Is there anything worth stealing?
I presented this question elsewhere in the past and had no luck getting an answer.
Basically, I assert that the value of never in one's life stealing anything would far exceed the collective intrinsic value of everything that is not rightfully yours. The net gain from never in one's life stealing anything would far exceed the net gain from stealing everything this is not rightfully yours measured in the intrinsic value of those things (not any extrinsic value, such as looking cool to your fellow gang members because you successfully pulled off a theft).
In other words, if I could steal (not purchase, trade for, or any other transaction in which every party consents) every car, piece of land, pair of shoes, steak dinner, trip to Hawaii, etc.--every single thing--that is not rightfully mine, the net gain measured in the intrinsic value of those things (again, not any other gain, such as feeling relieved to have something I have always wanted) after all costs (my conscience being compromised, my moral value possibly being compromised, my integrity being compromised, my reputation being destroyed, my freedom being in jeopardy due to the risk of being brought to justice, etc.) are subtracted would not be anywhere close to the the net gain after all costs (economic struggle, medical problems going untreated due to a lack of money, loss of quality of life, premature death, etc.) of never stealing anything that is not rightfully mine.
In other words, economically speaking, nothing that can be stolen could, if stolen, justify the act of stealing.
If the aggregate/collective intrinsic value of everything one could possibly steal would not be worth the costs of the act of stealing, why do people ever steal one thing?
I would rather steal nothing than make even the greatest possible gain from something that I have stolen.
It is not uncommon to hear people ask, "Is it worth (insert actual or potential costs) to steal that?". But that implies that there is or might be something one could steal that would have intrinsic value that would equal or exceed those costs. What is it?
I say that no such thing exists.
If I am correct then it is something other than the value of what is stolen than makes people think stealing is economically justified. The adrenaline rush they get from being a deviant; the pleasure they get from playing cat and mouse with the law; or something like that.
Basically, I assert that the value of never in one's life stealing anything would far exceed the collective intrinsic value of everything that is not rightfully yours. The net gain from never in one's life stealing anything would far exceed the net gain from stealing everything this is not rightfully yours measured in the intrinsic value of those things (not any extrinsic value, such as looking cool to your fellow gang members because you successfully pulled off a theft).
In other words, if I could steal (not purchase, trade for, or any other transaction in which every party consents) every car, piece of land, pair of shoes, steak dinner, trip to Hawaii, etc.--every single thing--that is not rightfully mine, the net gain measured in the intrinsic value of those things (again, not any other gain, such as feeling relieved to have something I have always wanted) after all costs (my conscience being compromised, my moral value possibly being compromised, my integrity being compromised, my reputation being destroyed, my freedom being in jeopardy due to the risk of being brought to justice, etc.) are subtracted would not be anywhere close to the the net gain after all costs (economic struggle, medical problems going untreated due to a lack of money, loss of quality of life, premature death, etc.) of never stealing anything that is not rightfully mine.
In other words, economically speaking, nothing that can be stolen could, if stolen, justify the act of stealing.
If the aggregate/collective intrinsic value of everything one could possibly steal would not be worth the costs of the act of stealing, why do people ever steal one thing?
I would rather steal nothing than make even the greatest possible gain from something that I have stolen.
It is not uncommon to hear people ask, "Is it worth (insert actual or potential costs) to steal that?". But that implies that there is or might be something one could steal that would have intrinsic value that would equal or exceed those costs. What is it?
I say that no such thing exists.
If I am correct then it is something other than the value of what is stolen than makes people think stealing is economically justified. The adrenaline rush they get from being a deviant; the pleasure they get from playing cat and mouse with the law; or something like that.
Comments (49)
You are weighing things with monetary value (gold bullion, art work, buildings, luxury cars, airplanes, ships, land, etc.) against things that do not have monetary value
We can determine the intrinsic value of objects (gold is about $19,422.4 a pound, a Boeing 777 goes for about $320 million, a loaf of good bread is about $4.90). Just how much is your compromised conscience, compromised moral value (whatever that is), compromised integrity, destroyed reputation, freedom being in jeopardy, and so on worth? I couldn't find a listing for the dollar value of your integrity--or anybody else's. If there is a dollar value for integrity, it probably varies from person to person.
IF one does not value the "moral goods" that you value, THEN it is entirely conceivable that whatever one could steal would be worth it -- including the loss of freedom for a period of time. Perhaps a year or two in prison balances favorably with stealing an assortment of high value goods--provided one could liquidate the undiscovered objects later.
This is a purely subjective point of view, isn't it ? If you were in front of a fierce kleptoman who feels absolutely nothing, let alone guilt, and who in addition to all this would not be at all affected by the possibility of making prison, would you say the same thing ?
I mean there is a finite number of reasons that could dissuade you from stealing when there is an infinite number of reasons that could push you to do so. Once the possible causes of deterrence are eliminated, your theory is no longer available.
Economic decision making is not limited to commodities exchanged at prices set by markets.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It is conceivable.
But I don't think that it happens.
I think that it is things like how one's social status will change, how one's friends opinions of him/her will change, rebelling against authority, etc., not the good being stolen itself, that makes stealing economically justifiable to people.
No.
It is objective. If I had the credentials and the funding I might investigate it and publish the results, so it is something objectively verifiable/falsifiable.
Quoting Julian
Kleptomania is defined by Wikipedia as "the inability to refrain from the urge for stealing items".
Just because a person does not have the ability to refrain from something does not mean that he/she does not think refraining has any value.
Quoting Julian
And I made it easy by zooming in on one: the value of not stealing.
Quoting Julian
And I made it easy by zooming in on one: the intrinsic value of the good being stolen.
Quoting Julian
According to thefreedictionary.com, deter means "To prevent or discourage (an action or behavior)".
It does not make any sense to me to think of the value of an alternative to what is being deterred as a deterrent. The value of upholding life deters people from committing murder? No. The value of upholding life encourages people to uphold life.
That would be a waste of money, in my opinion, because value is subjective.
That sounds like Baudrillard's simulacra. There is nothing with value, there are only values arbitrarily being assigned to non-value entities.
The point is that whatever value the intrinsic qualities of a good have, it is unimaginable that that value could ever be thought of in economic terms by anybody as being greater than whatever value the choice of not stealing has. Something extrinsic, such as the social status that will come with possessing the stolen good, must be what people thinks justifies missing an opportunity to choose not to steal.
There are two sets of choices:
1.) Stealing.
2.) Alternatives to stealing, such as begging.
I think that it would be a great contribution to psychology and/or sociology to investigate to see if people think that they have something from both sets of choices available to them but choose something from 1.) instead of something from 2.), and why.
No matter if you steal G, beg for G, solicit a donation of G, or use some other method to acquire G, you get G.
Therefore, something other than G must motivate people to choose stealing over non-stealing.
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
That may be what you and some (or perhaps even most) people believe, BUT there have been acts of larceny since probably before recorded history, there has been acts of larceny nearly in every country and nearly every point in time in human history, and even today there are acts of larceny being committed every day in countries around the world. Perhaps it is because some people don't have enough resources to survive and steal because they need to and others think it is easier to get what they want by stealing it. Also it is possible that the only way to get some item is to steal it if it is one of a kind; such as OJ tried to do when he was trying to..um..'liberate' one of his trophies from someone who bought it and didn't want to give it back.
To take this even one step further, there are people out there with enough money that they can use their money in order to cause other people to lose money one way or another and or ruin their lives. Obviously this is not done for profit but for purely for personal reasons. The reasons I mention this is that such a person might be willing to pay someone else to steal something of value from some other person or group, just to make things more difficult for them.
On top of that you have corporate and government espionage which is more or less the activity of countries and organizations in the business of stealing each others information. For me it seems if there was absolutely no rational for it than nobody would do either larceny, espionage, etc but because so many do it I would think there is some kind of logic/rational/mentality for so many getting involved in such things; although I could be wrong.
All of this seems to support what I have been saying.
It is not the intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself, but things other than the good itself--the belief that the good is rightfully yours and you are taking it back; the desire to hurt people; the wish to survive, etc.--that in people's minds economically justify stealing.
The intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself are probably at most used to decide what to steal, not to decide to steal.
Or are there intrinsic qualities/properties in some good somewhere that make people decide to steal?
It is like they have no concept of there being benefits to choosing not to steal.
It is like they have never heard the notion that if something has to be stolen it is not worth having.
One respondent suggested that none of this has any merit and that a scholarly investigation of it would be a waste of resources. I beg to differ. Here is just one example of research that could be done to learn more about how economic actors weigh the benefits of choosing not to steal against the costs: People in prison for stealing--that's right, people in prison for choosing to steal--choose not to steal while in prison and therefore form networks of trusted friends that help them survive better than prisoners who choose to steal, it might be found. We won't know if we don't investigate it.
People refuse financial assistance and other forms of assistance because it threatens their sense of self-reliance/individualism and therefore their self-image. Similarly, it might be found that people even in the most desperate situations refuse to steal because nothing they can gain, such as a meal, economically justifies what they would lose, such as their honor.
I have rehearsed what I will say the next time I am suspected of shoplifting and stopped by store loss prevention personnel or the police. I will laugh and say, "There is nothing in that store that is worth stealing".
I do not know what it is like outside of the U.S., but I know that Americans buy a lot of junk, watch it sit around their homes or offices and collect dust, and then bury it in landfills. It would not surprise me to find that a large percentage of shoplifted items suffer the same fate: they barely get used and they end up buried in a landfill. That's right, the thief does not pass the stolen item on to his/her great-great-great-grandchildren as a family heirloom. The thief does not sell the item and invest the profit in the stock market and build wealth. Most of the time the item at best is exchanged for drugs, contributes little to anybody's economic life, and ends up buried in a landfill, probably.
Even people who do not steal do not have much invested in a lot of their possessions. They acquire stuff because we have an economic system that requires perpetual economic growth and therefore finds ways to manipulate people into consuming stuff that they do not really need or want.
Yet, apparently we are supposed to believe that utility, aesthetic beauty, workmanship and other intrinsic qualities/properties of, say, an iPhone tempts people to steal it.
I have been saying that I don't believe that. I have said that something besides the value of the intrinsic qualities/properties of a good is worth enough to some people to justify the losses that they sustain by choosing to steal.
Or is the physical product of an iPhone--not the social status that comes with owning it; not the psychological benefit of feeling like you hold in your hands the culmination of centuries of technological progress; or anything else like that; just the physical product--worth the loss of one's honor?
I wouldn't phrase it that way, at least. I'm not denying value or saying that it's arbitrary. I'm just denying the category error of seeing value as something objective rather than something that we do as individual persons.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Realizing the subjectivity of value, though, it's easy to imagine this. Someone could simply (a) not put much if any value on not stealing, and/or they could have views whereby their conscience, moral value, integrity, etc. aren't compromised by stealing, and they have no worries about their reputation being destroyed or getting caught, while (b) they put a lot of value on possessing whatever it is they're going to steal, or possessing the money they'll acquire from selling it.
No one said that no one has those views. What I and others have pointed out is that not everyone has those views, not everyone values things the same way, and there is no objective value.
The reason we've pointed that out is that you're acting as if there is objective value, and that everyone does or at least should value everything the same way.
In addition, the post I'm responding to here makes a ton of completely unsupported--and frankly rather absurd--empirical claims. In my opinion, there's no place in philosophy for garbage like that.
It is not the intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself, but things other than the good itself--the belief that the good is rightfully yours and you are taking it back; the desire to hurt people; the wish to survive, etc.--that in people's minds economically justify stealing.
The intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself are probably at most used to decide what to steal, not to decide to steal.
Or are there intrinsic qualities/properties in some good somewhere that make people decide to steal?
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
You might be partly right in your analysis, in that it is that which is PERCEIVE in the value of what one steals is more important than any ACTUAL value of the thing stolen; but this is the same with things acquired by either making something or buying it as well which would make it a moot issue in figuring out why people steal.
I think if you break it down it kind of looks like something out of game theory, such as the prisoner's dilemma, where they either decide to remain silent, or rat their partner out. In such a game/simulation there is no "right"/"wrong" beyond the sentence that one will get with either action. Although in game theory the actual values assigned to the choices are considered the same as how a prisoner PERCEIVES them to be, since game theory would become a lot more complicate if we didn't, it is accepted that in the real world the "actual value of a thing" (if there is even such a thing) and the "perceived value" are not always the same.
As far as I can tell, when you take away social indoctrination, taboos, etc., lying, cheating, AND STEALING are all actions that we either choose to do or choose not to do and moral matrix provided by either hedonistic calculus and/or some kind of game theory helps us to decide which to do much like we decide to perform any other action.
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think the heart of your problem and the issue of this thread is that you tend to favor OBJECTIVE MORALITY where as many of us on this thread and forum likely favor SUBJECTIVE MORALITY.
As a person partial to nihilism, As far as I know neither I nor anyone else has access to OBJECTIVE MORALITY even if they pretend sometimes that they do. I really don't want to turn this into a objective verses subjective discussion, but unfortunately that seems to be where you are trying to split hairs with other people.
--Terrapin Station
I agree with this part of your post since it is more or less the same thing I said in mine, however "if" WISDOMfromPO-MO is acting as if morality is objective (which I believe isn't that uncommon of a view) then it is reasonable that they frame their argument/position the way they have.
"In addition, the post I'm responding to here makes a ton of completely unsupported--and frankly rather absurd--empirical claims. In my opinion, there's no place in philosophy for garbage like that."
--Terrapin Station
I know it is bit to ask or suggest but trying to understand someone's position ,even if it has fallacies, can be preferable than to dismiss them outright or say something like "that's absurd" even if it is absurd. Using such argument the wrong way can become a appeal to ridicule, reductio ad absurdum, and/ or an ad hominem fallacy. As an agnostic/ atheist/ nihilist, I'm often bothered by what theists claim or say but when either a majority or near majority of the population believe something because it is a common belief there is a ..special psychological condition to describe why it isn't as 'crazy' for that person to believe it as it would be for someone not indoctrinated to their culture and/or society.
I'm aware that you are most likely not just dismissing the WISDOMfromPO-MO, I'm just adding my two-cents in the hopes it might be useful to you. :)
The thrill motivation theory is true of cases, [i]as is[/I] - not [I]instead of[/I] - the value motivation theory, and I think the latter is more widespread and predominant in actual cases of theft.
(You might have noticed that I've not adopted your term "intrinsic value". That's because, like others, I don't think that it makes much sense with regards to what we're talking about).
If an economic good does not inherently possess any value, then value is arbitrary.
Furthermore, it would not be an economic good. It would not even enter into economic functioning. It would be irrelevant to this discussion.
And before somebody makes the error again, let's not confuse price with value. Price is just one measure of value used for a certain class of economic goods: commodities. Economic functioning is not limited to things exchanged in formal markets and assigned a number called price.
Quoting Terrapin Station
None of this addresses the role of a tangible economic good in the choice to steal.
If certain tangible economic goods, such as an iPhone, cause stealing, then if we eliminate those goods stealing would cease to exist?
Or is stealing an act independent of any tangible economic good that is chosen with other things in mind, such as rebelling against authority?
Again, it looks like the role of tangible economic goods in stealing is that they are considered when deciding what to steal, not when deciding to steal.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And I said that no matter what anybody's values are the role of tangible economic goods in the choice to steal is not clear.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If you've got something specific that needs to be clarified or criticized then point it out.
Otherwise, the above quote contributes absolutely nothing to answering the question at hand.
You bring up some good points.
What I am addressing is the folk psychology that basically says that the bottom line is that if somebody steals a tangible economic good, G, it was G that was the underlying cause of the choice to steal.
Not only am I saying that such folk psychology is highly questionable, I am going further and suggesting that G may play absolutely no role in the choice to steal. The only role that G plays, I am suggesting, is in deciding what to steal.
I think that the part that I bolded is important. I do not think that we can take cultural context out of the equation. Economic behavior is a cultural act. There is plenty of evidence from economic anthropology, the way that I understand it, that the behavior in the prisoner's dilemma is simply the way that some cultures socialize people to behave and is not universal.
Quoting dclements
I do not see how objective or subjective morality makes a difference in the role of a tangible economic good in the choice to steal.
A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is wrong, but choose to steal. A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is not wrong, but choose not to steal.
Look at the part that I bolded.
Are you saying, like I have been saying, that the good itself is not why people steal?
You say that the good could be almost anything.
Quoting Sapientia
Do you mean the choice to steal or the choice of what to steal?
Quoting Sapientia
But what role does a tangible economic good, G, play in the choice to steal?
Is it that G causes people to steal and anybody who has never stolen anything simply has not encountered the G that will make him/her do it?
Or is it, as I believe, that G plays absolutely no role in the decision to steal and at the most plays a role in deciding what to steal?
Or something in between?
Quoting Sapientia
If something possesses no value then it is not an economic good and is outside of the scope of this discussion. Maybe there's a discussion somewhere in Metaphysic & Epistemology about such a thing.
Okay, well, on that definition, I'm saying it's "arbitrary."
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Maybe you'd only call inherent/objective value "(an economic) good." I wouldn't agree with that, but
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Why would it address that? That's the first time I've noticed you introducing that language into the discussion. We'd have to get into your definition of what a "tangible economic good" is. If it's something you're defining as being objective, then I'd say there is no such thing.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
An iPhone isn't going to cause stealing. A person's decision to engage in the action of stealing causes stealing.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
That could be one reason that some people steal. It's not going to be the reason that everyone steals, and even for the people for whom it's one reason, it's often not going to be the only one.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Again, this is going to vary by person. Different people are different.
3. Earning money by working... Wouldn't that be another choice?
BTW, most people are penny ante thieves. The thieves that we should be worrying about are the members of the kleptocracy--a world-wide gang.
What I am addressing is the folk psychology that basically says that the bottom line is that if somebody steals a tangible economic good, G, it was G that was the underlying cause of the choice to steal.
Not only am I saying that such folk psychology is highly questionable, I am going further and suggesting that G may play absolutely no role in the choice to steal. The only role that G plays, I am suggesting, is in deciding what to steal.
I think that the part that I bolded is important. I do not think that we can take cultural context out of the equation. Economic behavior is a cultural act. There is plenty of evidence from economic anthropology, the way that I understand it, that the behavior in the prisoner's dilemma is simply the way that some cultures socialize people to behave and is not universal."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Hedonistic-calculus and game theory are merely simple models to help understand vastly much more complicated real world systems and/or problems. Are they always exact or perfect, probably not but to just point out that in some examples the models may fail doesn't mean that they are ineffective given that there is no other model available that you are suggesting to replace them, or if there is one you haven't mention it yet.
If your not arguing whatever point your trying to make because you view morality is objective, nor does it seem you approaching this from a statistical standpoint I guess I'm kind of lose as to either where you are coming from or where you are trying to go with it.
"I do not see how objective or subjective morality makes a difference in the role of a tangible economic good in the choice to steal.
A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is wrong, but choose to steal. A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is not wrong, but choose not to steal."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think you may be missing something here. If a person believes it is 'good' or 'ok' to steal and WANTS TO STEAL but doesn't then usually there is some barrier in the way preventing them from doing so. For example in video games such as Saint's Row you play the leader of a quirky/psychotic (or "pucky" in the characters own words) leader of a major criminal organization. In the game if you need something in the game most of the time you either steal it from someone or kill someone and then take it from their corpse or whatever is left of them. There are also other fun things to do such as see how many people you can run over at a time before the cops or military tries to stop you but I think you get the general idea.
If you really stop and think about it EVERY HUMAN being technically STEALS in order to LIVE since we have to EAT plants and/or animals, and when you think of it when one get nutrition from another living thing you are STEALING either some or all of it's life in order to replenish your own; and if we didn't do this we wouldn't last long. And even if our culture and society looks the other way while we do this (ie. killing animals isn't murder or even cruelty when done to obtain food), it isn't really that extremely different from the theft and/or theft/murder done on a person to person level.
When it comes to survival (or sometimes just getting something we want) we often just do whatever needs to be done without worrying about morality and/or long term consequences.
(Below are links to two songs by Perry Farrell/Jane's Addition that might help you get some... perspective on the thinking/reasoning as to WHY people steal and or do the other things they do)
Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwjiO1MCVs
Jane's Addiction - Ain't No Right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx6691i0KDE
Also one small problem with the argument with that there is no reason to steal is the existence of people who make a living doing it and or other activity that is similar to stealing. If there are some people who can profit from being thieves (of one kind or another) it really isn't a surprise that others might think it a path to an easier life than what they already have; even if often it isn't.
Maybe this falls outside of your 'economical' theme, but what about stealing for a good cause?
For example, stealing plans from the nazis to stop their next attack?
Too easy. How about stealing US hacking tools for spying and giving them to the rest of the world?
By your logic, we stand to gain by not stealing and I think being a good person is more about eliminating the self and personal gain from the equation.
Then it is the good cause, not the thing stolen, that the choice to steal is based on.
Or if we eliminate the good cause would the theft of the particular item still occur?
We're talking about the marginal choice to steal or not to steal, and the role of the good stolen in that marginal choice.
Unless you are saying that marginal decision making is not part of morally good life, I don't see where any conflict is.
Anyway...
When someone steals he must have some reason for doing it - a kind of cost-benefit arithmetic - unless he's a klepto.
Your argument is that the thief got the math wrong.
Note that the thief is looking at it from another perspective, perhaps material gain.
You're looking at it from a more abstract angle BUT you still stand to gain.
Therein lies the problem. Not stealing or not doing wrong is not about gain.
No, that's certainly not what I'm saying. I meant that the item could be almost anything [i]unless we go into specifics - which could narrow it down considerably, and to varying extents[/I]. Under the same circumstances, one might reach opposite conclusions about whether or not to steal an item depending on what it is, and, by implication, what it means to them. It would be unwise to assume that the former and the latter can simply be separated, as what one would get from the item could be quite unique and of particular significance.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Neither. I wasn't talking about choice at all in what you quoted, I was just talking about the value of the item. Though obviously the value of the item can and often does factor into consideration when in a situation in which there are those choices. And it's just as obvious that that's not the only factor.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Yes, typically it's something in between, as you should know. I don't believe that you're alien to this thinking. I don't believe that you're unable to relate to the thinking of the common man who has stolen, or who has had inclinations to steal, and that you're unable to imagine yourself in his shoes. So I suspect that you've consciously dismissed that method and instead set about from one or more premises which conflict with common sense, and this has lead you astray to the point of arriving at a false conclusion - a conclusion, at least, which is not true of theft in general. Accounts along the lines that a particular item or items struck one with such desire that it drove them to theft are not at all unheard of, and is something that I find relatable, as would, I believe, many others.
Not only is it not unheard of, you'd have to go out of your way to come up with an alternative explanation. People steal because they look around and are attracted by the value they see in certain items - they're drawn in by their desirability. That's what gets the ball rolling.
But of course, no two people are the same. It depends on circumstance and multiple factors. The value of the item, however, is undeniably one such factor in a vast multitude of cases.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
That's missing the point by a country mile. I didn't say anything about something having [i]no[/I] value, I just rejected your talk of [I]intrinsic[/I] value.
Or if we eliminate the good cause would the theft of the particular item still occur?
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Are you kidding me!?!? After all your talk about the "problems of stealing" your willing to say that it isn't "stealing" (ie. part of the problem) if the person who is doing chooses to say it is for a "good cause"!?
Are you familiar with the words "commander" (as in "the general commandered the hotel in order so his troops would have a fortification to operate out of"), "liberate" ( "the conscripts rightfully liberated the people's gold from the fascist banks who stole it from them") or what the US Military cutely calls "tactically acquired" (although the ghost squadron was were surprised to finding the large cache of weapons and currency in the insurgent's safe house, the squad quickly gathered the items they tactically acquired from the enemy").
If all one does to change stealing to something else is to use word play than "stealing" isn't really a problem at all since anyone can use word play if given a chance to do so.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that stealing the plans is only a means to the end of the good cause, and thus not the end itself. This is true, but then again, this also applies to stealing money does it not? Nobody steals money for the sake of keeping money, but always as a means to purchasing other things. So just as money acquires value as a means to purchase other goods, so do the nazi plans acquire value as a means to another good, like ending the war.
The plans could be stolen with a number of intentions. Selling them as a historical artifact. Using them to blackmail somebody. Etc.
No intention to sell, no intention to blackmail, etc. = no theft being attempted.
No intention to sell, no intention to blackmail, etc. = no theft being attempted."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Well, I guess you have the answer to the question you had in the OP as to "why anyone would steal" since technically according to this post NOTHING HAS EVE BEEN STOLEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY. "if" anyone can justify their action as a moral act to at least themselves which I'm pretty sure it is a they can.
In an anime made a little while ago called Paranoia Agent there is a police officer who is using extortion against a local member of the Yakuza,who in turn gets one of his superiors to in turn take care of him by squeezing him instead. Since the police officer has no means of coming up with the money by himself he resorts to becoming a petty thief in order to protect himself, his family/their way of life, and his dream house that he is having built. However in his own mind/fantasy world he creates for himself, he is not really a theif stealing or committing any crime since he is really not that different then a hero from popular comic books that he reads who is selfless in protecting others and is only interested in protecting those who are weak against those who are evil:
Paranoia Agent Episode 4 Part 1 (English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqUwZpL7w1M
Paranoia Agent Episode 4 Part 2 (English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRMQ9e4-WBU
...even the Yakuza's superior puts it in his own way by mentioning that there is an old saying "that one's happiness is built on the suffering of others".
It is true that if there is no end, then the means to that end becomes obsolete. But back to your original question about if there is something worth stealing, are you saying that it is not worth stealing the plans from the nazis, even if it would serve to end the war?
Serving to end the war is not an intrinsic quality/property of the plans. Serving to end the war is something extrinsic.
The intrinsic qualities/properties of the plans are things like the paper they are typed/printed on, the ink they are typed/printed with, the fonts that the words are typed/printed in, etc.
If somebody can give an example of a person stealing such plans for the paper and ink--and for the paper and ink alone; not for something external like ending the war--then we can see what role the intrinsic qualities/properties of a good play in the choice to steal.
The intrinsic qualities/properties of the plans are things like the paper they are typed/printed on, the ink they are typed/printed with, the fonts that the words are typed/printed in, etc.
If somebody can give an example of a person stealing such plans for the paper and ink--and for the paper and ink alone; not for something external like ending the war--then we can see what role the intrinsic qualities/properties of a good play in the choice to steal."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Your argument about extrinsic vs intrinsic is moot since it is already a given that spy's in a war are not trying to steal the paper and ink that is used to create a document otherwise they would be targeting Office Depot or Staples instead of the Germans. The same is true of all thieves since money is also merely just ink and specially made paper and even a hungry person isn't going to steal a loaf of bread for it's "intrinsic qualities/properties" and just look at the thing but instead for it's "extrinsic" value of it serving to end their hungry.
All your doing is stating the obvious and creating a form of begging the question fallacy in order to avoid the problem posed by me and other forum members as to why you think it is "ok" or "good" for some people to steal (and/or commit similar crimes) but not for others. All your arguments so far seem to suggest you are trying to argue in support of some kind of objective morality (since you constantly suggesting you have no problem if people steal for some "social good") and reject the notion that people who seem to be stealing for their own selfish reason's could in any way be operating from a moral paradigm that is in any way be just as credible as the people you are praising for stealing from the "greater good".
None of that answers why stealing is chosen rather than non-stealing alternatives such as begging, purchasing, tricking a person, etc.
Quoting dclements
Straw man.
I never said that stealing is ok, good, bad, wrong, etc.
I said that it is difficult to imagine anyone ever thinking/feeling that the intrinsic value of a tangible economic good justifies choosing stealing over all other alternatives such as begging, purchasing, never possessing the good, etc.
It is not difficult to imagine someone thinking/feeling that some extrinsic value of a tangible economic good, such as looking cool to fellow gang members when you are able to say that you pulled off a theft, justifies choosing stealing over all other alternatives.
It is descriptive ethics, not prescriptive ethics.
Quoting dclements
I have not argued in support of anything, and I have no idea where these tangents like "objective morality" come from.
I have asked what tangible economic good (like an iPhone, a pair of shoes, an acre of land, etc.; not something intangible like safety, education, reputation, etc.) has intrinsic value that any person could think/feel justifies choosing to steal that good over all alternatives such as begging for the good.
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
There is such a vast variety of reasons of why people steal (and/or commit actions that are the same as stealing but we call it something else) that it could be difficult to answer that question if you "really have no idea whatsoever of why people steal" and me being a person who grew up in projects as a kid it is fairly easy to understand why some people do it. Some of the reasons including for fun, to get something they want or need, or for social/peer/gang approval.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dreaming-freud/201408/why-do-people-steal
http://www.healthline.com/health/stealing#overview1
From a philosophical standpoint, all you have to do is either have a decent understanding of human condition or some understanding of hedonistic calculus, pragmatism, Machiavellianism,etc (ie some of the basic theories to explain ethics and human behavior that have been around for hundreds of years) to have some idea why it is done.
In nature, animals will often steal food from each other whenever they can and through out human history, tribes or countries have been willing to take whatever they can from others through force and the only thing that usually stops this is the threat of force if such actions are taken. However even when the threat of force is present some will try to take things through guile instead of force (although on a personal level they can also be just about the same thing) and perhaps the only thing stopping this kind of theft (or than force itself) is either people are are content enough with what they have or they are indoctrinated not to steal but I'm pretty sure even these measures do not prevent it from ever happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature
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"Straw man.
I never said that stealing is ok, good, bad, wrong, etc.
I said that it is difficult to imagine anyone ever thinking/feeling that the intrinsic value of a tangible economic good justifies choosing stealing over all other alternatives such as begging, purchasing, never possessing the good, etc.
It is not difficult to imagine someone thinking/feeling that some extrinsic value of a tangible economic good, such as looking cool to fellow gang members when you are able to say that you pulled off a theft, justifies choosing stealing over all other alternatives.
It is descriptive ethics, not prescriptive ethics."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
But when you ask "why do people steal" when there is "some many other ALTERNATIVES to stealing" you are framing your question within a moral framework whether you like it or not; even if you are doing you best not to make to too obvious which it still is anyways.
If you really did think that it wasn't either ok, good, bad, wrong, etc. then the issue would be as relevant to you as to why little Timmy prefers strawberry ice-cream to vanilla ice-cream (or vice versa as the case may be) and it would a given that your question in your OP wouldn't any more relevant to the topic of philosophy then any child's preference in ice-cream.
BTW, what do you mean by "intrinsic value" other than the mere potential monetary value? If that is mean there are nearly countless instances of where people have either tricked or taken things by force from others and profited from it. During the period of colonialism North and South America (as well as other continents and land) where taken from the native people in order to make the people taking them rich or make them richer than they already where. There are entire criminal organizations such as the Mafia and Yakuza who operate and are founded on the principles of selling drug, racketeering, stealing, murder, etc and you are honestly trying to say that it is impossible (or at least impossible according to your point of view) for someone want to steal in order to acquire some kind of "intrinsic value"? I believe you are either using "intrinsic value" different then what might be conventionally used, or that you have absolutely "zero" understanding of human behavior/psychology 101 when it comes to criminal behavior and/or people who might be pressed to performing the same actions as one, or you perhaps you are deliberately just being obtuse
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"I have not argued in support of anything, and I have no idea where these tangents like "objective morality" come from.
I have asked what tangible economic good (like an iPhone, a pair of shoes, an acre of land, etc.; not something intangible like safety, education, reputation, etc.) has intrinsic value that any person could think/feel justifies choosing to steal that good over all alternatives such as begging for the good."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Obviously either you come from a very privileged life where you have never had to want for anything beg, work minimum wage jobs,etc., etc., or you just pretending like you have no idea of and just pretending to be so naive. While I shouldn't try to pretend why you are doing it, to be honest it is pretty insulting to me (and very likely other people like me who may have not had it so easy) that someone could even SUGGEST that EVERYONE in such situations should find it easy to beg and grovel for whatever spare change someone might toss at them. For one thing it is very, very demeaning for someone to resort to begging and the other issue is that begging often doesn't work (not to mention the health hazards for beggars could be potentially more dangerous than even those who get what they need from stealing).
I don't know if your just deliberately being obtuse or you merely have the "misfortune" of having a very privilege /sheltered life and have never as they say had to "walked a mile in their shoes" in order to give you some perspective of how other people have had to live and go about their lives and understand what they really go through.
Also as a side note, there is psychological/social theory known as the "1% rule" which means that 1% of society are from a psychological perspective much more incline to commit criminal act than the rest of the population (ie. who supposedly only do so if they are under duress or similar conditions) and this "1%" makes criminal activity more common among the population than it really is. I not sure what the actual numbers are but when you figure it is somewhat rational to believe that 1% of the population is precondition for criminal behavior and a number of potential "normal" people who are not one of them but are under enough duress to be willing to consider criminal activity under the right conditions, and all you need is to let them have a chance to intermingle with the rest of society, and you have an your example or examples of why people steal for "intrinsic" or whatever other value they do it for.
I agree with when he says that even money has no intrinsic value and only has extrinsic value as a means for exchange of other goods. The question is thus, what good can you think of that has any intrinsic value? It seems that me that all tangible things that can be stolen only serve as a means to a greater end, ends such as pleasure, necessity (like surviving) or ethics.
Depends on what you mean by "money".
If you mean something intangible like the quantities reported on an account statement then, no, it probably does not have much, if any, intrinsic value.
But if you mean something tangible like a one dollar bill then, yes, it has intrinsic value. The value of the ink and paper is just one example.
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
Every economic good has intrinsic value. Otherwise it would not be an economic good.
Economics is cultural just like language is cultural. Asking what economic good does not have intrinsic value is like asking what word is not part of any language.
There are plenty of sound combinations outside of language, such as the sound of thunder. But such sound combinations not part of any language (imagine if your vocal cords and mouth could produce that sound, though; imagine making a statement orally like "[insert the sound of thunder] is what I plan to do") can be words if they are incorporated into a language.
Likewise, there are probably things that humans have no knowledge of, let alone enough familiarity with to assign value to. Maybe an object made of a mineral presently unknown to humans. But once it becomes incorporated into a cultural system it has value.
Something that has no intrinsic value would have to be something that has no properties of any kind (shape, physical state, etc.) and something that humans have either no knowledge of or very little familiarity with (they've just discovered it for the first time and the process of integrating it into their cultural system has had little time to develop). If such a thing exists, it sounds like something metaphysical that is irrelevant to a discussion about economic goods.
I see everything above out of context.
The context is very specific. It is not "Why do people steal?". It is "Why do people marginally choose stealing over purchasing, begging, or other non-stealing options?".
Maybe in some or a lot of cases stealing is done out of habit or done subconsciously like breathing. But such cases are irrelevant to the question.
The question is about behavior under very specific conditions/parameters. It is about when a person could choose to steal or not to steal--to instead make a purchase with money; beg; not attempt to acquire anything at all; etc.--but chooses to steal. What tangible economic good, alone, economically speaking could in the mind of any rational person economically justify the marginal choice to steal?
Not only have I said that I believe no such good exists, I have said that I believe that no tangible economic good plays any role in the marginal choice to steal rather than choosing a non-stealing option. I have said that at the most a tangible economic good such as an iPhone, a pair of shoes, an acre of land, etc. plays a role in the choice of what to steal.
If I participate in a transaction and I get goods that I value at $1.00 and in return I give goods that I value at $1.75 then, economically speaking, that is irrational of me and is not economically justified.
Choosing between two non-identical things, such as stealing or non-stealing, means losing, at the least, the value of the thing not chosen and gaining, at the least, the value of the thing chosen. Therefore, a person choosing stealing loses value that comes with non-stealing such as the security of not having the status of a criminal offender.
If a rational economic actor takes into account all of the different options for obtaining a good--stealing, begging, exchanging for cash, forgoing the good until a later time, etc.--and all of the positive and negative value associated with each option, what tangible economic good could in that person's mind economically justify the choice to steal?
I illustrated all of this at the beginning by showing that for me personally the sum of the value of every single tangible economic good would not economically justify stealing because the value of never stealing, to me, exceeds the aforementioned sum of the value of every single tangible economic good. If the sum of all tangible economic goods would not economically justify stealing in my mind, then no individual tangible economic good would economically justify stealing in my mind.
The only role of morality in all of this is how much one values his/her moral integrity. Even if he/she believes that stealing is wrong he/she might make the marginal calculation in a particular case that the positive value of choosing to steal exceeds the negative value of being a hypocrite.
The role of the intrinsic value--the value that it possesses in and of itself--of a tangible economic good in the marginal economic choice to steal rather than not to steal is the question. I have asserted that such intrinsic value plays absolutely no role in the marginal economic choice to steal rather than not to steal--that extrinsic values, such as the adrenaline rush one gets from playing cat and mouse with the law, are the values that inform such a choice.
If the intrinsic value of tangible economic goods decide whether a person chooses to steal or not to steal and a person is presently not stealing then that means he/she has simply not yet encountered a tangible economic good which the intrinsic value of in his/her mind economically justifies the marginal choice to steal, but when such a good is encountered he/she will chose to steal.
If the latter is true then we could engineer society so that stealing never occurs. If iPhones make a set of the population steal then you could put that set of the population in an environment free of iPhones and stealing would never occur. Imagine the money that would be saved on law enforcement, trials, corrections, etc.
But the latter two paragraphs are counterintuitive. People would likely steal anyway no matter what tangible economic goods can be encountered in their environment. Intangible things such as rebelling against authority could still be accomplished through stealing, and that urge/desire would still exist.
Quoting dclements
I think that I covered all of that above.
Quoting dclements
I think that I covered all of that above.
If you mean something intangible like the quantities reported on an account statement then, no, it probably does not have much, if any, intrinsic value.
But if you mean something tangible like a one dollar bill then, yes, it has intrinsic value. The value of the ink and paper is just one example."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
That really isn't true since most currencies in use today are merely FIAT CURRENCY and not backed up by gold, silver, or anything else for that matter. The banks that print money for the US, and most other governments, merely back up there currency for awhile (with the Euro for a time, they backed it up by holding one US dollar in their vaults for each Euro they printed) and after some time after the currency becomes accepted they just start printing money which isn't backed by anything at all. While there may be an several advantages of fiat money, the disadvantage is that you CAN NEVER RETURN THEM TO THE BANK AND HAVE THEM RETURN ANYTHING WITH INTRINSIC VALUE SUCH AS GOLD OR SILVER, which you use to be able to when we use to use non-fiat currencies such as the silver back dollar bills..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
So in the end paper money is virtually the same mere "quantities reported on an account statement" other than you are able to use them to help settle private debts without having to use of credit cards, etc and go through a bank and/or electronic process to resolve such debts. Although there are things like Bitcoin which in many ways allows people to use virtual currency (which itself isn't backed up by anything) to resolve private and/or black market debts as well almost just as well; which is a lot harder to do without paper money.
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"Every economic good has intrinsic value. Otherwise it would not be an economic good.
Economics is cultural just like language is cultural. Asking what economic good does not have intrinsic value is like asking what word is not part of any language.
There are plenty of sound combinations outside of language, such as the sound of thunder. But such sound combinations not part of any language (imagine if your vocal cords and mouth could produce that sound, though; imagine making a statement orally like "[insert the sound of thunder] is what I plan to do") can be words if they are incorporated into a language.
Likewise, there are probably things that humans have no knowledge of, let alone enough familiarity with to assign value to. Maybe an object made of a mineral presently unknown to humans. But once it becomes incorporated into a cultural system it has value.
Something that has no intrinsic value would have to be something that has no properties of any kind (shape, physical state, etc.) and something that humans have either no knowledge of or very little familiarity with (they've just discovered it for the first time and the process of integrating it into their cultural system has had little time to develop). If such a thing exists, it sounds like something metaphysical that is irrelevant to a discussion about economic goods."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
A problem with this argument is that you are assuming it is a given that some things have intrinsic value which such a position is debatable between people who come from different philosophical and/or religious beliefs. For example in many Dharmic religions, it is more or less believed that everything around us is like a dream and only transitory and when you leave this dream and move to the next, it will disappear in a manner that is not that different then objects that are created in our own dreams.
While you may not agree with this line of thinking, the truth is that pretty much everything in the world around us is transitory in nature in one way or another so even objects that someone labels as "intrinsic" are really "extrinsic" by nature as well only a little less transitory then perhaps another another object that is labeled "extrinsic" but regardless but things are still transitory regardless of whether one is a little less transitory than the other and/or that we perceive and label the objects because of this difference.
Also when you claim it is a given (one small philosophy 101 hint: any time you claim something is a given you are just asking for trouble since many experienced philosophers lean on subjectivity not objectivity and pounce on those who like to try an argue from objective standpoints since they are often more overloaded with fallacies then other positions ) that something has VALUE you are taking an stance that can only be backup up by those who believe in OBJECTIVE MORALITY.
If morality is subjective (as many philosophers believe, or at least they believe that we only have access to subjective morality not objective) then it isn't a given that any object has any real objective/intrinsic value, making you part of your argument where your stress the difference between intrinsic/extrinsic pretty moot in the whole bigger problem of how everything is transitory in nature and whether a object is intrinsic/extrinsic as moot as whether little Timmy like strawberry or vanilla ice-cream.
Trees were harvested, wood was turned into pulp, ink was made, plates for a printing press were made, etc. to produce a value-added product: a dollar bill.
That paper could be sold to a company that recycles paper who could then sell the ground up material to somebody who makes newsprint paper.
A dollar bill is a product of many economic transactions and could be involved in many other economic transactions that have nothing to do with it's extrinsic value as currency, FIAT or non-FIAT
Of course it has intrinsic value.
The context is very specific. It is not "Why do people steal?". It is "Why do people marginally choose stealing over purchasing, begging, or other non-stealing options?".
Maybe in some or a lot of cases stealing is done out of habit or done subconsciously like breathing. But such cases are irrelevant to the question.
The question is about behavior under very specific conditions/parameters. It is about when a person could choose to steal or not to steal--to instead make a purchase with money; beg; not attempt to acquire anything at all; etc.--but chooses to steal. What tangible economic good, alone, economically speaking could in the mind of any rational person economically justify the marginal choice to steal?
Not only have I said that I believe no such good exists, I have said that I believe that no tangible economic good plays any role in the marginal choice to steal rather than choosing a non-stealing option. I have said that at the most a tangible economic good such as an iPhone, a pair of shoes, an acre of land, etc. plays a role in the choice of what to steal.
If I participate in a transaction and I get goods that I value at $1.00 and in return I give goods that I value at $1.75 then, economically speaking, that is irrational of me and is not economically justified.
Choosing between two non-identical things, such as stealing or non-stealing, means losing, at the least, the value of the thing not chosen and gaining, at the least, the value of the thing chosen. Therefore, a person choosing stealing loses value that comes with non-stealing such as the security of not having the status of a criminal offender."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
The problem you are speaking from YOUR perspective/opinion and arguing under the context that it is a GIVEN that there is some kind of OBJECTIVE MORALITY.
I don't know if you ever hear of David Hume, but one of his famous quotes is "you can't get an ought from an is", and that is exactly what you are trying to do in your argument even though the "is" part (ie the facts meant to back up your position) are so messed up I wouldn't even know where to begin with it.
Whether you know or like it, PEOPLE STEAL ALL THE TIME/EVERY DAY THROUGHOUT HISTORY AND HAVE PROFITED FROM SUCH ACTIONS. It may not be the oldest profession (which is believed to be prostitution) but being a thief or stealing is very likely in one of the top ten if not top five earliest professions. What do you think casinos and state lotteries are doing when someone gives them a dollar and in exchange they return only 85%-95% at best? How do you think people acquire millions and/or billions of dollars from other people's work if they are not shaving some of the value from such efforts and keeping it for themselves. Have you ever heard of the terms "Robber Baron" or "King of Thieves"? I may be just guessing but such people didn't obtain their massive wealth by just playing nice with others.
Your assuming there is some kind of "justice" system in place that punish all thieves for ALL of their actions, but you fail to realize that the police often only catch criminals only after they have commit the same crime repeatedly and/or are in covering their tracks. While it isn't often I'm fairly sure that some criminals are able to commit certain crimes where they obtain enough wealth so can either retire and/or use their wealth to better themselves and get a job they would like to do.
The only thing close to people being bothered by committing a crime is if they murder people or steal something worth a lot of money. I'm pretty sure when your a killer, people will look at you different than if they didn't know. With stealing something worth a lot (I imagine in the millions of dollars) it is likely that certain people will be trying to find you IF they can figure out you did it, however in the bigger picture of things I'm guessing most thieves can justify most of their actions and are in no way as eaten up by their conscience as either you think they are and/or that you think they should be.
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"If a rational economic actor takes into account all of the different options for obtaining a good--stealing, begging, exchanging for cash, forgoing the good until a later time, etc.--and all of the positive and negative value associated with each option, what tangible economic good could in that person's mind economically justify the choice to steal?"
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think someone pointing their gun at the head of either them or one of their family would likely do it. I don't know whether you are ruling out such people as you are ruling out the criminally insane and/or inclined to commit such crimes but when you rule out BOTH people who do it UNDER DURESS AND BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO, it is a given that you are taking out nearly anyone who would want to perform ANY ACTION.
I mean what person would want to WORK if they COULD just WISH for SOMETHING and get it? Work is called "work" because one does it whether or not they always want to do it because someone pays them to do the thing they don't or can't do themselves. I'm pretty sure there are people who would rather steal stuff (if they can get away with it) then have to work for someone else and have to deal with them while performing such tasks.
While it is likely that people most people have to work are not under the same duress as those who steal and/or commit similar crimes, I believe it is safe to say they are under some duress that is not completely differ from those who steal.
So if we take out ALL people who are NOT "RATIONAL ACTORS" (ie criminals, and the criminally insane are not rational actors according to society), and we take out everyone who is DOING IT JUST FOR FUN (ie kids, bored rich people), and we also take out everyone who is doing it UNDER DURESS (ie working class Joe's and Jane's who need a buck and don't have can't earn it and/or under the threatened with body harm to make them steal), the only people we are possibly left with are robber barons/king of thieves type people who may already have enough that they don't need to steal but since they fit under the spectrum "not rational", either doing it just for fun or because they are under duress (which such people it could be either given the circumstances) they are excluded as well. Also according to your definition such people CAN'T EXIST (ie. impossible for people to profit by stealing), or what they do isn't technically "stealing" to you even if it is the same thing to others.
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"I illustrated all of this at the beginning by showing that for me personally the sum of the value of every single tangible economic good would not economically justify stealing because the value of never stealing, to me, exceeds the aforementioned sum of the value of every single tangible economic good. If the sum of all tangible economic goods would not economically justify stealing in my mind, then no individual tangible economic good would economically justify stealing in my mind.
The only role of morality in all of this is how much one values his/her moral integrity. Even if he/she believes that stealing is wrong he/she might make the marginal calculation in a particular case that the positive value of choosing to steal exceeds the negative value of being a hypocrite."
The role of the intrinsic value--the value that it possesses in and of itself--of a tangible economic good in the marginal economic choice to steal rather than not to steal is the question. I have asserted that such intrinsic value plays absolutely no role in the marginal economic choice to steal rather than not to steal--that extrinsic values, such as the adrenaline rush one gets from playing cat and mouse with the law, are the values that inform such a choice."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think I covered this somewhere, but I'm not sure. I've started getting a headache from thinking to much so it is getting more difficult to continue writing and thinking about this. At any rate what your saying is debatable since a large part of what western civilization is today was by "acquiring" (ie. often through outright theft and/or murder) land and other good from other societies that existed hundreds of years ago. The term "Manifest Destiny" is a concept that created to justify/sugar coat the fact that in order for Europeans acquire the easy land and wealth they had to often take it from the natives/squatters who where using it at the time; and of course through force and murder if and when it needed to be done.
Manifest Destiny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
Also I believe you should watch a video called "Why poverty?" which talks about both how Manifest Destiny/Colonization was used to rob people of whatever wealth people had in North/South America, and Africa AND how (and implied by the video) the VAST DIFFERENCE between RICH and POOR is a BIGGER social problem AND the LEVERAGE the RICH use AGAINST the POOR/WORKING CLASS is not much different then STEALING ITSELF.
Poor Us: an animated history - Why Poverty?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxbmjDngois
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"If the intrinsic value of tangible economic goods decide whether a person chooses to steal or not to steal and a person is presently not stealing then that means he/she has simply not yet encountered a tangible economic good which the intrinsic value of in his/her mind economically justifies the marginal choice to steal, but when such a good is encountered he/she will chose to steal.
If the latter is true then we could engineer society so that stealing never occurs. If iPhones make a set of the population steal then you could put that set of the population in an environment free of iPhones and stealing would never occur. Imagine the money that would be saved on law enforcement, trials, corrections, etc".
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
If there was nothing worth stealing then how would you get people to do work and/or anything else they may not want to do? Without the blood,sweat, and tears of the working plebs and the monopoly paper being printed by the wealthy use in exchange for it what incentive would there be for someone to take out trash/ clean toilets/ and do any of the nearly INFINITE other unfun tasks that seem to be needed to be done?
In the book/movie Clockwork Orange, they is an example of what might happen if criminals and/or those criminally inclined where put through something have been called "reeducation programs" by other countries and I think the results were mixed at best. I'm not saying it can't be done but I think it is safe to say there is moral implications for those who try to implement them and as well as those who are forced to go through them as well.
No I am not.
Quoting dclements
No I am not.
Quoting dclements
Every objection to my "is" has turned out to be unfounded.
Quoting dclements
That does not mean that it is ever economically justified.
Quoting dclements
I have never made such an assumption, let alone expressed it here.
Quoting dclements
I have never said here that anybody does or does not have any experience.
I never said that anything should be the case. I never thought about it either in working on this question.
Quoting dclements
That doesn't make any sense.
Quoting dclements
A person who enjoys working.
And economics is about using resources to produce things of value.
If we could just "wish for" things then economics would not exist and we would not be having a discussion like this about economics.
Quoting dclements
First, it is a fallacy to conflate work and "for someone else".
I am doing work right now. I am composing prose. I am not doing it "for someone else".
And if nobody ever worked and produced stuff there would be nothing to steal for people who would rather not work.
Quoting dclements
Yet they choose to not steal.
Quoting dclements
Criminals make rational calculations just like non-criminals do.
They may even be more rational in that sense. It probably requires a lot more information gathering and processing to successfully shoplift than it does to make a purchase at a cash register.
Quoting dclements
Some people under those conditions choose to steal, others choose not to.
Quoting dclements
This is a straw man, red herring or some other fallacy.
I never said that anybody does or does not qualify as "rational", let alone that any particular behavior such as "doing it for fun" disqualifies anybody as rational.
I said that things like doing it for fun must explain the choice to steal--the thing stolen does not explain the choice to steal.
Quoting dclements
I said no such thing.
I said that I can't imagine a scenario where the value of the intrinsic qualities/properties of a tangible economic good could in the mind of any rational economic actor economically justify the marginal choice to steal ("I could steal this. I could pay for it at the cash register. I could forgo trying to acquire it. I could beg that shopper over there to buy it for me. What should I do? Hmm.") rather than not steal. I asked for an answer to a question: the intrinsic value of what tangible economic good could ever in the mind of an honest, rational economic actor who is considering all possible options economically justify the option of stealing?
I recall only getting one response that has any semblance of being an answer to the question: it depends on the person.
Well, again, if it depends on the person then we could engineer society so that stealing never occurs. We could put all the people for whom the intrinsic value of an iPhone makes them steal in an environment free of iPhones and those people would never steal. We could organize society around everybody's calculations and eliminate stealing. But that is counterintuitive. People steal for an abundance of reasons other than the value of the good stolen. Eliminating this good from that person's environment and that good from that person's environment won't change the fact that people rebel against authority and that stealing is one way that they do that. They will steal for the sake of rebelling, among other intangible things. The intrinsic value of the good they steal will at the most decide what they steal.
Quoting dclements
Some people say that economics and politics are the same thing. Other people say that economics and politics are not the same thing ("It's good politics, but bad economics").
I think that a feature of politics that does not necessarily apply to economics is that in politics values and resources are allocated authoritatively.
I have never heard imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, etc. being described from any perspective (neoclassical economics, economic anthropology, etc.) when addressing how values and resources are allocated non-authoritatively. The authoritative part, it seems, is always presented as something that distorts the non-authoritative part (like when neoclassical economics says that government intervention in the economy results in less economic output than if government had not intervened).
Quoting dclements
The role of tangible economic goods in economically justifying in people's minds the marginal choice to steal remains in doubt.
And just because something is not economically justified does not mean that people won't do it. People make decisions through irrational thought/feeling processes all of the time.
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
You are partly right and partly not right in a manner of speaking. To be honest I have been arguing with you for awhile now because I'm always fascinated by other people's perspective's of the world and I assume everyone is 'rational in one way or another. Since I have been having trouble wrapping my head around what your thinking it has become like an itch that I can not scratch. I just thought I should make note of that before I begin.
Anyways with Hume's Guillotine I don't really have to go through the process of showing of how or why your "is" arguments are unfounded, I just know that it is a given that they form the same kind of statements that any other empirical back statement does (and/or any argument that uses the same framework) and such moral statements based on such arguments are no longer really trusted by modern or post-modern philosophers..
Why this is requires a bit of mental gymnastics that I don't really have the time for other than to mention than it is pretty much a given that "is" based arguments are the type of stuff used by those who believe in objective morality and trying to get an "ought" from any "is" (including the near infinite "is" statements used to form social and individual moral beliefs) is what could be called a non-trivial process as no-one has been able to do so without it being flawed and/or highly biased.
Why even though no one can show how to get an ought from an is, nether can it be proven that it can't be done. It is kind of like trying to prove (or disprove) there is a "God", some people think it is easy and they can do it but to do it the proper rational why is itself a non-trivial problem as well.
Maybe I shouldn't be arguing against you about why people steal, but the problems and issues with MANY OTHER counter-productive human activities since arguing about stealing is just spitting hairs. To me it seems worse when people murder others to acquire what they want (ie there are many thieves who will steal but don't have the stomach to kill in order to steal goods) since murder to get petty goods can seem irrational unless under great duress. And there is also white-collar versions of stealing that has a MUCH GREATER IMPACT in ours lives to which it make regular thieves look like children in comparison. Since you seem to be focusing on people only stealing nickel and dime stuff through regular robbery (ie high level/white collar robbery is given other names since it is much more sophisticated), I'm kind of bothered that you don't seem to consider ALL FORMS OF STEALING in your arguments.
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"Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
That doesn't make any sense."
-WISDOMfromPO-MO
What I was trying to show was that your asking "why people steal" and yet exclude certain reasons as to why people do so creates a dilemma where you may be excluding too many people to have anyone left, but I don't think you realize why I was trying to point this out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Ok, now we may be getting somewhere. :)
The problem I feel I have been having in this discussion is that you are asking why certain people steal when it seems to me that there are obvious reasons/motives behind such actions. The fact that you are 'ok' to think of them as rational as you and me is seems like a step forward.
Maybe we can split the difference here a little and perhaps agree that a "rational person" like you and me can make mistakes from time to time and steal when they shouldn't. For example, when I was in elementary school and my dad didn't want to buy something (like an action figure or candy) that I asked him to, I would merely take it. I later realize that it was just wrong to take it. While it isn't the same thing their are people who steal in order to solve short term money problems (similar to how people use to kite/write bad checks) in order to delay a negative consequence till later.
If you go even further they are 'rational' people who are even under greater duress (and/or greater need to solve short term problems) who perhaps after stealing for awhile and not getting caught yet take even greater risks. For example in the area I live in there are casinos and people both end up having to sell the business and/or stealing from other to either fuel their gambling habits pay their debts. One of the bookkeepers/accountants of a local car dealership abused their privileges to access the dealers account and by the time the dealer found out he was already bankrupted.
And beyond those people are perhaps those born into a culture where they are taught to steal (and/or similar activities) as well as those who's personalities who make them more criminally inclined. Perhaps one of these examples might be an individual who was squatting in an abandoned house and would befriend other squatters (or people in similar situations), kill/rob them (and sometimes torture them as well), and then just try and hide the in the house he squatted out of. When detectives questioned him, they where not sure whether he did what he did because his mind had been fried from all the drugs he took, due to a mental condition, or a combination of both but they where pretty sure it was likely one of the three.
I don't know if the examples I just gave you are good enough to show why some people steal, but I hope it helps a little.
Also as a small note, it is almost a given that a majority of people who steal do so merely for their own reasons, immediate need, etc. so it is unnecessarily/moot to ask what intrinsic/extrinsic value is of the item they steal since the mental process of a thief is unlikely to consider such things. They simply have a want or need some immediate thing, see little to no negative consequences for taking it (or at least an "acceptable risk" in trying to take it), and then simply go about taking it. It isn't really that much different then for some gamblers who keep putting money into the machines all the time knowing that perhaps they shouldn't be doing it, while at the same time thinking it won't hurt to just spend another $10, $20, etc before they leave the casino. Even if by the time they leave they have spent their rent money and now have their hands on their head while waiting for the bus.
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"Some people under those conditions choose to steal, others choose not to."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
You are correct but such arguments don't really help your position or understand the problem and are more or less moot to even point out. We already know that many people who can afford to pay for things, understand the negative consequences of stealing, and not under any duress to steal are very,very, very unlikely to steal; however the same can not be said of those under different conditions.
It may be cheating but as a rule of thumb I think it is safe to assume that people that do not steal if given the chance either can still afford enough things that they feel they don't need to steal, either know and/or afraid of the consequences of stealing, and/or not under enough duress to make them feel the need to steal. At which point people go from not being willing to steal to being willing and able to do so is kind of moot since it is almost a given that as things get worse more people are likely to steal and when given a life or death situation (or what someone believes is one) such as a disaster where someone has to loot and/or steal to get supplies they need to survive (ie absolute need for something nearby that they can't purchase normally / near zero possibility of negative consequences if they steal/ Under extreme duress to make them want/need to steal), nearly anyone who is willing to steal will do so even if they know doing so is ethically/morally wrong in all other situations.
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"This is a straw man, red herring or some other fallacy.
I never said that anybody does or does not qualify as "rational", let alone that any particular behavior such as "doing it for fun" disqualifies anybody as rational.
I said that things like doing it for fun must explain the choice to steal--the thing stolen does not explain the choice to steal."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
Ok, you got me on that part since while rereading it I believe I most likely misread something in your post and assumed something you really didn't say. When I start writing a lot on a topic, I sometimes start shooting from the hip and get a bit careless in my arguments, but since I'm "ok" with accepting such fallacies when people point them out (which doesn't always happen when they don't really read my posts) I don't think it is really a bad thing.
With the number of fallacies I have seen in other peoples posts I think it is safe that I have some in my own when I'm not careful enough when I reread them and/or my post get so long that it is hard to do it properly
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"I said no such thing.
I said that I can't imagine a scenario where the value of the intrinsic qualities/properties of a tangible economic good could in the mind of any rational economic actor economically justify the marginal choice to steal ("I could steal this. I could pay for it at the cash register. I could forgo trying to acquire it. I could beg that shopper over there to buy it for me. What should I do? Hmm.") rather than not steal. I asked for an answer to a question: the intrinsic value of what tangible economic good could ever in the mind of an honest, rational economic actor who is considering all possible options economically justify the option of stealing?"
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I don't know if your talking about a particular situation you have in mind where someone may want to steal something in a super market and they are not under all real duress and/or need to steal it or if you are talking about a set of situations where someone may or may not steal. I don't want to accuse you of cherry picking but if you exclude too many of the examples where it is pretty obvious why someone would steal and then only select those where it isn't very likely that they will steal.
And with them then pose the question "Why do (these) people steal?" without really informing those you are asking what your trying to do, it is a given your going to create A LOT of CONFUSION. I don't know if this was in any way intentional, but I think it is reasonable for anyone reading this to understand why this would create a problem.
While reading you posts I have been under the impression that you are only working with a sliver of what could be the considered the general population as a whole, but every time I have inquired about this you have been evasive enough that I can not determine if it is your actual position.
However with this part of you post I think it is a good possibility that this is what you are really thinking.
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"I recall only getting one response that has any semblance of being an answer to the question: it depends on the person."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
If you give credit where credit is due, I think I have pointed out nearly countless times that it depends on the person AND CIRCUMSTANCES. Whether a person would or wouldn't do it has quite a bit to do with upbringing but what upbringing a person gets also depends on CIRCUMSTANCES. So in the end it is mostly about CIRCUMSTANCES if you really think about it
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"Well, again, if it depends on the person then we could engineer society so that stealing never occurs. We could put all the people for whom the intrinsic value of an iPhone makes them steal in an environment free of iPhones and those people would never steal. We could organize society around everybody's calculations and eliminate stealing. But that is counterintuitive. People steal for an abundance of reasons other than the value of the good stolen. Eliminating this good from that person's environment and that good from that person's environment won't change the fact that people rebel against authority and that stealing is one way that they do that. They will steal for the sake of rebelling, among other intangible things. The intrinsic value of the good they steal will at the most decide what they steal."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I'm still confused as to why you are focused on why people steal instead of why anyone does something counter-productive. Most people focus on how to be "good" (or at least some kind of "moral" actor), do that which is useful to them and others (ie. helping other may help themselves in return), and avoid counter productive actions. I believe looking at these kind of issues as more of what morality is about, but I hope there is some logical reason for you to be fixated on just why people steal, and possibly within that question why people steal pertaining only to a certain group who it is uncertain whether they would steal or not. .
Societies, corporations, and governments are on a constant vigil to keep people stealing from them so I believe they are almost as protected as they could be, but I'm unsure if the same can be said of average plebs and/or if you arguments pertains in any way to those who steal from them.
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"Some people say that economics and politics are the same thing. Other people say that economics and politics are not the same thing ("It's good politics, but bad economics").
I think that a feature of politics that does not necessarily apply to economics is that in politics values and resources are allocated authoritatively.
I have never heard imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, etc. being described from any perspective (neoclassical economics, economic anthropology, etc.) when addressing how values and resources are allocated non-authoritatively. The authoritative part, it seems, is always presented as something that distorts the non-authoritative part (like when neoclassical economics says that government intervention in the economy results in less economic output than if government had not intervened)."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I'm unsure what you mean by this when I try to wrap my head around it. While reading and rereading this passage it is reminds me of something I might find in a random library if I just picked it up and flipped to some random page.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that without more background context and less fluffy and/or ambiguous words it is almost as hard to know what you are saying then if I was given something created by a postmodernism generator.
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"The role of tangible economic goods in economically justifying in people's minds the marginal choice to steal remains in doubt."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
When you say "MARGINAL CHOICE" are you talking about the group of people who are walking a tight-rope on whether they will or will not steal (which I mentioned earlier) or is there another set of people you have in mind?
I have time and time explained about the motives, behaviors, backgrounds, etc,etc of what likely explains the circumstances and other stuff you might find in a Psych 101 class if someone asked this about the general population, but I don't believe you are really concern with that particular issue.
Without being certain about the set of people you are considering, it is near impossible to answer such questions by just trying to guess what group you are referring since no model will work with the wrong group being considered
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"And just because something is not economically justified does not mean that people won't do it. People make decisions through irrational thought/feeling processes all of the time."
--WISDOMfromPO-MO
I agree and have mentioned this in an earlier part of this post. :)
Also it may be worth noting that both City of God and Clockwork Orange have earned many movie awards and are both considered some of the best movies ever made, even if the subject matter is graphic and pretty disturbing in nature.
Youth Of The Nation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDKwCvD56kw
Pearl Jam - Jeremy (Official Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS91knuzoOA
Skid Row - 18 And Life (Official Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O317T6Zlno
Elvis Presley - In the Ghetto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw
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(Warning: many of the following videos are either about criminals or story's
about the lives of criminals and those around them so they can be both
graphic/adult in nature.)
City of God with english subtitles
https://fmovies.is/film/city-of-god.6ln0/02vvl9
City of God (2002 film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(2002_film)\
Clockwork Orange
https://movies4u.pro/a-clockwork-orange-1971/
Blood In Blood Out movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iunN6lcSU
Crips VS Bloods Gangs War Crime Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcafdY8jyQw
(I forgot to mention that one common theme in the songs/movies is that the people portrayed in them that are willing to hurt/kill others is that they either do not put much value on other peoples lives and/or their own. When people think in such a way, I'm pretty sure it is easier for them to steal as well.
Another aspect of this mind set is that some people perceive this ability to hurt/kill others isn't all that different from what some soldiers are put through in order for them to kill enemies, even if such training isn't about being able to kill anyone. Whether being able and willing to be in a situation where they fire a weapon at an enemy, or being willing to be in a situation where one has to fire a weapon at a rival gang member (or others who get in their way) while not being entirely the same, they are not completely different either)