Why I love Shoplifting
From big corporations.
Nothing compares to feeling of greed, of self indulgence being achieved and limitation being escaped, that I feel when I walk out of a store with their products in my pockets. In a world where I haven’t worked to earn a piece of it, where I am expected to contribute my life to receive the contributions of others, where I am surrounded by a free market economy which will not accept my supreme authority, and which I am uncapable of understanding, which does not care for me when I act as a parasite to it, it is a way to take a piece of it that is not mine, to act against the Tom, Dick or Harry who doesn’t know me, but have an indirect effect on me.
It is an entirely different sensation that the one a feel when I buy something. When I pay something, I’m making a trade, I am not the sole benefactor from the agreement. I give up some of my labor, my time and my creativity (which could be better spent preaching on a diplomacy website) for a product or service that a member of the corporation has given up his time for too. Just as I don’t share my time with him, he under other circumstances wouldn’t share his with me. In a sense, we have a peer to peer relationship, but nobody is equal to me, so that is not right. Supermarkets know what constitutes a fair price- one that matches supply and demand, competition, but I don’t like paying for it. But when I steal, I don’t need to have a relationship of any kind, I don’t need to interact, I can reject other people, those who are worthless, useless, nothings compared to me.
Yes, everything is different when I shoplift, I am no longer giving to a person I don’t care about, the Tom, Dick or Harry looses his time to me, I can harm their welfare, lower their pay, increase whatever strife they may have. I am no longer feel that I cam being forced into an exchange, another of the type anyone has, now I am not a pathetic nobody, I am a pathetic nobody who is too lazy to work. I no longer work for my possessions, they no longer mean anything, have value in terms of what the cost me. Nothing costs me any more. In this and only this way, shoplifting gives me the possessions I want without myself having to make a sacrifice for them. Now somebody else sacrifices for me, all powerful, all wonderful me.
The shoplifter wins her prize by taking a risk, she doesn’t trade like for like. Instead she can risk being caught and costing people yet more. When others work and get a just reward, she takes that reward away from them, she gets a thrill from depriving others of their goods, depriving others of the chance to live well legally, whilst Tom, Dick or Harry is suffering from want of healthcare or food, she is enjoying taking yet more of that from them, this means, it is in many ways, more damnable.
Shoplifting is the refusal of equality of people. It is a denial that the shoplifter should have to work as much as Tom, Dick or Harry, that they are equal, it is a denial that when you have a delicious chocolate, the people who combined to make it should receive some reward, it is a denial that others can be equal to the self. It is the refusal of the capitalist system, that he who strives long hours, develops and uses his talents, works to increase them, deserves more than the person who does nothing, just sits, consuming, consuming, consuming.
Shoplifting says NO to all the profits of labor that are realized by the free trade economy. It is a way of amplifying the effects of low wages and lack of benefits that many corporation’s employee’s suffer, by reducing company profits. It is a refusal to pay a small amount for low quality products, made cheaply and so fairly poorly, although as well as can be given the price constraints, or make the choice to spend more on a high quality product that is less likely to suffer from breakage or wearing out. It is a way of amplifying the environmental damage that is a result of cutting costs to counter-act the cutting of profits from theft, a refusal to use large companies or small private businesses that are often harder to steal from. Those that offer the service and longevity of product if only would use them.
It is a refusal to fund the slaughter of animals that is natural to any omnivorous species, instead to force it to cut corners in animal welfare to cut costs, it is a refusal to understand that taking milk from a cow does not lead to the death of the cow, it is a refusal to allow migrant workers better pay. Shoplifting makes a statement about the shoplift: “I cannot be bothered to work like the majority of the decent people on this earth.”
The shoplifter is influenced by advertising in the same way as any other person, but whereas the normal person must consider for themselves whether or not they want this certain product the shoplifter may simply take it regardless. Thus she raises the price for the normal customer, without affecting the people who fund and produce the advertising campaigns.
Shoplifting is the most effective way to earn something from another’s labor, it simply directly steals the fruits of it. It cannot be construed as a protest, as it is clear the reason is greed. It is designed to go unnoticed, and manifests itself in a statistic. It only damages those without the power to stop it from damaging them. But then their lack of money damages everyone else, resulting a self-perpetuating cycle of increased hardship. It is worse than a boycott, since it does not make the point of view clear. It satisfies greed, and it does not help competition. It also means the shoplift doesn’t have to work. And because it puts nothing into the economy, it cannot give people the affluence to use the more expensive local store. It does general damage to all people across the globe, eventually including the shoplifter, for when the economy falters even the lowly criminal is hurt. She revels in her own damage to ordinary folk.
But does she not care about all those people who are directly affected by her actions, through the harm done to the store? No. She can claim that she is stealing from a non-human entity, she can be ignorant of the fact that when more money is available, unions can demand more, and through that power, the power of acting fairly together, threatening strikes, boycotts by a different name. Most modern corporations set aside money from shoplifters, but she doesn’t have to realize that that money doesn’t come from nowhere. This money comes from the pockets of Tom, Dick and Harry, because the shops realize that some people are too greedy to work for the rewards, and the lady shoplifter can claim she plays a role in society, although she needn’t mention a negative, parasitic one.
Shoplifting isn’t just a way to survive in a world of free fair trade of what things are worth for what they are worth, it is a way to do so in a way that causes pain for others, and limits their means of survival.
The shoplifter acts in a primitive, apish way, in a world where the free market has been shown to be superior, and thus has been adopted by the vast majority of people willingly, sometimes with people fighting, such as when in the civil wars in England people fought against the un-free trade caused by the Monach’s monopolies. The shoplifter needn’t care for that which she is unaware of.
To shoplift is to leave fairness, the idea that one man’s produce is equal to another’s, behind, it is to turn a world where it is what you can give that counts to what you can take, it is an effective way to turn on its head the basic thing that separates the man from the beast.
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