honor among thieves - ethics of stealing

[tantric]

i steal and i do not experience any kind of ethical conflict with the eight fold path. i don't steal out of greed because i'm not motivated by materialism - most of the things that are packed into stores i have no use for. on the other hand, many times i live week to week, on the crumbling edge of poverty. thus, when i take a bag of mangos to the self-checkout at mal-wart and enter '4011', thus getting them for $.65/lb, i feel nothing. it's simple survival. it's spring and i'm working a lot outside, but my sandals from last year have had it. last week i went into a store, found a good new pair, put them on, put my old ones in the box and walked out.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

Survival in innate. You'll do what you feel you have to. Mr. Natural sez: " Twas ever Thus".

 

[spacejunk]

I like the Joe Strummer quote:
"I wouldn't steal money, from a friend.
....but i would steal his girlfriend".

While i don't agree with his sentiment, i appreicate its honesty - or at least the distinction he makes (a girlfriend, for one thing, is not a man's property to steal).

I used to steal for necessity when i was very poor. Essentials can be a bit cumbersome, so rather than a loaf of bread i would maybe swipe something to put in a sandwich, and buy the cheapest bread i could.
I would never steal from small, local businesses, and stuck to large corporate supermarkets.
For some reason i never got caught - poor as i was, i still managed to not direct attention to myself, because i always dressed well.

"Honour among thieves" is an archaic concept, i think - but one i have an appreciation for.
I don't know if anyone knows the books You Can't Win by "Jack Black" - a pseudonymous author from the late 19th/early 20th century (i think) who was one of the first to chronicle the junkie, theif, outlaw lifestyle and culture.
That book (which has been out of print for a long time but is occasionally issued by a publishing house [i very happily have a copy]) was a big influence on the writing - and worldview - of William Burroughs.
The idea that there are honourable thieves - and those that cannot be trusted under any circumstances - personally fascinates me.

How relevant it is today? I don't know.
I've known petty thieves that have never fucked me over - but i cant say i trust them enough to give them an opportunity to do so; therefore i've never tested it.
I wonder how much "honour" plays a role in the boardrooms and offices of people in huge multinational agencies that bleed people dry, and amongst people in the IMF and the World Bank.
To me, these people are a type of theif, or crook - but to them, no doubt what they do is normal and 'above board'.

Interesting subject.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

Honor is subjective. I have often stole but in looking back on it rarely see any honor in my actions. Rather the result of innate fears of lack due to childhood experience.

 

[tantric]

i only steal from megastores. corporations are NOT people, they do not have rights, including the right to own anything. consider stealing from your neighbor, from malwart and taking something from a forest. what are the differences? your neighbor is a person. forests and malwart don't have rights - though you should maintain them if they are needed resources. when you take honey from a hive of bees, you know you might get stung - but ethics do not enter into it.

corporate personhood = maya = mindtwisting illusion, tool of lord mara, king of hell

 

[Foreigner]

I used to know a hustler who lived in one of the central markets downtown in the city I grew up in. He could con anyone out of anything and that's how he made a living most of the time. But he wouldn't con children, the direly poor, the disabled... and he wouldn't con someone out of something that could lead to a dangerous situation for them. He said that other guys he knew in the neighborhood were different and would take anything they could get from anyone.

When I was younger I would steal things because I needed them, or because I felt the store was openly ripping people off. I would steal from those stores on principle. Stealing from big corporations was no problem... I hated them.

 

[Noodle]

I quit shoplifting when I turned 18.


Being smart enough to get away with it was the rush.

Free art supplies were almost worth the risk of getting caught.

 

[Nixiam]

I shoplift often, but its usually for little things or toys my siblings want (ages 4 and 6). They think I'm rich.

 

[Vagina Lover]

"Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it."

 

[swilow]

I used to really enjoy stealing. Just minor shoplifting of food and some clothing. I do not know why, but it gave me a buzz. It was at a point when I was feeling extremely 'anti-authority' and identifying with some kinda rebellious shit so this became something I thought was right. I questioned what the concepts of 'property' and ownership really mean. Sort of concluding that they are 'not real' and behaving based on that. I've come to see that, despite being imaginary concepts, they have inter-subjective meaning that in our society needs to be respected (to avoid being branded a thief and punished accordingly at the very least). But, I definitely enjoyed doing it and haven't done so for 4-5 years. I stole at times when I really had very little and during times when I had literally no reason whatsoever. I used to enjoy stealing when I was on strong doses of opiates, the completely free, choose-at-will reward was immensely satisfying. I think there is a dopaminergic component to certain forms of stealing.

My older brother was into 'dumpster diving', which is itself interesting in an ethical sense. Most places forbid it, but it was rarely actively policed. It is weird the way the properties of items change value simply depending on their context. An apple is owned by Woolworths and has value accordingly- it can be stolen- but that same apple changes character immediately upon being thrown in a bin, or even before that when the idea of throwing it into a bin has formed; after that, one can say they have reclaimed it or even simply 'found' it. More demonstration of how fucking weird humans are.

corporate personhood = maya = mindtwisting illusion, tool of lord mara, king of hell

Whilst I do agree with what you are saying and don't really care if you steal from 'big corporations', I wonder if you are sort of manipulating the above concept as an excuse to do something that you would normally consider unethical. The thing is, these companies are usually totally unethical and responsible for immense shit in our world, and that makes me think we should avoid simply taking whatever we want in the manner these companies often do. That's a great human problem, our 'gift' of reason can enable the justification of most misdeeds. I'm sure that companies like Walmart or Woolworths justify their own inherent greed and destructive associated practises by talking about all the people they employ (which wouldn't fly for me).For me, I justified my stealing by basically saying 'they won't miss it'. Trying to make a virtue of stealing, as I feel you are trying to do, isn't very convincing to me because stealing is really an act associated almost entirely pleasing to one's self, with anomalous, non-self oriented thieves (Robin Hood) being rare enough to be mythologised. The very nature of what stealing is can preclude it from ever being a virtue in nearly every context. My own justification was equally vague because the reason I stole was because I wanted to, not because these companies deserve it.

Please be aware that I am totally not judging you for your actions. Whatever, I hope you grab yourself something awesome :D. I'm just disagreeing with your justification.

 

[socko]

Like you Tantric, I have lived on the edge of poverty. My father was a drunkard and my mother was mentally ill. My father supplemented his monthly crazy check by robbing construction sites late at night. He Neither were willing or able to properly feed or clothe us. I didn't own a winter coat until I moved away from home and winters could stay below freezing for weeks at a time. Even in college, I was often only a paycheck away from homelessness.

Stealing is bad. I have stolen. Shoplifting made me nervous so I moved onto bigger, low risk items that I could sell for 100s$ a pop. These were always commercial things and not things owned by humans. I did somethign bad. Having said that, the badness is relative. I can think of worse things than stealing from a megacorporation that thrives by its use of sweatshop labor, paying below subsistence wages, lobbying the government to give it unfair traid deals, outsourcing while driving mom-and-pop stores out of business and bulldozing ancient forests for its parking lots.

As far as ethics, harming a person duing theft is extremely bad. Robbing or taking advantage of old people is evil.

Ethics also kicks in if you get caught. Then you have a criminal record. Don't get caught. Don't piddle around stealing little things from Walmart every time you go there. You take a risk, albeit a minor one, each time. Even if they don't say anything, they might have spotted you, and they will be ready for you the next time.

Do you know about European Gypsies? many clans live almost entirely by begging and petty theft. They consider material things as trivial and that one should not grow too attached. At the same timethey have a code of honor and ethics.

 

[JessFR]

Me and a lot of people in my circle of friends (all of which are IV heroin addicts like me) all steal or used to steal to fund our habits. There are some people I know who'll steal from children, but they're not friends or friends of friends. Everyone I call a friend thinks stealing from children is disgusting and too immoral even for us. We do steal from people, but only rich people (although in all honesty, nearly everyone's rich compared to us). We figure most of it is insured, and most of our theft (95%) is from sources that are definitely insured. No I dont really think it's ok, I don't think any of us do, despite sometimes reassuring ourselves that we're only stealing from companies or people who show off their wealth, that are insured anyway. I'm not sure many of us really buy our own excuses. Most of us just don't know any other way to survive and fund our habits, it's largely out of desperation. I'm not saying that makes it right, but it is the reality of the situation. For me personally the only other option id have to make the kind of money to fund my habit would be to prostitute myself. Maybe that's better, I don't know. I'm not trying to make excuses, and I certainly don't think just because I wouldn't steal from kids that that makes anything ive done ok. I know it's not ok, i just can't bring myself to selling my body. I'm disgusted with myself so much already i dont think i could handle feeling any worse about myself. I used to panhandle to make money for my habit, it's a bit less unethical, but it's not all that different to theft anyway, people will give the girl claiming she's pregnant and got thrown out of home money, they wont give the girl who's only panhandling to support her heroin habit money. So it's still obtaining money by deception, which is still a form of theft. And it's dangerous panhandling as a girl by yourself.

I hate what ive done for my habit. I don't think the other addicts I know like I either. I don't have any excuse for my behavior. I'm just trying to survive and prevent winding up dead. People will do what they have to do to survive. Oddly enough I'm much more disgusted by my theft than I am from seeing other peoples theft. I wonder if everyone else feels the same way. But of course all that self loathing just calls for more drugs to numb the loathing that requires more of the behavior that causes the self loathing.