"theyre just shoplifting to sell things for money" just like anyone does almost anything??what do you think they're spending the money on, it ain't a fucking private jet
The bourgeoisie can steal my surplus value but god forbid I steal a carton of eggs
Yeah I also don't care if they are stealing things to sell them because the thief is someone I can empathise with on a human level and the company is a faceless institution that would happily kill my whole family selling poisonous food if it would save money and not result in a lawsuit
They'll also work your grandparents to death after aggressively lobbying for worse retirement benefits and pay starvation wages "because that's what the market will bear."
Execs get the wall.
Damn the original word bubble in the last panel must have been really shit, huh
Wait, aren't the underpaid workers the actual ones getting screwed ove-
Yeah, and wage theft takes billions more than shoplifting.
It's wild that chuds think it's the shoplifters bringing minimum wages down and not the actual people in control of their wages.
Like the CEO could eat that loss, he doesn't have to pass it down to his employees. Not only that, but covid kind of proved that even when companies are raking in profits, they don't increase wages, so shoplifting isn't going to change that.
It's just cowards blaming an acceptable easy to blame target (activists that disrupt the status quo) instead of a powerful hard to fight target (rich business owners)
the CEO doesn't pass cost of shoplifters down to employees as the employees are already paid the legal minimum they can be
the farmers that actually produce the food are paid VERY handsomely
The farm owners, certainly, but what about the employees at those farms?
Yep, my buddy owns a small farm. He leases the land and he has to work a day job because the farm makes just enough to avoid operating the at a loss. His customer base is mostly upscale restaurants who are willing to pay a premium for locally grown because the big chains only deal with the big farms. Every other weekend he holds a potluck where he feeds anyone who shows up... and there's always a lot to go around because so much produce goes unsold.
I'm not saying this guy is some shining bastion of ethical capitalism. He's a good dude but he's only able to do any of this because he comes from money, and ultimately, there isn't much room for scaling up while maintaining these practices. That said, farmers like him would be the first ones to benefit if chain supermarkets disappeared from our area tomorrow.
"Comes from money" but has to work a day job because he owns a farm.... for what purpose, exactly? Not money? He just got dissatisfied with the produce at Whole Foods?
Yeah, I wanna see this dude's tax returns. Farm owners are some of the biggest welfare queens in this country and half of Congress owns a bullshit farm to collect millions in "tax incentives" and subsidies from them.
"Comes from money" in that he has a comfortable safety net if he fails. The farm is not profitable yet - they don't even have any employees besides the co-owners - but if it sinks then he will ultimately be just fine because his mommy and daddy can lift him back up. There's less risk involved for him.
He was able to take advantage of an agricultural loan instead of a traditional mortgage on his house, so there probably are tax advantages. I'll ask him about that.
Excessive shoplifting is how you end up with food deserts tho.
That's not at all why food deserts exist in the US. Food deserts are a multi-part issue, and the two largest issues are the closure of small independent stores and the increased popularity of very large physical stores. Independent grocers were woven throughout urban and rural communities alike for much of American history, and were usually within walking distance or transit distance in cities. As larger corporate supermarkets began to take over the market and undercut competition, they killed off more and more independent grocers who could no longer afford to compete. At the same time, the format of grocery stores was shifting from a small storefront that carried most of the products you needed to a massive, sprawling warehouse with ridiculous variety. "You could go to five or six stores, or just one." With less available room for massive stores in urban areas, they became something that was more spread out, and thus something you'd need a car to travel to. A large aspect of the decision-making on where to purchase real estate for those larger stores was based on segregation and white flight. There's a reason that the issue of food deserts is also often called food apartheid.
Mass shoplifting could ruin your communities access to a wide selection of cheap essential and non essential food stuffs and short changes the people who actually created the food. Doing that just because they should pay the cart pusher more doesn't seem smart.
Dude, the whole tall tale about a "shoplifting surge" is absolutely fake. as. hell. People are not shoplifting en masse, and the only type of theft that large stores such as Walmart are not insured against is theft by employees.
if you genuinely managed to disrupt the the status quo at GROCERY STORES and drove your local locations away
This has literally never happened. Shoplifting is not a revolutionary act, but that's basically the only thing you've got correct here.
They are so addicted to having groceries in easily stolen piles that they aren't even willing to try any other ways. If they can't figure out how to run a business than they don't deserve it.
You're just an oppressed lumpenprole looking for dopamine in the form of free treats
or I'm a poor person who is looking for any way to save money so I can afford to live for another month during an economic shitshow
And yeah, no, I've worked in these industries before, they don't play living wages.
covid kind of proved that even when companies are raking in profits, they don't increase wages
Uhm, ackchewally, the Walmart by me (not that I shop there, ew) says they're hiring at $18 an hour so clearly they're increasing the wages. Inflation? Never met her.
In what way are workers getting screwed over by shoplifting, according to the original?
The thought is that if a lot of people steal from a store, the store will shut down because of loss of revenue. The reality is that the stores are insured for shoplifting.
I would be surprised to learn that literally any store in history was forced to shut down because the losses from shoplifting were too expensive. I don’t think that’s ever happened. Not once.
Compared to the amount of revenue any store brings in, shoplifting is such a tiny tiny tiny amount it shouldn’t even register on your books.
usual lib brainworms about business practices making sense and being fair and operating on rigid rules that aren't arbitrarily thrown out when they're inconvenient for the owning class
If they didn't want me making mistakes at the self-checkout then they should have trained me better.
Aw beans, I forgot my kids ate that while we were shopping!
Oh, I must have mixed things up. 4011 isn't the code for all fruits and vegetables?
Its not my fault the scanner rang up my bunch of banana's as $0.01 and I'm sure as shit not going to stop an employee from helping other customers to get them to fix it.
Show
i was so distracted by the fact that the worker is a blobfish it took me about 2 minutes to read this short comic
I met a lady while picking up grass a couple weeks ago who was adamant about how easy it is to shoplift from whole foods. Something to think about
you would think those places would be amazon technosecurity dystopias
They're mostly in wealthier neighborhoods, aren't they? If someone from those neighborhoods bothers with theft, it's usually wage theft or embezzlement or something.
A big key is being dressed for the part, if you look like a well enough trust fund kid then all you need to do is act somewhat stoned out of your ass and be like "oh shit man I forgor my bad..." if you ever get caught.
This is in inverse with walmarts and wallgreens/cvs having fucking bulletproof protective glass and the like all over with armed security ready to plug you in the back at a moments notice (because handling poor clientele versus richer clientele are drasticly different).
I can't walk out of Walmart without getting something for free. Theft is a moral good.
Theft is a moral good.
Whenever I see OPs like this I can't help but think that theft is near-universally viewed as bad. In a leftist utopia we'd still have some things that aren't freely available to anyone at any time. There are a lot of persuadable people who might not view theft as a mortal sin, but will still say you generally shouldn't do it.
We of course argue unpopular views all the time as leftists, but it helps to pick your battles and "stealing is good, actually" never struck me as a good one.
I can't help but think that theft is near-universally viewed as bad
Robin Hood?
Theft is generally viewed as bad, but yeah, there are exceptions. Same thing with violence. The exceptions aren't going to be what people first think of when they hear a story about stealing, especially if it's "I'm shoplifting for political reasons, not need."
The point is that theft is not viewed universally as bad and if you frame it the right way people can understand where you're coming from rather than necessarily ending up at the thought-terminating cliche "theft is bad"
Distinguishing personal and private property usually helps, but there are still grey areas.
Theft is bad. When you are taking goods from corporations who stole them you are not stealing. That is justice.
Similar to robbing a billionair. They stole all that money and it should be removed from them.
Yeah I that's what I meant, wasn't in anyway trying to say theft from other prols is good.
Redefining words like this should be reserved for issues that matter a lot more. Frame it in terms of exploited employees taking home store merchandise and you're closer to a battle worth fighting, but "theft is actually good even when you don't need what you're stealing" is not a leftist idea.
Like all things there is context. Text from the rich is always good. However it isn't really theft as they stole it in the first place
theft isn't a moral good but theft from a walmart on this scale is negligible.
I worked in retail for 8 years and I never met a cashier or stocker who cared about shoplifting beyond the basics of keeping their job. Like they'd call out shoplifting if their manager was looking.
The people who actually cared about shoplifting were loss prevention and manager. Loss prevention in particular, they'd always tell me how much they want to tackle someone, or get someone arrested. They just wanted to be cops.
I’ve seen nerds concern trolling about how stealing from Walmart = stealing from the workers’ pockets.
the tooth paste and makeup and power tools are worth less than the amount stolen from wage theftAfter the revolution we're going to have publicly funded "loss prevention" people, but instead of preventing shop lifting their job is to spot and censor loss memes before they can offend the unsuspecting public.
Stealing from Walmart and places like it isn’t just a negligibly small evil, it is a moral good. Walmart making less money is a good thing. Stealing from them makes them lose money. That is good.
