As the great philosopher Willie Sutton said, you rob banks because that is where the money is. There is no money in a failed bank so you’d have to be a schmuck to rob one. So I’ll ignore that part of it.
Now, if the depositors in a bank are the relatively poor salt of the earth, robbing their money to give it back to them (with a percentage to you) is not good in any sense. But let’s try this scenario. Most of the deposits in a bank are held by local rich people, and much of their money has come from driving the regular people off their land, buying it for a song, and then reselling it for a huge profit. Or, money comes from using their local monopoly power to overcharge the masses. Of course the law and government are in the pockets of the rich.
In this very specific situation, you might have a shot at justifying bank robbery, as long as you made sure no one got hurt. Which would be tough to do.
I don’t necessarily agree with myself, but I wanted some debate beyond robbery is wrong.
That’s nuts. It’s no more moral to rob that bank than for creditors to hire gangs of thugs to go after anyone who declares bankruptcy. Whichever gang gets to its victim - or debtor - first gets made as whole as possible.
This is one of the exact reasons we have courts: so we can have some kind of fairness in situations like these, not a return to jungle law.
Let’s also keep in mind that bank robbery is a violent act, which can, intentionally or no, result in people being killed. There is absolutely no moral claim to threaten people’s lives because of an attempt to cheat others out of money.
“These are difficult times, and we see people who are normally decent stooping to the level of robbing a bank, or even working for a bank.” - G. K. Chesterton