Where in this article does NYT columnist Nadja Spiegelman suggest shoplifting? I read the whole thing and I don’t see it. She’s asking questions and reporting on what others say. Nobody from the Times is promoting shoplifting, are they?
I appreciated your reference to Abbie’s book but I had not thought about Robin Hood.
You are right that this is not new by a long shot, but I think we are currently in a era of unprecedented corruption and institutional grift. While I don’t steal and would never consider cheating on my taxes even if I could do so legally, I do understand the current societal frustration and would hope that those with the ability to change things would start paying attention rather than just joining into the system like the current administration seems to have done.
I think Babale and others were really incensed by this article.
Ha, ha, ha. Did you see the recent spat between Sergei Brin and Newsom? Most of our shareholder class will never accept increased taxes and many seem to prefer instituting a new feudal system in place of our current representative democracy.
Maybe we should talk about this Ted talk again (Nick Hanauer, Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming), because it seems to me that micro-looting, warehouse arson, and CEO murder is just the glow of the torches and pitchforks on the horizon.
I think that is so astoundingly far from being true that I’m not sure how to engage with it at all.
Unless you mean “unprecedented in the United States over the last three quarters of a century or so”, I think that while it’s undeniable that we are at a local maximum of corruption and grift, we are far, far, far from at unprecedented levels.
I mean, you can read this as just “reporting on what people say”, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s bending over backwards to portray something quite despicable as noble or justified here:
I am mostly incensed at the idea that this bullshit is associated with “my side” of the political aisle. If it was Republicans talking about microlooting, I’d be ecstatic at the idea of them turning off voters with bullshit nonsense.
Also, I hot take I know, but I do in fact think that stealing is bad. I was recently at a shoe store that was “microlooted” by a group of teenagers, and the cashier was in tears after they left. Maybe she should have been celebrating that someone stuck it to her evil employer? 
It’s no way to run a society.
They wouldn’t have a choice if the non-oligarchs woke up and realized that the oligarchs would be powerless without the assistance of the regular people who currently support them. The answer isn’t CEO murder, micro-looting, warehouse arson, etc. It’s for people to start voting for politicians that will enact policies that favor the people who actually work for a living and that will put the overpaid middle men (that’s all the wealthy ownership class / oligarchs are when you get down to it) in their place.
The reason this hasn’t happened yet is that the politicians who enact laws that favor the oligarchs are better at propaganda than the politicians that favor laws that will make the oligarchs pay their fair share, and so they win elections that they should rightly lose.
That might be part of the reason, but another part of it is that people are genuinely divided over what the best path forward is. For example, earlier, you mentioned a wealth tax:
But there are valid arguments against a wealth tax that have nothing to do with propaganda. For example, the fact is that nearly every European country that had a wealth tax has since abolished it, because the enormous burden of having to audit peoples’ wealth on an annual basis in order to know what to tax them ended up outweighing what these countries made through the wealth tax in the first place. So the wealth tax was a net loss for the country even before considering the depressing effect it has on business.
OK, fair point. I am focused on my time as an American and my knowledge of American history. So ~40 years of being a (sometimes) thinking adult and something something Hittites.
To be more serious, maybe it is not unprecedented, but I am continually shocked at how it seems (to me) that everything is currently about maximizing the amount of money that can be squeezed out of absolutely everything US citizens engage in. It feels unprecedented.
Just to be on the record, I believe a wealth tax is stupid and would be counter productive.
I’m not tied to any one specific format. What’s important is the principle of making the wealthy pay their fair share. I’m OK with leaving it to the experts to determine the best way of doing that.
ETA: It’s like Jesse James if famous for saying. “I rob the banks because that’s where the money is”. To keep everything well regulated and in accordance with the law, I’d merely update that to “we tax the wealthy because that’s where the wealth is”.
I am surprised that you think this idea is associated with “your side.” Hell, I don’t even think it is associated with “my side,” and from my reading of your posts I know I am much more lefty than you (I am assuming you think these folks are leftist). I, too, think stealing is bad. In fact, I seem to remember a commandment about that in this country’s most popular religion (right before something about bearing false witness). I think the vast majority of people in this country think it is wrong to steal. But this article seems to be trying to ask if even the stealing done by Robin Hood was bad. At least this is the connection I think they are trying to make. I mean murder is bad, but what if you murdered Hitler?
For me, the basic premise of secretive, passive-aggressive protest just doesn’t work. The people will have to stand up to the oligarchs openly, I’m afraid, as scary as that sounds. And we can’t do it from our couches.
I have a lot of problems with grocery stores and how they have shifted from hiring humans to getting customers to do the work for them. I remember when they paid people to walk to your car, help lift the groceries and walk the cart back to the store. It was called customer service. Now they have managed to make it some sort societal test of character as to whether or not you return the cart yourself. Propaganda for the win. And they get to pay as few people as possible.
But leaving the cart in the middle of the parking lot won’t fix the problem, it only discomfits the next customer.
We need protest that affects the owners. If we start stealing, they will just invest in private prisons and increase their surveillance, both of which support the current downhill slide. They have sneaky schemes like waiting until they have enough proof against you to charge you with a felony before they nab you. So you might steal from them 15 times and think you are getting away with it, then suddenly your life as you know it is over.
Don’t fall for it. Find a local protest group you agree with and do the thing properly.
Exactly. We need to pass laws that force owners to not price gouge their customers (but also to not hinder them when they do treat their customers fairly, which I think they mostly already do when it comes to basic foods), to overall treat their customers fairly, and to not screw over their own employees.
“Normies” think everyone left of center is on one “side”. I very much don’t consider leftists to be on my (liberal) side; but Fox News recently referred to Hasan as a “Democratic Party Spokesperson”, and I wouldn’t want to bet against the gullibility of the American public on that sort of matter.
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor (and often “the rich” are more specifically the servants of an illegitimate usurper king while the real king was off on Crusade), he didn’t steal avocados from the rich to put on his toast just because he didn’t like them very much. Robin Hood is specifically noble because he doesn’t keep his ill gotten gains.
Is that a “sneaky scheme”, or is it exactly the sort of perverse incentive we create with laws that decriminalize shoplifting under a certain dollar amount? In the situation where a store is dealing with a habitual shoplifter in a jurisdiction where theft under $1000 isn’t prosecuted, isn’t that the only way the store can actually get the law to intervene? It’s either that, living with perpetual theft, or taking matters into their own hands (and I think we agree that we do not want businesses resorting to that third option).
In many states, there are already such laws, mostly there for disasters.
If you ask, and often they ask, Kroger/Ralphs still does this for you.
Protest for what? The fact that the USA and the free world works on a capitalistic system?
I think that’s exactly what a lot of the people who voted for Trump thought they were doing.
I only hope that enough of them will recognize the proof that the ingredients of the box don’t match what they were told by the label to start swinging things in a better direction.
Unregulated capitalism doesn’t work any better than totalitarian communism, and seems to wind up in pretty much the same place; which is an unpleasant place for most people and a dangerous one for whoever’s momentarily at the top.
Unfortunately non-totalitarian communism doesn’t seem to exist in practice, at least in groups bigger than a couple of hundred people. Regulated capitalism does exist in practice; how well it works and for whom depends on the regulations. Human understanding of human economics being what it is (or isn’t), even with good intentions there’s disagreement about what the regulations should be. And, of course, there are people in the argument who don’t have anything I would call good intentions. It’s a continuing battle to try to keep them from writing all the rules.
Totalitarian communism has been tried and is a total failure. And the USA has many, many regulations on Capitalism.
Agreeing with both of those statements. Pretty sure I just said the first.
Whether the USA has the right regulations on capitalism is another question; as is whether the existing regulations are being enforced, and enforced fairly.
That made me think about stories I’ve read about grocery stores in low-income areas charging significantly more than stores in nearby towns or neighborhoods, and when the management was asked about this, said, “You tell them to stop shoplifting, and we’ll lower our prices.”
This has also been a problem when entrepreneurs have tried to open full-service grocery stores in such areas, and in addition to not being able to find employees despite unemployment rates approaching 100%, had so much vandalism and theft, often committed by said employees, there was no way the store could remain open unless it had some massively wealthy benefactor. This has been especially true in rural areas.