one used while a "starving student" would be similar to shoplifting from Wal-Mart? Afterall, it was used for rent, food, bills.
Jeff [jephab@mindspring.com] • 05/06/03 01:42pm
I'm wondering, after scanning the original post and the various comments, whether any of you have children. I ask because it's impossible to teach a child the difference between right and wrong if you don't know yourself. It's so easy to rationalize theft of one kind or another, whether it's Ampersand shoplifting logs from Caldor's or some executive cheating on his expense account or just taking a couple of bucks out of your mommy's wallet or publishing phony financial statements to keep the stock price up. There's always a facile explanation -- "they won't notice" "I needed it more than they did" "I deserved it," blah, blah, blah. I have to say that this was my first visit to your blog and if this is typical, it'll be my last.
Doug Levene • 05/06/03 01:57pm
Amp, from whom did you steal? Think beyond the typical knee-jerk reaction of screaming "fat corporate bastards" -- you're smarter than that. :-)

I'm unfamiliar with Caldor's (I'm a left-coastie), so let's consider Wal Mart as an example. Who owns Wal Mart?

According to data I located online, 37.35% of Wal Mart is owned by 3,281 intitutions. 38.95% of Wal Mart is owned by insiders. Tallying up the holdings of the top ten insiders, I come up with 0.26% ownership by those top ten. The largest shareholder is the Walton J. T. Trust, which owns 8,096,226 shares, or 0.18% of the 4.386 billion shares outstanding.

So again, from whom is one stealing when one steals from Wal Mart? Well, it appears the answer is 0.26% from the top ten insiders including the Walton trust, 38.69% from other insiders, and 37.35% from institutions. But who are these other insiders, and who are all those institutions?

Wal Mart is the nation's largest employer, with 1.4 million employees. Wal Mart strongly encourages its employees to participate in its stock purchase plan, with a result of huge employee ownership of the company. Yes, one would be stealing from Wal Mart's employees, including the poor saps making zilch wages.

But what about those institutions? They are comprised of other publicly-traded companies and mutual funds. Yes, mutual funds. Like those present in Mom & Dad's 401(k) plan. Like whose Grandma and Grandpa still own in his IRA and variable annuity.

Yes, I know that Wal Mart doesn't pay its employees a living wage. Yes, I know that the wealth distribution (i.e. ownership) of Wal Mart stock is hugely skewed toward the rich. Yes, I know that one would be stealing more from rich people than poor people. However, the fact remains that when one steals from Wal Mart, one is mostly stealing from employees and retirement plans.

So Amp, how badly did you need that firewood? I'm not saying it was unreasonable for you to steal it; I'm only pointing out from whom you stole it. It's up to you to decide how you feel about that.
Fred (Ann's SO) • 05/06/03 02:08pm
Amp, I'm sorry for the rudeness. It wasn't intended as an insult to the person, just the ideas being expressed. So I'll retract the "thinking" comment, which was uncalled for, but I'm going to stand by my assertion about givers and takers.
Mike [mike@eterry.net] • 05/06/03 03:20pm
I don 't see the answer here, Amp, so pallets are the wooden bases that goods are stacked on before shipping to stores. The problem with that idea is that if they don't go back to the source, the store gets charged a fee (although there must be some that are no longer viable and do make it to the dump).

There's been some good input on this topic.
Derryl Murphy [derrylm@shaw.ca] • 05/06/03 03:59pm
Jake Squid said:
"Julia:
Analogies suck. That's my song that I will keep repeating. Your analogy makes no sense to me. Are you saying that your life is immediately at risk if you don't cheat? If not, your analogy doesn't scan."

No, OF COURSE my life is not at risk if I get a bad grade. But Bean's life is not at risk either. Honestly, if you were totally at a loss you could spend a few hours scavenging for change and come up with 50 cents to feed yourself for a day. Stealing from restaurant owners and hardworking waiters--just because you won't deign to eat more humble fare--is disgusting.
Yes, it sucks when other people are born with advantages (more money or more intelligence) and it sucks worse when people use unethical means to enrich themselves at your expense (cheating on taxes, cheating on tests)... but stooping to their level isn't the answer.
• 05/06/03 04:03pm
Didn't Caldor go bankrupt a couple of years ago?
Dan [damnliesandstatistics@yahoo.com] • 05/06/03 04:39pm
Anonymous:

Well, that's why the analogy doesn't work. I disagree with you about Bean's life being at risk. How long does one need to go without food to qualify as being at risk of starvation?

I am clearly in the minority in that I believe that there are some things people are entitled to ***even if they haven't "earned" it***.

To those of you who believe that a person is only entitled to food/shelter/medical care if they have enough money to pay for it:

I hope that you'll remember how you feel today when you or a family member gets old and/or sick. See if you feel the same way when you are short of funds to feed or care for yourself or your family.

IMO this is why there is little hope for our society. Just because somebody doesn't have the skills to achieve highly under current rules means that they don't deserve food and shelter? That is just obscene (to me).

Let's face it. There is not sufficient help available for the hungry and the homeless. And you people would prefer that they just not bother you or yours by taking what they need to live when other options aren't available.

I want to see all of you scavenging for change in some little town. Or in a big city. And how, precisely, do you feed yourself for a day on 50 cents? What could you possibly buy in the US that would provide adequate nutrition on 50 cents a day? Especially given that if you've got to "scavenge" those 50 cents that you probably don't have cooking facilities?

This is why I feel that there no significant differences between Dems & Reps. When it comes down to it you are all Libertarians. "You only get to live if you earn it," repulses me.

One day I'll find a group of people who care about their community and are willing to support and aid each other in good times and bad.

Shame on you for not caring about the members of your society. And you deserve the consequences that that attitude creates.

There. Done with the rant.

I guess there are some very fundamental differences in my view of human society than in Americans in general.
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/06/03 05:00pm
re: dine n dash - when i was a waitress i had to personally pay the tab for any table of mine that did this. it sucked bad and hurt only me.
d • 05/06/03 05:20pm
I agree with you, Jake Squid, that people have a right to food, shelter, and medical care for free -- IF they are truly unable to earn it for themselves. I suppose if Bean had some legitimate reason why she could not work, and had no friends or family to help out, and didn't live near a soup kitchen or shelter... then yes, I would call that an emergency situation justifying theft.
We were not given any details about WHY Bean and/or Ampersand were not working. Were they sick? Disabled? Or was there really not a single job available in their city? I find that last option pretty hard to believe.
And, for the record, you don't need cooking facilities to eat nutritiously. As a student living on a shoestring budget, I know it's not that hard as long as you're willing to forfeit luxury. Case in point:
whole wheat bagel......... 25 cents
banana.................... 15 cents
can of mixed vegetables... 50 cents
sardines in tomato sauce.. 79 cents
No cooking involved, and plenty of protein, vitamins, and carbs.
And I bet these prices would be even lower in other parts of the country, since I live in an expensive part of New York City.
Julia • 05/06/03 05:31pm
The Baby Jesus said it was wrong and that is all I need to know.
Kevin Moore [nevikmoore@hotmail.com] • 05/06/03 05:45pm
[i] Jeff wrote regarding defaulting on a credit card which you use to pay your bills, and how it compares to shoplifting...[/i]

Well, that's right up my alley. (I'm a bankruptcy attorney, representing debtors.)

Credit card companies are up in arms about people defaulting on their cards, then filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (where they get their debts discharged, as opposed to a payment plan).

Most people don't have non-exempt assets, so all they have to pay to get their debts discharged is the filing fee...(and their attorney...:)

Charging items knowing that you will not be able to pay for them technically is fraud, although nearly impossible to prove in a bankruptcy proceeding, particularly if the debtor has not charged anything for a period of time before filing bankruptcy.

And it's not comparable to shoplifting....credit companies have been granting credit recklessly, and for each person who charges things and refuses to pay, there are dozens who lose track of their debt or lose their job or other source of income and can't pay.

That's where I come in.

As for shoplifting, I'm against it, but I'm also against Wal-Mart intentionally shorting people on overtime.

Amp, Bean and other former shoplifters may have done something morally wrong, but Wal-Mart DAMN SURE knows that cheating people on overtime is wrong (don't they have labor attorneys on staff or on retainer?) and intentionally commit moral wrongs as a routine part of doing business.

I will forgive individuals' minor transgressions much more easily than theft and fraud by a large corporation.
Aaron [avarhola@aracnet.com] • 05/06/03 05:58pm
Well, there have certainly been a lot of assumptions about what I could or couldn't (or would or wouldn't do) at the time. So, I'll lay out the details (whether that will make people more understanding or not, I can't say).

I had just moved to MA. It was December. It was cold. I moved there with several friends. We were starting a business -- one which we had all worked at in Rochester, NY, and we were moving the business to MA. The parent company had paid for our office, paid some of the start up fees, but would absolutely NOT give us any money for ourselves until we "earned" it. We were working our asses off, but we could not expect any money of our own for at least a month. We were young, stupid, and naive and thought we had enough money to make it until that time. We were wrong. We had used most of our money on the actual move. What little money we had left was used up pretty quick.

So, at the time, we were sleeping and living in the offices -- no kitchen facilities (not even a microwave). We had no money, and no hope of getting any for at least a month, maybe more. I was the one who would scrounge a few cents here and there (by begging for change on the corner) to get enough bus money every day to go to "the city" to apply for help. Social services wasn't too willing to help out. For one thing, we had just moved to MA -- they weren't too eager to help us out on that basis alone. Then there was the red tape. For one thing, as I said before, I needed to get ahold of my birth certificate. That meant mailing a request to my "home town" (i.e. the town I lived in for 3 days after I was born) to get a copy. That also meant finding $15 for the birth certificate. That also meant waiting until it arrived.

There were no "soup kitchens" in our town. There were some in the next town over -- but in order to get to them, it meant finding money for the bus, and going when they were open -- which is when we were supposed to be doing business, and, of course, if we didn't do the business, we couldn't even look forward to getting the money after a month. That's not to say we didn't try every now and then, but it wasn't something we could do on a regular basis.

After a week of not having eaten a thing (no, we did not even have $2.50 for the week, let alone a day), we did a dine 'n ditch. After another week, same situation, we did another one -- only this time we got caught. Spent the night in jail. Did that make me regret doing it? No, not really. At least that night I got to sleep in a bed, and got a McDonald's breakfast sandwich and coffee in the morning.

A couple of weeks later, we started getting money in. We got an apartment, we lived off of ramen noodles and 2 for a $1 hamburgers, but we didn't do anymore dine 'n dashes.

Flash forward 10 years. Now I'm in Plattsburgh, NY -- going to college, living in a rural area outside of Plattsburgh (and if anyone knows what Plattsburgh, itself is like, you'll know how rural it really was). But, it was cheaper rent than living in the "city." But, I had to pay for my own heat. It was electric heat. It was Plattsburgh -- 20 degrees below zero is not uncommon. My heat/electric bill was nearly $300 a month. I couldn't afford that. I turned my heat down and spent a lot of time in my kitchen where the heat from my downstairs neighbor's wood stove would drift upwards. (I did not have a wood stove, or a fireplace). I applied for HEAP (to help pay my heating bills). While I was there, I also applied for medicaid, because I had no health insurance, and needed help paying for my prescriptions.

Despite my low income, it was not low enough for HEAP. But, I did qualify for medicaid. For a few months. After I filed my taxes, showing I made a whopping $1500 for the year, Medicaid cut me off. I was above their minimum income level to qualify for Medicaid anymore. Because I made $1500 for the year.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/06/03 07:48pm
Sounds like it was really tough to get your business off the ground, Bean. But the fact remains that it was your choice to stick with the business and not actually look for a job that would pay enough for food.
Seems like the obvious choice would have been to put the business on hold while you took a temporary job, then tried again after having saved up enough to give yourself a "safety net." Or, if even one of the group of your friends had taken a job, their wages would still have been enough to pay for everyone's food.
Just out of curiosity, what was the business?
• 05/06/03 08:18pm
FTR, leaving the business meant leaving the [i]entire[/i] business. Which meant that we would not have had an office to sleep in. Instead of being hungry, but with a place to sleep and an ability to take sponge baths in the bathroom sink, we would have been kicked out onto the streets -- in the middle of Dec. in MA. So, how would that have been better?

And, btw, there were 3 of us. We each had a particular job at the business. If even one of us left -- even if we ignored the parent business' and allowed them to continue living in the offices with us -- that would have meant hiring and training someone to take over their position. Which would have meant waiting a lot longer than a month to start bringing money in.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/06/03 08:32pm
I can't figure out if this is about environmentalism, socialism, Wal-Mart, or Jean Val Jean. Guess I'm just one of your slower readers.
Sasha • 05/06/03 08:57pm
you're kidding me, right? People in the states are expected to pay their own medical bills (on top of everything else) on $125/month? That's fucking nuts. Who can pay anything on $125/month? I mean I live in a city that's, like, the cheap of the cheap when it comes to living expenses, and I wouldn't even know where to start on that little money. Fuck.

Sorry for the drift, I have opinions on the topic at hand and may post them later if I don't go to bed, but this just blew me away.
Jake [draico50@hotmail.com] • 05/06/03 09:11pm
I can absolutely validate what bean has said about the social services system. My sister is on disability and Medicaid/Medicare. Because (for the moment) Minnesota is a generous state with regard to Medicaid, she can still qualify even though her dis checks are a whopping $620/month. (If she didn't qualify, she would be SOL, since her meds alone are over $200/month, and doctors visits would be on top of that.)

I went with her to apply, and it was very tough. MN, like MA, is *very* suspicious of giving benefits to newcomers (because, here at least, there *was* a documented pattern in the late 80s-early 90s of people moving to "Moneyapolis" from other states for the benefits). She had to bring utility bills, her birth certificate, her medical bills, her disability certification, tax returns, bank statements, car title, proof of how much rent she pays, other bills, etc etc. Luckily for us, *I* am very organized and handle her paperwork. Renewing is more streamlined, but still requires lots of proofs.

Even so, I am stunned at bean's heating bills. We do the 20 below thing here as well, and I have *never* encountered a heating/electric bill that high. You may have been getting shafted somehow. Then again, I am also the queen of window plastic and weatherstripping, even when I was renting....
Ruth [yugenue@yahoo.com] • 05/07/03 06:34am
Ampersand, your argument is utterly wrong. If you shoplift, the cost of the item does not come out of the vast coffers of the faceless corporation, it comes out of the pay packet of the poor sod who's the manager of that particular store, and already overworked and underpaid anyway. My wife used to be an assistant manager of a wine shop, and every bottle that was stolen meant less money for her at the end of the month. Money she'd busted her guts every day to earn, money our household could ill afford to lose. One of her former colleagues is still paying for a serious theft that happened at another branch.

These rationalisations for stealing from poor working people are little short of disgusting.
Iain J Coleman [iain@iainjcoleman.net] • 05/07/03 09:09am
Wait, we still never found out what Bean's mysterious business was!
Fill us in, Bean!
Anne • 05/07/03 10:45am
So having read through all of these comments I have to throw in with Amp.

What is clear is that people steal for all sorts of reasons. You do have the occasional thrill thief, but they tend to steal small items not worth much (and please spare me the objection that the price of those items come out of bonuses--most employees in any retail store don't get paid bonuses, hooray for those that do).

If we had a system where people could at the least survive (though I think the bar should be set somewhere around modest comfort or thriving)by working what for most of us would seem to be a ridiculous number of hours I could see the objections gainst theft. But we don't. If you don't want people to engage in economic deviance then don't make it so hard for them to thrive in accepted ways.

One last point, considering all the ways that corporations steal from their employees (a la Wal-Marts refusal to pay overtime, to union-busting activities, to pension piracy) arguing that shoplifting hurts employees seems a bit disingenuous to me.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/07/03 11:13am
Coalition of the witty wrote:

"One last point, considering all the ways that corporations steal from their employees (a la Wal-Marts refusal to pay overtime, to union-busting activities, to pension piracy) arguing that shoplifting hurts employees seems a bit disingenuous to me."

I don't work for WalMart (over my dead body). I work for another big retail corporation. It pays overtime if you work it. We're not unionized, but the pharmacists are. It pays fairly well (for retail :-)). The benefits are excellent. My store manager is cool. Even the mucky-mucks we see (district manager, regional manager) are all right.

If you generalize all retail corporations as Evil Wal-Mart, you're making a mistake.
Frank [fabfour.fan@verizon.net] • 05/07/03 11:37am
I think Bean made it clear in the two situations she mentioned, that she had no choice about the theft..that she was utterly without resources and waiting for what public assistance there was would have taken too long and threatened her survival. I think most of us understand that being in that situation might justify theft. Most of us, thankfully, seem to have not been in that situation (though maybe close to it).

I would like to mention, un-churched though I am, that many churches do help people who show up at their door with a request for help--my old church often gave out small amounts of cash or food when asked. If any of you are in a similar situation in future, it's better than starving, however you may feel about the church itself, it may be worth a try (just an FYI there).

I think, if the overall thrust of the argument is, we need a better social system so people won't feel the need to steal, I would agree with that.

If the thrust is, stealing is always ok so long as it's against a big, evil, corporation, I think that's specious. When possible, it should be avoided, because as many have noted, it's often not some faceless corporation that feels the real pain, but the waitress who has to pay or the manager who has to account for the loss to his boss.
emjaybee [emjaybee@grabapple.net] • 05/07/03 12:03pm
considering all the ways that corporations steal from their employees (a la Wal-Marts refusal to pay overtime, to union-busting activities, to pension piracy) arguing that shoplifting hurts employees seems a bit disingenuous to me.
amen to that. Some of the arguments here are tantamount to saying that if I hit Amp, and Amp gets mad and turns and hits Bean (because he's mad at me), it's my fault that Bean got hit. I know analogies suck, but I think this one holds.
Jake [draico50@hotmail.com] • 05/07/03 12:11pm
Coalition of the Witty wrote:
"considering all the ways that corporations steal from their employees (a la Wal-Marts refusal to pay overtime, to union-busting activities, to pension piracy) arguing that shoplifting hurts employees seems a bit disingenuous to me."
~~~
Why? Are you saying that if large corporations hurt their employees, it's okay for shoplifters to hurt those same employees even more??
• 05/07/03 12:17pm
I think Coalition of the Witty is encouraging Wal-Mart and other large businesses to practice what they preach.

If they're so gung-ho about preventing shoplifting and "time theft" by employees (read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed - she went undercover as a Wal-Mart employee), then it's only fair that they should abide by labor laws regarding paying overtime and union organizing (not to mention sexual harassment).
Aaron [avarhola@aracnet.com] • 05/07/03 12:48pm
"If you generalize all retail corporations as Evil Wal-Mart, you're making a mistake."

Frank,

I'm pretty sure I didn't do that. But your corporation is in the minority, so if that's what you got out of it so be it. Again, hooray for you, you found a good corporation to work for. I too have worked for a good corporation in the past. Hooray for me.

In the end, I think Jake's analogy was pretty good in that it illustrated a good point. My bad actions (assuming shoplifting is bad) does not justify the bad actions of another.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/07/03 01:10pm
i forgot to add one other thing to my earlier comment.

i'm not a deeply observant religious person, but generally find aspects to the bible fascinating (especially since it's such a huge part of our culture). stealing is one of those things that made it to the "top 10" list of things we need to worry about in terms of behavior, and it's one of the few commandments that is very, very clearly stated.

i like to think about why some rules made it to the top ten list, and others didn't. i'm figuring that stealing did because of the large social and interpersonal ramifications -- a few of which have been discussed here.

people steal for lots of reasons -- the adrenaline rush, they're hungry, they're cold, or sometimes they just feel a sense of entitlement.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/07/03 01:22pm
I'd add to Aaron's points that credit-card companies make things harder on themselves by the outrageous interest rates they charge anyone pathetic enough to not make at least $40,000 per yr. Even with excellent credit, none of the flood-tide of offers I've gotten in the last decade has been for anything less than 9.9%. To hell with that. I'd love to maintain/do minor work on my house, but credit card interest, unlike home equity interest (which I can't get because I have no equity) isn't tax-deductable. And the amount of renovation I'd have to do to qualify for a tax break is not affordable on a clerk's salary. The foreclosure folk would come calling long before I had a chance to get back my pittance from Uncle Sam. Grrr...
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/07/03 01:24pm
Aaron wrote:

"I think Coalition of the Witty is encouraging Wal-Mart and other large businesses to practice what they preach."

I have worked for a number of retail companies. Most of them were fairly large corporations (there was one mom-and-pop, and one regional supermarket chain.) I have never worked at WalMart, but I've read Ehrenreich's book and I also know people who've worked at WalMart.

*None* of the about-a-dozen retail concerns I've worked for are ANYWHERE in Wal-Mart's league. Not even *close*. Some were better than others--the one I work for now is the best, Radio Shack was the worst--but Wal-Mart is in a whole different league.

This is why I object to "Wal-Mart and other large corporations." You can't even put them in the same sentence, as far as I'm concerned. There's Wal-Mart, and then there's everybody else. Wal-Mart is *so* egregious that they deserve to be treated as a completely different case. I've heard so many stories about working there that are *completely* alien to the myriad corporations I've worked for. And that includes McDonald's, even :-).
Frank [fabfour.fan@verizon.net] • 05/07/03 02:08pm
Well, I've worked for a lot of retail establishments, none of them Wal-Mart, but none of them that much different than Wal-Mart in terms of shitty employmee treatment.

I worked for TJ Maxx, which had an "incentive" program for workers to turn on each other, be incredibly suspicious of others, etc. Allegedly, you could $150 for turning in a co-worker for stealing. But, of course, the vast majority of reported theaft turned out not to be theaft, but rather a grudge against the reportee or desperation for extra money on the part of the reporter. What you ended up with was a staff that couldn't and wouldn't trust each other, was more worried about watching their own backs than looking out for real theaft, and a lot of hatred between co-workers. Not a pleasant, or even efficient, way to run a business, I must say.

Then I worked for Barnes & Noble. As a "shelver" and cashier, I made a whopping $5.25 an hour. As a cashier supervisor, I made $6.00 an hour -- and after a lot of griping, I got that bumped to $6.50 an hour. I worked at the 7th largest B&N in the country, I counted and dealt with between $100,00 and $200,000 in sales a day for that one store alone (and that's not Xmas time sales, which doubled and tripled the daily sales amounts). But they couldn't afford to pay their employees much above minimum wage (yeah, right). They rejected any applicant who didn't have a minimum of a bachelor's degree (or was currently in college), rarely allowed time-off requests (especially if they weren't put in at least 4 weeks in advance) and were constantly scheduling people to work until 2 am, and then again the next morning at 7 am. They wouldn't allow you to work overtime, but they'd push to stay late one day, and then write you up for having to go home early the next. I, myself, was written up once because I asked a customer not to call me a "stupid bitch" and swear at me (all on the top of his lungs). In the write-up, I was told that I should have simply "batted my eyes and went along with it."
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 02:56pm
WRT managers, employees, waitresses, et. al. being personally penalized for stolen goods -- does anyone here think that is a decent business standard? I mean, unless you catch the person doing the stealing, no one can know for sure exactly when the stealing occurred, and if you catch the person, you haven't lost anything. Do you really think that the waitress (or waitor) should be held responsible for customers running out without paying their bills?

If yes, then there's nothing much left to say -- we simply have far too different an idea of how businesses should be run.

If no, then why are you spending your time getting pissed at the "theives" instead of the real culprits, the ones who pass the responsibilty of lost sales onto the employees just so the employers will not lose their profit margin -- when we all know who can more easily afford the loss.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 03:02pm
I'm also rather suprised at the assumption that all the "thieves" are among the rank-and-file. I wonder what the incentive would be for an entry-level worker to turn in a manager with his/her hand in the till ? From what I've experienced in various work enviroments vis-a-vis cronyism and the difference between "real" work policies and "written" work policies, I doubt there'd be very much in the way of incentive. Certainly not enough to outweigh the risks of calling someone with the power to fire you on their bad behavior. :(
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/07/03 03:08pm
"This is why I object to "Wal-Mart and other large corporations." You can't even put them in the same sentence, as far as I'm concerned. There's Wal-Mart, and then there's everybody else. Wal-Mart is *so* egregious that they deserve to be treated as a completely different case. I've heard so many stories about working there that are *completely* alien to the myriad corporations I've worked for. And that includes McDonald's, even :-)."

Like I said, Hooray for you Frank. You are one of the lucky ones who have found the handful of caring corporations to work for. Most people aren't that lucky.

It is strange that you mention McDonalds (yep, I worked there). Did you know that during the McLibel case the judge found that McDonald's treatment of its workforce was so egregious it had the effect of bringing down the working conditions all across the fast food industry? That's a pretty strong indictment.

Maybe you should read Fast Food Nation, I strongly recommend it to anyone who points to fast food restaurants as being not in the same league as Wal-Mart. I mean Wal-Mart is horrible but they shouldn't serve as some kind of baseline for what constitutes mistreatment of employees.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/07/03 03:27pm
Speaking of McDonalds, they've done quite a bit of their own union bashing and quashing. Not exactly a pro-union example, there.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 03:39pm
bean writes:
Do you really think that the waitress (or waitor) should be held responsible for customers running out without paying their bills?
[snip]
If no, then why are you spending your time getting pissed at the "theives" instead of the real culprits, the ones who pass the responsibilty of lost sales onto the employees just so the employers will not lose their profit margin -- when we all know who can more easily afford the loss.


i definitely don't think it's an either/or situation - when it happened to me (i.e i was a waitress and was charged for any table's tab that didn't pay), i was pissed at both, which i think was entirely appropriate. and i don't see why you've put quotation marks around the word "thieves". justifed, warrented, necessary or not, stealing is still stealing.
d • 05/07/03 03:46pm
Yeah, I would agree that many large corporations are in the wrong and that pressure should be put on them to improve their treatment of employees.
But that said, if you KNOW that corporations will pass on shoplifting costs to their employees, and you shoplift, then you're in the wrong too. Likewise, if someone makes clear that they are going to commit a murder, and you hand them a gun, then you're at least partially responsible for the ensuing death.
(And if anyone wants to argue that "analogies suck", they'd better point out exactly what's wrong with my analogy, instead of making a blanket generalization.)
Julia • 05/07/03 04:15pm
But that said, if you KNOW that corporations will pass on shoplifting costs to their employees, and you shoplift, then you're in the wrong too. Likewise, if someone makes clear that they are going to commit a murder, and you hand them a gun, then you're at least partially responsible for the ensuing death.

What's wrong with this analogy is that in the murder case you are, by handing a person a gun, actually making it much much easier for them to commit the murder, to the point of being involved in the preparation for the murder (getting the weapon). In the real situation we're talking about, the shoplifters aren't involved at all in the way the corporations treat their employees. That's why that analogy sucks.
Jake [draico50@hotmail.com] • 05/07/03 04:34pm
You're wrong, Jake, because the corporations wouldn't pass on shoplifting costs to their employees if no one shoplifted. Likewise, no murder would occur if you didn't hand the killer a gun. In both cases, you are enabling a crime that would NOT have happened if you had kept your hands in your own pockets. (Assuming of course, that the murderer would mind his own business unless given a gun.)
You argue that "the shoplifters aren't involved at all in the way the corporations treat their employees." That's true, and you're not involved at all in what a murderer does with the gun you give him. The analogy holds.
Julia • 05/07/03 04:44pm
"Yeah, I would agree that many large corporations are in the wrong and that pressure should be put on them to improve their treatment of employees.
But that said, if you KNOW that corporations will pass on shoplifting costs to their employees, and you shoplift, then you're in the wrong too. Likewise, if someone makes clear that they are going to commit a murder, and you hand them a gun, then you're at least partially responsible for the ensuing death.
(And if anyone wants to argue that "analogies suck", they'd better point out exactly what's wrong with my analogy, instead of making a blanket generalization.)"

The problem here (and I think you understand this) is that your analogy makes hte assumption that a person will only commit the murder if you hand them the gun. If somebody makes it clear they are going to commit a murder then your handing them a gun or not is really immaterial. So you don't hand them a gun, they will go down to Wal-Mart and buy one there. If we are to accept this part of your analogy and apply it to corporations then the assumption is that the corporation is making it clear that they are going to pass some theoretical loss due to theft on to their employees (regardless of whether the theft actually occurs). That doesn't make much sense does it? Except that acceptable loss due to theft (shrinkage) is often based on these theoretical expectations of theft.

Maybe your analogy does fit.

I guess you are right. It makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether we hand a gun to a murderer intent on murdering.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/07/03 04:57pm
In either case, all sorts of costs are passed on to employees and customers alike that have no relationship to either theft or the ability of customers or employees to influence those factors.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/07/03 04:59pm
Well, to begin with, I find taking anyone who wants to compare shoplifting to murder a valid comparison (analogy) a bit hard to take seriously. I mean, if you can't see the huge, huge difference between them, there's not much point in discussing the issue or anything related to it.

As for shoplifters "causing" corps. to treat their employers like shit, there's a little "chicken and egg" thing going on there. First, the corps. budget in shoplifting losses way before the fiscal year/period even starts. If there was miraculously no shoplifting during that entire period, do you really think the companies would share that "bonus" with the employees? (If you do, I have several lovely bridges here). Second, they never bother to distinguish between "real losses" and "shoplifting" -- if something is missing, it is assumed to have been shoplifted (and therefore the cost passed on to the employee and/or customer), when in reality, quite a bit of these losses are from genuine mistakes made along the way (from manufacturing to the sales floor). But, it's far easier for the corp. to group it all in with "shoplifting" and pass the charges along.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 05:01pm
"acceptable loss due to theft (shrinkage) is often based on these theoretical expectations of theft"
In the short run, perhaps. But if people refrained from shoplifting, then expectations would adjust accordingly.

Maybe my example was just redundant, since "d" expressed the same sentiment quite nicely without resorting to controversial analogies--she said that when she was a waitress and someone stiffed her, and the restaurant made her pay the cost, she was pissed at both the restaurant for being cruel and unfair, and at the thief for giving them the opportunity to do so.
Julia • 05/07/03 05:04pm
Personally, I think the whole "giving them the opportunity to do so" is no different than the argument that a woman who wore a short skirt and high heels in the 'bad' part of town was at least as guilty as her rapist -- after all, her rapist wouldn't have done it if she hadn't "given him the opportunity to do so."

And before this gets too lost in the mess here -- just a reminder that we are talking about shoplifting/stealing out of necessity and desperation -- not as a "right of passage" or a "prank" or for the adrenaline rush or to get something you really "want" (but don't "need").
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 05:13pm
Or, better analogy -- a prostitute who is raped is at least as guilty as her rapist.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 05:18pm
Jeez, no wonder you guys don't like analogies--you don't understand their purpose at all! Of *course* shoplifting isn't equivalent to murder. If I say "dog" is to "fur" as "bird" is to "feathers," I'm not saying a dog is equivalent to a bird! I'm saying the relationship between the elements of the first pair is equivalent to the relationship between the elements of the second pair.

Now that we've straightened that out...

A question for Bean: If you feel that the shoplifting only affects the cruel, unethical corporations (and not their low-income workers), then why isn't it okay to shoplift for pleasure as well as out of need?
Julia • 05/07/03 05:33pm
I never said that "shoplifting only affects the cruel, unethical coporations and not their low-income workers" -- what I said was that the fact that it affects their low-income workers is simply one more of the many unethical ways in which they treat their employees.

Stealing for pleasure is unethical. Stealing for necessity is a necessity. I'm not sure why that's so hard to get.

And I notice you ignored my analogy. Not that I expected anything different.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 05:46pm
Bean: I didn't comment on your analogy becaue it was a total nonsequitor--why the hell would a girl be guilty of her own rape?? That's like saying the waitress is guilty if someone pulls a dine-and-ditch on her. What *I* was saying was that the person who enables a crime is guilty, not that the victim of a crime is guilty. (And I don't believe that girls can "enable" their own rapes.)

And the reason I don't "get it" is that you're still being inconsistent. If you concede that stealing from a large corporation hurts its low-income employees, then when you need money to buy food, why isn't it justifiable to steal from the rich guy who lives down the street?
Julia • 05/07/03 06:11pm
I'm not being inconsistent at all. If you can't get that, there's really nothing left to discuss.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 06:13pm
It's a perfectly reasonable question, Bean, and your reluctance to answer is suspicious: Why exactly is it okay to steal from a large corporation (given that it hurts low-income workers) but not from a high-income individual?
Julia • 05/07/03 06:20pm
The fact that the large corporation unethically punishes the employees for someone else's stealing is the fault solely of the large corporations -- and that's where the blame will rest and stop for me. I don't believe in passing the blame -- whether it's in regard to corporations, DV or rape victims, or anyone else on the planet.

Second, despite your constant attempts to frame the discussion in a way that you want -- tough shit. This isn't about the difference between steeling from a large corp. vs. a high-income individual. This is about the difference between stealing out of necessity and stealing for pleasure. The latter is, IMO, unethical and immoral. The former is simply that, necessity.

However, when it comes down to it -- a large corp. simply has more ability to absorb losses than an independent store or a high-income individual.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 06:34pm
Bean, my question about stealing from the corporation versus stealing from a rich individual was not meant to be a re-framing; it was an attempt to get at what you think is unique about a corporation that makes shoplifting from it justifiable.
Certainly, corporation are unique in their size-- but you specifically admitted that low-income employees of a corporation are the ones who bear the costs of theft. And it's ridiculous to say that the employees of a Wal-Mart can absorb losses better than a millionaire can. You can't have it both ways, Bean--either shoplifting from Wal-mart doesn't hurt the low-income employees (in which case you might as well shoplift for pleasure), OR it does hurt the low-income employees, in which case you would be kinder to steal from rich individuals who won't notice the loss of a few bucks.
Julia • 05/07/03 06:52pm
Wow, your attempts at re-framing the discussion -- and then you're denials of doing just that -- are egregious.

If you would like to discuss anything I have actually said, get back to me.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 07:00pm
Okay, Bean, here's what you said:
"I would never shoplift (or condone shoplifting) from an individual, or a small, independent store. From a corporation -- fuck yeah. The bigger the corp., the more I'd support that shoplifting."

I'm asking you to defend that statement.
How is that reframing?
Julia • 05/07/03 07:12pm
I've already answered that question -- repeatedly.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 07:12pm
"In either case, all sorts of costs are passed on to employees and customers alike that have no relationship to either theft or the ability of customers or employees to influence those factors."

As I heard a while ago, hotels factor the cost of towel stealing into the charge of every room. They assume that people will steal at least a certain portion of the towels brought to them, and charge accordingly. Hence, whether I steal the towel or not, I have paid for it. My good behavior results in the hotel profiting by overcharging me.

Many other businesses do the same, as well as being insured for any major or significant losses. Now, granted that mass breakdown of society and rampant stealing would bankrupt the system, it's amply frontloaded to cover the desperate acts of those few whose survival is at stake.

Individuals, even very rich individuals, don't usually have this kind of loss absorption potential. I can't charge my client an extra fee on the assumption that, on any given day, an item of a certain value will be stolen from me. If I was being paid hourly, I would be similarly unable to add such a surcharge. In further consideration of which, corporations virtually always pay their employees less than their time is worth (a form of stealing), and the lower you go, the truer it is.
natasha [natasha_l_c@mail.com] • 05/07/03 07:25pm
i don't think julia's trying to reframe the discussion, i think she's asking good questions.
d • 05/07/03 07:43pm
I think bean rocks, and her answers are right on. :p
• 05/07/03 07:44pm
Yeah, bean's totally right. :p
p • 05/07/03 07:45pm
Sorry, bean. I guess the fear of freezing and/or starving is not an adequate defense. Next time, just get on your knees and pray and doubtless Jesus, Buddha, Bob, or whomever will come down from the sky with an artificial log and a bag of beef jerky. That's my advice, anyway. :p
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/07/03 08:00pm
I'll keep that in mind, Amy. :-p
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 08:01pm
I just want to thank Jake & Coalition of the Witty for injecting some sense and entertainment into the discussion. You two are added to my HALL OF HEROES.
Jake Squid [jakesquid@hotmail.com] • 05/07/03 08:06pm
Well, this has certainly been an edifying discussion. As a closing comment, I wanted to re-iterate that I have always been in agreement with the general consensus that stealing in an emergency is justifiable. But in my dialogue with Bean, I was trying to get at a more interesting and complex question: if you *have* to steal to keep yourself alive, who should you steal from? Bean had said that it was okay to steal from corporations but no one else. I was interested in why she felt that way, and in whether such a case could rationally be made.
I'm sorry some people felt I was re-framing the discussion; maybe others did not find this question as interesting, or important, as I did.
Julia • 05/07/03 08:29pm
i think what julia's trying to say is that it isn't as simple as stealing from a corporation. there are reverberations to the action of the theft across the board. it isn't simply an act against property or against a conglomerate. not taking that into account begs the issue of power dynamics and sensitivities.

i don't think it's simply about necessity v. pleasure i think the dine-and-ditch is an excellent example.

let's say that bean's dine-and-ditch was in the restaurant where D. worked, and happened to be working that day. D was, in fact, her waitstaff.

it would be completely reasonable to argue that bean's necessity is immaterial given the harm caused D. many people do consider this to be a viable, valid argument.

while, in one particular venue bean might be a victim -- i.e. hungry, in another venue she might be a perpetrator -- i.e. a thief. where the sympathy falls is up to the people looking at the situation and where their moral proclivities tend to lead them.

as a postscript, i'm sorry to see the conversation degenerate.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/07/03 08:33pm
Let me repeat what I already stated earlier:

THE FACT THAT THE LARGE CORPORATION UNETHICALLY PUNISHES THE EMPLOYEES FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S STEALING IS THE FAULT SOLELY OF THE LARGE CORPORATIONS -- AND THAT'S WHERE THE BLAME WILL REST AND STOP FOR ME. I DON'T BELIVE IN PASSING THE BLAME -- WHETHER IT'S IN REGARD TO CORPORATIONS, DV OR RAPE VICTIMS, OR ANYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET. THE CORPORATION AND SOLELY THE COPORATION IS AT FAULT FOR THEIR UNETHICAL TREATMENT OF IT'S EMPLOYEES.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 08:52pm
bean, of *course* the corporation bears responsibility for its own policies.

however, the point is, that actions do not occur in a vacuum. there are cause and effect relationships. there are also correlative relationships between actions.

i mean, the corporation wouldn't ask the waitstaff to pay for the dine-and-ditch meal if the occurance had never happened.

we are once again discussing issues of personal accountability and responsibility and disagreeing pointedly.

part of what makes some actions immoral is the residual effect they have on others. not understanding this is just, simply, myopic.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/07/03 10:50pm
Well, you can pass the blame if you want. I'll leave the blame where it should remain. On corporations and managers who treat their workers unethically. On men who abuse. On men who rape. I'm not going to place the blame anywhere else.

This constant attempt to pass the blame onto others is exactly what the oppressors (whether that be corporations, patriarchal society, abusive men, whoever) want people to do. It's a lot easier and takes the focus off them while the oppressed all battle each other for the last scrap of dignity (and food).

You can have at it. I won't be joining you. I'll save my energy for a much more worthy battle.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 10:56pm
yeah, i know i'm a tool of the oppressor. it's part of my charm, these very unpopular views i have believing that accountability should be equally distributed.

i understand your points, bean, but it doesn't mean i agree with them. not agreeing with you doesn't mean that i don't understand you (or others don't). i'm not "passing blame."

absolutely, corporations and managers should be accountable for unethically treating their workers. shoulda, woulda, coulda.

it would be as if i had horrible, debilitating back pain and went to the doctor. the doctor told me that i needed to lose weight, exercise, take care of myself and i'd feel a lot better. in the meantime, i need to say, "ok, fine. that will take time, what do i do in the meantime?"

we can *wait* for managers and corporations to deep, spiritual epiphanies and do the "right" thing, but that isn't going to happen because force of habit, power, money is on their side. we need to look out for each other while looking at the big picture.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/07/03 11:11pm
Wow. So much reframing being attempted in this thread!

Its amazing how the policies of those with massively disproportionate power vs. both their employees and those who shoplift out of necessisity can be so easily ignored while the buck is passed to the shoplifter.

Neither the shoplifter nor the employee has the power to set or change the policies regarding shoplifting and the punititive retaliation taken for it by the corporation on the employees. The corporation has that power. The responsibility for the outcomes of those policies lies upon those who make them, not those structurally bound by them.

No? Could Wal-Mart stop puntitively punishing employees for shoplifting, unilaterally, tomorrow?

Yes.

Could an individual shoplifter, by not shoplifting, achieve this?

No.

Could it stop if all shoplifters stoped stealing? Yes, of course, but unless no one believes they have no choice but to shoplift to survive (the existence of options outside their awareness cannot be fairly held against them) they will not stop doing so. Only it no longer being seen as necessary by *anyone* could stop all shoplifting out of necessity and even then shoplifting that is not done out of necessity would still occur, and Wal-Mart would still use the puntitive measures against its employees.

Clearly only one party has the ability to change this situation: The one with the power to do so.
Wow, Kirsten, you've sunk to an all-time low in an attempt to debate. Disgusting. Not worth even bothering with you anymore.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/07/03 11:20pm
i dunno, bean. there are many ways to skin a cat. many ways to look at a situation. one man's porn is another man's art, etc. etc.

lorenzo, i'm not saying that it's incumbent on the powerless and the poor to change the policies of wal*mart, or of the management of the restaurant that charges waitstaff for dine-and-ditch. what i'm saying is that individuals are accountable for their own actions.

amp said in his post:
In any case, the aggregate harm of thousands of shoplifters is rather like the aggregate harm of millions of Americans driving more than they need to, or eating meat, or any of hundreds of other minor harms to the zeitgeist. Yes, it's bad, but it's bad on such a minor level that I can't feel any real anger at the individuals involved.

we've seen some examples that indicate that it might not be as simple as that.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/07/03 11:37pm
lorenzo, i'm not saying that it's incumbent on the powerless and the poor to change the policies of wal*mart, or of the management of the restaurant that charges waitstaff for dine-and-ditch. what i'm saying is that individuals are accountable for their own actions.

So you aren't saying that individuals are accountable for corporate policy, but they are responsible for it?
lorenzo, i'm not saying that it's incumbent on the powerless and the poor to change the policies of wal*mart, or of the management of the restaurant that charges waitstaff for dine-and-ditch. what i'm saying is that individuals are accountable for their own actions.

So you aren't saying that individuals are accountable for corporate policy, but they are responsible for it?
"bean, of *course* the corporation bears responsibility for its own policies.

however, the point is, that actions do not occur in a vacuum. there are cause and effect relationships. there are also correlative relationships between actions."

This is a very important point and one that we should all acknowledge. I'm glad Kirsten made it. Since we are discussing the effects of shoplifting due to need then we have to acknowledge that need doesn't arise out of a vacuum either but is a result of the very policies that allow corporations like Wal-Mart not only to exist but also to thrive. How far back in the chain of responsibility should we go before we find the person or persons ultimately responsible for how employees are treated? Placing any of the blame on shoplifters is pretty arbitrary because as Lorenzo so rightly pointed out it takes the responsibility off of the corporation and shields them from criticism of their policies.

We have to remember that corporations however we try to paint them as faceless, really aren't. Real people make decisions at corporations and those decisions affect many more people than those employed at the corporation. Whether you agree on the shoulds or not, corporate managers make their decisions based entirely on what is good for the corporation's bottom line, regardless of who they hurt or disadvantage. And yes, that includes factoring in theoretical losses the cost of which are passed on regardless of whether the losses occur or not. So in the moral calculus of the coporate body only one Randian moral precept has any substance at all: If it is good for me it is moral (if you don't think this is true I refer you to Enron and their past legal battles and current legal crusades).

"i mean, the corporation wouldn't ask the waitstaff to pay for the dine-and-ditch meal if the occurance had never happened."

Actually, that's exactly what is happening when a corp factors theoretical shrink into their operating budgets.

"part of what makes some actions immoral is the residual effect they have on others. not understanding this is just, simply, myopic."

This is the meat of the mater isn't it? It seems strange, though that we can point our fingers at shoplifters and invoke residual effects while passing over the effects of coporate policy towards employees. Every engineered layoff adds to the pool of needy people who might find themselves forced to shoplift. Every corporation that pays less than the regional cost to live adds to the pool of people who might be forced to shoplift. Every time a corporation punishes employees for the actions of others they are adding to the pool of people who might find themselves forced to shoplift. Minimum wage adds to the pool of people who might be forced to shoplift.

You are right, Kirtsten , when you say that actions don't happen in a vacuum, so we shouldn't pretend that shoplifting occurs in a vacuum.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/08/03 08:49am
I'm curious, Bean -- if you were in the same situation again, and you knew that dine'n'ditch would lead to the wait staff paying your tab, would you do it again? Would you feel justified in doing so because it's the corporation's fault that they make the staff pay? Or would you shoplift from a grocery store instead because then that particular waitron wouldn't have to fork out money for your food that night?
Ann [annqueue@hotmail.com] • 05/08/03 11:40am
Ann asks a good question. But I have a question back: Would you eat at any restaurant where you knew they would pass on the cost of dine and dash to the waitron? Would you buy from a corporation that underpays their workers or refuses to pay for mandatory overtime?

At least the shoplifters are honest about what they are doing.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/08/03 12:39pm
CotW, excellent points. Spot on.

I completely agree with you.

However, it still comes down to individuals taking responsibility for their own actions regardless of status and power. I try to look at it this way:

Agency is kind of like a triangle. If you are at the bottom, wide part of the triangle, you have a lot of options and resources. If you are at the very pinnacle, you have very few choices. It still comes down to how you make your choices and what you do with that agency. That's a moral issue, not a social, political one.

Now, why you might exist at the point of the triangle, rather than the base, may involve social and political issues beyond your control. It might also involve how you've made your choices along the way. It's all very complicated and specific.

I just think it's very dangerous to say that people are completely devoid of making decisions in any and all circumstances because they are oppressed. Or that their decisions don't matter because someone who is bigger and badder than they are are making even *more* unethical choices and have the power behind them to boot.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/08/03 01:33pm
I'm curious, Bean -- if you were in the same situation again, and you knew that dine'n'ditch would lead to the wait staff paying your tab, would you do it again? Would you feel justified in doing so because it's the corporation's fault that they make the staff pay? Or would you shoplift from a grocery store instead because then that particular waitron wouldn't have to fork out money for your food that night?

I try not to go to any restaurant who has such oppressive and inane "rules" such as that, so would, if possible avoid that restaurant. However, I can also say that sitting at a desk with a cup of hot coffee in front of me and having had a full, hot meal last night, and knowing I will have at least one meal today, and tomorrow, and the next day.

So, what it comes down to is, a)I would like to think I'd avoid going to that particular restaurant in any circumstance and b)if I was as desperate as I was then, I would probably still do it if there wasn't another option easily accessible.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/08/03 02:09pm
and c)after a week or more of not having eaten anything, I'm not sure I could honestly say I'd be thinking straight enough to know the difference between whether a waitstaff person was going to be personally harmed or not.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/08/03 02:12pm
Heh, if you think this is bad, I'll be careful not to reveal any of the shit I did when I was not only hungry, but also homeless. Funny thing, desperation. It's something that unless you've experienced it, you really can have no idea what it you will do to get out of it.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/08/03 02:16pm
Yes, Kirsten, but again, we are talking about people who are stealing out of need. These are people with no resources and no options. I can definitely see your point, but how it all fits together is probably more important than trying to figure out the moral ramifications of the person who is at the point of your triangle. It is concievable that if not for the choices made by people with many more options and resources, there would be very few if any people at the points.

So we have people stealing out of need, and they take responsibility for their actions. Does that mean they no longer have to steal to meet their needs? What should change about their actions, or how they view their actions based on how readily they accept their responsibility? They are still devoid of resources or options.

Instead of arguing that people should just starve because they are somehow inducing the rich and powerful (or at least those with better options or more control of resources) to commit bad acts it might be more constructive to investigate how people get to the position where they must steal or starve.

Nobody is arguing that oppression frees people from making decisions--just that the possible outcomes are severely limited by material constraints on their lives. Deciding to steal is still a decision regardless of whether a person is justified in doing so or not. Does the decision matter? Of course. Again though, those who steal out of need are seriously prevented from making any choice where they have the luxury to worry about ethical considerations. Corporate managers do have that luxury. People who make enough that they aren't starving might have that luxury. Certainly most people in the middle and everyone in the upper class all have that luxury. People in need don't.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/08/03 02:22pm
When you're poor, sick, cold, and in enough pain, responsibility can easily become one more luxury good. And, yeah, I've gone without food for a day a time or two. Not due to poverty, but simple carelessness (ie- Thesis due !! Forgot to eat !!) Hunger does impair one's ability to think clearly, just as lack of sleep, physical pain, fear, or any number of other things will. Even the worst waittressing job I ever had (and I had several) allotted its servers some stingy portion of free food, so I never starved as a waittress even when everything else was going to shit. I like to think that if someone had pulled a dine n'dash on me, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and save the bulk of my anger for my asshole bosses. Who already underpaid their staff and would now have one more excuse to underpay them some more.
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/08/03 03:24pm
Who already underpaid their staff and would now have one more excuse to underpay them some more.
Amy, I think you hit the nail on the head with this. It isn't a question of shoplifters being at fault for the reaction of the managers/owners/etc. The shoplifters merely give the managers, etc. an excuse to do something they're basically already doing anyway. Similar arguments were used against allowing Jews to be resistance fighters in WWII.
Jake [draico50@hotmail.com] • 05/08/03 03:39pm
Then I worked for Barnes & Noble. As a "shelver" and cashier, I made a whopping $5.25 an hour. As a cashier supervisor, I made $6.00 an hour -- and after a lot of griping, I got that bumped to $6.50 an hour. I worked at the 7th largest B&N in the country, I counted and dealt with between $100,00 and $200,000 in sales a day for that one store alone (and that's not Xmas time sales, which doubled and tripled the daily sales amounts). But they couldn't afford to pay their employees much above minimum wage (yeah, right). They rejected any applicant who didn't have a minimum of a bachelor's degree (or was currently in college), rarely allowed time-off requests (especially if they weren't put in at least 4 weeks in advance) and were constantly scheduling people to work until 2 am, and then again the next morning at 7 am. They wouldn't allow you to work overtime, but they'd push to stay late one day, and then write you up for having to go home early the next. I, myself, was written up once because I asked a customer not to call me a "stupid bitch" and swear at me (all on the top of his lungs). In the write-up, I was told that I should have simply "batted my eyes and went along with it."

Hmm... I'm applying for a part-time job there... This is certainly depressing, especially considering I'm a HS student...
Assamite • 05/09/03 12:36am
Heh, if you think this is bad, I'll be careful not to reveal any of the shit I did when I was not only hungry, but also homeless. Funny thing, desperation. It's something that unless you've experienced it, you really can have no idea what it you will do to get out of it.

this comment by bean is really frosting me. as i think about it, i get angrier and angrier. i just don't understand why people believe that "desperation" is an excuse for bad behavior?

suppose a battered woman starts talking about her partner hitting her. she clearly talks about how bereft her partner is of emotional means to deal with his anger in other ways. (bereft of resources in the same way a homeless or a hungry person is, but on an emotional level). he hits her out of "desperation" because he knows no other way. would anyone really consider this to be an acceptable excuse?
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/09/03 01:07pm
Comparing shoplifting to domestic violence is --no pun intended-- a remarkably low blow, kirsten. Even by the new standards set in this thread.
Amy S. [alsis35@yahoo.com] • 05/09/03 01:23pm
Kirsten, I don't think the two cases are at all comparable. First of all, you're really stretching it to claim that a lack of emotional resources can be considered the same thing as being hungry and homeless. The two aren't remotely comparable, and you're saying "the same way... but on an emotional level" doesn't make them at all comparable.

Second of all, yes, in extreme enough circumstances desparation can be an acceptable excuse for even extreme actions. For instance, killing another person is bad, but a battered spouse who kills her abuser because she's desparate and can see no other way out of her situation is, in my eyes, far more excusable than a sniper shooting people from a car for the thrill of it.

Finally, Kirsten: two people steal a can of beans. Person one is hungry and homeless and desparately needs food. Person two is Bill Gates, out for a thrill. Are you really saying you see no difference in moral cupability between these two cases?
Ampersand • 05/09/03 01:30pm
"Heh, if you think this is bad, I'll be careful not to reveal any of the shit I did when I was not only hungry, but also homeless. Funny thing, desperation. It's something that unless you've experienced it, you really can have no idea what it you will do to get out of it.

this comment by bean is really frosting me. as i think about it, i get angrier and angrier. i just don't understand why people believe that "desperation" is an excuse for bad behavior?"

Because once you get to the level of desperation the only thing that matters is survival--either of yourself or your family. Moral choices are only moral choices in the presence of alternatives that extend beyond the survival threshold.

Part of what Bean is saying, I think, is that it is easy to moralize when you are sitting in your la-z-boy watching Buffy and eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's. When you are sleeping on a park bench with a grumbling tummy and two children badly in need of medical care morality becomes a very abstract concept.
Coalition of the Witty • 05/09/03 03:35pm
CoW -- yeah, it's kinda like that old Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.
bean [jlfred@attbi.com] • 05/09/03 04:10pm
First of all, you're really stretching it to claim that a lack of emotional resources can be considered the same thing as being hungry and homeless. The two aren't remotely comparable...

i don't know, amp. sometimes the lack of emotional resources is even more difficult to overcome than that of physical ones. there are people who do not ever overcome their abusiveness, but manage to achieve class status. the assertion that a lack of emotional resources isn't comparable to a lack of physical ones is purely subjective.

Comparing shoplifting to domestic violence is --no pun intended-- a remarkably low blow, kirsten. Even by the new standards set in this thread.

oh, please, amy. is it a low blow because the answer to the question, "he hits her out of 'desperation' because he knows no other way. would anyone really consider this to be an acceptable excuse?" is a clear, resounding "no"?

Part of what Bean is saying, I think, is that it is easy to moralize when you are sitting in your la-z-boy watching Buffy and eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's. When you are sleeping on a park bench with a grumbling tummy and two children badly in need of medical care morality becomes a very abstract concept.

no it doesn't. that is just simply not true. the moral question comes to bear, "what are you going to do to help those kids?" naturally, the situation serves as mitigation. it doesn't serve as an excuse.

i have a lot of sympathy for people who are hungry and poor and certainly when i'm in a position to get them resources and food, etc. i do, and i'm quite good at it. it's just odd to me that people on this board/thread/blog think i'm such an insensitive, heartless, unsympathetic bitch because with all the homeless, disenfranchised people i've worked with i've never gotten anything but positive feedback regarding how caring and kind i am. but whatever. that's neither here nor there.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/10/03 12:52am
Kirsten, I will treat your analogy with the respect that you desire: I would say that someone who hits their partner (or their child) because they have been taught all their life that this is the correct way to behave, and they don't know any other way of achieving the result they desire, and who acts believing that it is the best course of action and will benefit all involved commits an act which is less morally wrong than someone who hits their partner or child because they feel like it, knowing that there are other options. I also believe that substantial effort should be expended to teach people that hitting people is wrong, that it is not the best way to achieve their goals and that there are other, better ways of dealing with other human beings.

Likewise, I think that shoplifting from need, when you think that you have no other option, is less morally wrong than shoplifting for kicks, and I also think that substantial effort should be expended to ensure that people are not put in the position where starve or steal, or freeze or steal, are the only options (either that there are or that they are able to perceive).

Also, to give you another bad analogy, I don't think that you are particularly morally accountable if one of your co-workers beats her children more when she has a bad day at work if you make her day at work worse by doing something that you feel you need to do. That your actions contribute to her evil actions is unfortunate, but the real problem that needs solving is the fact that she beats her children, not the fact that you sometimes make her day marginally worse. I think that this captures the same dynamic as a restaurant that charges their servers for dine-and-dashes (surely such a policy is illegal in any civilized state), while removing the aspect that the dine-and-dashers are committing a criminal act of a sort that is usually practiced for reasons other than absolute necessity. I think that the criminality and disreputability of dining-and-dashing leads to the assumption that its practitioners are morally responsible for any possible contingent outcome, in a way that someone engaging in a normal day to day activity like refusing to do something your co-worker unreasonably demands of you would not be. While this expectation that criminal acts make the actor responsible for anything that happens as a result is a part of criminal law (for instance, felony murder being the crime of anyone getting killed while you are committing a felony, even if you aren't the one who pulls the trigger), I don't think that it is really a reasonable rule in the case of dine-and'dashers potentially causing a boss to commit a crime against an employee.

The problem with your original analogy and with the other analogies that have been offered is that they tend to combine substituting a hot button issue (such as murder, grand larceny, and spousal abuse) for petty theft and substitute convenience or ignorance for actual need. By doing so, they twist the argument in ways that are not meaningful or useful, and the only reasonable response is to point out why they fail as valid analogies and why they aren't relevant. An appropriate analogy would need to combine a small aggregate harm (which has the potential to be a slightly larger individual harm, mostly if your act serves as a trigger for someone else's harmful act) with a legitimate need. Analogies which distort the balance are not useful unless for some reason that is their specific point.

I think a version of shoplifting that very few would count as morally wrong, and which is merely a clearer example of what Bean and Amp are describing can be seen routinely in the US medical system. If I am sick and need to see a doctor, and I have neither insurance nor much money, should I go to a hospital emergency room, where they will be forced to treat me, even though I know that I can't possibly pay the $10,000 bill? The hospital will have to eat the expenses, forcing them closer to bankruptcy, or they will pass the expenses on to other sick people, or they will take them out on their staff (as I have been led to believe some hospitals do, and which they certainly could do if they wanted). Is it really wrong to go in for needed surgery if you know you will never be able to pay for it? Is it more wrong if you need the surgery because you dove headfirst in to the shallow end of the pool after heavy drinking? Is it less wrong if it is your child sick with cholera from the unsafe water that is all you have to feed her in the migrant labor camp? Is this the important question, or is the important question: Why is the system set up in such a way that in the richest nation in the world, tens of millions of people cannot afford to go to the doctor?

How much mitigation is required to serve as an excuse? What does it mean for an act to be completely mitigated, but not excused? Do you merely mean that if I steal fire wood I should realize that I am doing wrong, even if it is necessary? Or do you mean that I should freeze rather than steal wood? I can fully understand the former, since it is what allows thrill shoplifting and need shoplifting to be distinguished, but the latter makes no sense to me. While the former is true, it also depends on how you handle moral calculus. Should I feel bad for taking an action which I have evaluated and decided to be the best available option, or should I feel no remorse for the harm I cause as long as it is a result of the best available course of action? Personally, I tend to feel bad for the harm I cause whether or not I could have avoided causing the harm (although I feel worse if I don't feel that I am justified in causing that harm), but I think that it is valid to decide that you should only feel bad about the things that you would do differently if you had them to do over. It seems to me that Bean is in the later camp, and that you are with me in the former camp.

I should note that although I also lived in that freezing house in Boston, I never stole wood. Although I appreciated the fires, I didn't consider them sufficiently necessary to justify theft (also, having never been a thrill-seeking shoplifter, I didn't really have the shoplifter's panache). On the other hand, I did next to nothing to discourage Barry and others from stealing the wood.

Of course, that shoplifter's panache is closely tied to Mac Diva's point. Maybe it isn't true, but I have always thought of shoplifting as primarily the amusement of middle-class white teenagers, who are protected from serious ramifications by skin and class privilege (and by a privilege of the innocence of youth that is mostly only available to those with skin and class privilege, since poor and non-white youths are seen as dangerous hoodlums instead of innocent (if wayward) children).
Charles • 05/10/03 06:52am
very, very nice post, charles.
kirsten [kirsten@q7.com] • 05/10/03 10:47pm