Not that I ever do, I don’t have money even for second hand shit. But sometimes I get drawn into checking out the windows (I like guitars and electronics, that seems to be all those places sell).
There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. The laptop in the pawnshop was made as a commodity to be sold the first time, produced, at best, by workers who are having their surplus value stolen from them, at worst, by workers in slave-like conditions. Secondhand, the laptop manufacturer won't get to profit off it again, the resources don't have to be dug out of the ground for it to be produced, and the coal doesn't have to be burned to power the machinery to extract the resources and manufacture the laptop. But how that laptop got to that pawnshop might be pretty shitty.
Don't buy from pawnshops if you don't want to. It's not any more unethical than any other consumption under capitalism. But, like any other aspect of capitalism, not participating won't make it go away. Individual consumption choices don't change much.
There's nothing wrong with buying stuff from pawnshops.
If you like guitars, you'll find decent stuff you wouldn't normally be looking for in pawnshops. At least where I live, the pawnshops were usually goldmines for finding used Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters at better prices than what you would get from Guitar Center or listed on Reverb.com. I bought 3 Strats from a pawnshop that had great necks with only minor fret wear and just needed some electronics replacements to be usable in gigging situations. I personally love Strats and Teles cause those guitars are so easy to do work on since the pickups and all electronics are routed under the pickguard. So long as the guitar has a decent neck, all the electronics can be replaced.
Is all stuff at a pawn shop only there temporarily? I would think some people might sell stuff there and not want it back but i could be wrong. Maybe you could ask if any items could be potentially bought back by the original owner. If the owner isn't coming back for it, maybe you wouldnt feel so bad about it. I dunno how pawn shops work though, ive only used one to transfer an online gun purchase
The way it works is that the pawnbroker -- the shop -- takes your stuff (old TV, stereo, guitar, whatever) as collateral for a short-term loan. They keep the item(s) in storage until your loan term is up or you pay them back. If you are able to pay them back before the loan period expires, you get your stuff back. If you don't, then it becomes eligible for sale.
Most people that use pawn shops either can't pay back the $15 for lil' Billy's XBox 360 because that was rent/beer/meth money, or they don't bother because they treat it as a "dump off old stuff and forget about it" year-round garage sale.
I honestly didn't know pawnshops still operated using Crime and Punishment rules, like thats super predatory.
I always assumed they were just an all-purpose buyer/seller.
a “dump off old stuff and forget about it” year-round garage sale
I sold about half of the things I owned at a pawn shop once, got $100 for it. Craigslist is slower, but much better for the purpose.
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