It's quite funny that you take a theft from a store as your example but I am not so sure this is something "normal people" care about, only store owners. Especially when impoverished "normal people" rely on shoplifting to get clothes and food on the table. Stores are not a one person venture or family owned anymore, a franchise at best or part of big group. They're capital. Most "normal people" don't own capital in my little corner of the world
I guess most of us see normal people as a collection of our self.
As a normal person, I don't care about petty shoplifting but I would expect from the state for example to investigate murders.They're poorly investigated in general because they are hard to clear and you can't put them in your stats whereas arresting a youngster and taking his weed counts as a solved case.
I think "normal people" will very much care about shoplifting when they see that prices go up to cover for that. Or, even worse, when store owners figure they can't be profitable in some area and go away altogether.
I think people keep on thinking that "the rich" feel they have some kind of moral obligation to help them. As we've seen time and again, they do not. And they will even go out of their way to protect their money. See all the fiscal arrangements they set up to "optimize" taxation.
> I think "normal people" will very much care about shoplifting when they see that prices go up to cover for that. Or, even worse, when store owners figure they can't be profitable in some area and go away altogether.
How and when are they going to see that ?
In my country, there newspapers headlines about how supermarkets have egregious margins.
Is this true ? I don't know, but they don't mention shoplifting in the articles.
> I think people keep on thinking that "the rich" feel they have some kind of moral obligation to help them. As we've seen time and again, they do not.
The rich do not have a moral obligation to help us but they do have a legal obligation to pay their taxes and give back to societies they live in and benefit from like everyone else.
I am not sure it's moral obligation but they could also have the decency to stop spending so much money in lobbying, politics and information campaigning in order not to pay their due proportionally to what they own.
Is this not accurate anymore : https://www.fool.com/taxes/2020/09/25/why-does-billionaire-w...
> How and when are they going to see that ? In my country, there newspapers headlines about how supermarkets have egregious margins. Is this true ? I don't know, but they don't mention shoplifting in the articles.
Where I live, shoplifting is a "sensitive" political issue, so it's very unlikely companies will cite it as such. But in the US, people are seemingly more open about it:
Law enforcement that can't or won't police shoplifting can't or won't deal with anything more significant either.
Even putting that aside, are you seriously in favor of people stealing just because it's from Big Corp(tm)? Because the victims are the 1%?
Please re-contemplate exactly what you are arguing for, because small frustrations add up and are ultimately what topple societies and countries. Those shoplifters aren't Robin Hood.
> Law enforcement that can't or won't police shoplifting can't or won't deal with anything more significant either.
It seems that's just your opinion. There's no reason that it is the case least you think policing depends on the will of individual police and not of the objectives of the department. Policing shoplifting isn't even the same job as investigating homicide or market crimes.
> Even putting that aside, are you seriously in favor of people stealing just because it's from Big Corp(tm)? Because the victims are the 1%?
> Please re-contemplate exactly what you are arguing for, because small frustrations add up and are ultimately what topple societies and countries. Those shoplifters aren't Robin Hood.
Someone shoplifting to put food on one's table and clothes on one's body is a Robin Hood, it's just that taker and the receiver are the same person :)
I don't think it should be legally but provided it is to feed and clothe yourself and not say resell, I don't think it's morally wrong either.
Sure inability to enforce the law does topple societies, but the inability for people to fill their basic needs does too, the lack of accountability of people in power even more.
As a normal person, I don't care about petty shoplifting but I would expect from the state for example to investigate murders.They're poorly investigated in general because they are hard to clear and you can't put them in your stats whereas arresting a youngster and taking his weed counts as a solved case.