This post was originally going to be titled "Why the FUCK would you be against looting", but I figured since I'm trying to talk to libs (if there's any on this site, jokes apart), maybe I should be a little more understanding. Anyway:
Disclaimer: I'm not encouraging anyone to do illegal shit, except in Minecraft of course. Do whatever you want with what you hopefully learn from this post.
Now, I get it you've probably been conditioned to think "stealing is bad", we all have. But, not exactly, actually.
"Stealing" in the mainstream meaning of the term, almost always defines either someone shoplifting from a supermarket, a burglar stealing shit from your house or someone on a motorbike snatching your purse in the streets. Let's take a look at the actors of each cases:
In the first one, the thief is an individual like you and I ; not a crazy rich person, and probably someone poor enough to risk their freedom in order to eat or make their kids happy (not trying to say you shouldn't feel upset if someone ever steals your shit. Shit sucks of course). In the second and third cases, it's, very often, a working class person stealing from another working class person (rich people are harder to reach ofc). In these cases as well, it is the idea of someone desperate enough to risk going to jail in order to make some bucks. I will talk about how the second and third cases are more condemnable than the first one even if more understanding later. For now let's focus on the semantics.
All of these examples refer to a case of active stealing: someone acts out of their way to acquire someone else's property. However in today's society, the most important, and most revolting cases of stealing are ones of passive stealing. (See my other post about physical and social violence to get a slightly better grasp on where I'm heading here).
When you work, you produce something, wether it be goods or services; and this something will then be bought for a sum of money; hence when you work, you produce value. And when you work an employed job, where you are entitled to a salary (which is close to 100% of what us folks do), you do not actually receive the fruits of your production as a salary. The money you receive is basically what your employer is ready to pay you so that you can survive to come to work another day. If you're in charge of more important stuff in the company you're working in, your wage will probably be higher, since your employer will want to have you on their side. But regardless, you NEVER get the fruits of your labor. Read Marx's Wage Labour and Capital if you're interested in learning more about what I just said). This right here is theft, wage theft: not only is your wage not related to what you produce, but it's not even equal to the value you've been producing. Here's an interesting video about the topic. It's a very educative piece that you should definitely watch wether you're already a leftist or not.
So, where does the rest of the value you've produced go? To your employer. And more precisely, to the shareholders, to the people who own the equipment, building, products and everything else you've used and has hosted you to produce value. Basically, the stuff used to produce is called capital, hence why capital owners are called capitalists; Elon Musk is a capitalist, Bill Gates is a capitalist, your neoliberal cousin who thinks people should die for corporate profit is not (and obviously Karl Marx was not a capitalist, Elon Musk doesn't know whay that word even means lol). Part of it is re-invested in the production (buying better machines, more cost efficient products), but most of it goes to shareholders' profit ; to sum up: most of the value you produce goes to someone else's pocket.
This theft, right here, is the reason some people such as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates are as rich. Stealing the value you produce.
So to go back to the main point of this post, if you're pissed when some poor people steal shit in order to survive, you should be even more pissed when already rich people steal actual production value from people who work hard without doing anything except owning shit. Oh sure you might say "CEOs and business men actually work a lot!". Sure. Depends what you call working. If it's watching a stock exchange graph all day long, I'm pretty sure it's way less exhausting than what Amazon workers go through (and doing this doesn't actually produce any value anyway). Regardless, no amount of actual work can earn you a fucking billion dollars, let alone several.
Wage theft is not even the most blatant kind of theft by rich people. I.e fiscal fraud, billionaires refusing to pay taxes for the benefit of the community and rich people stealing from public funds.
So, why shouldn't you be against shoplifting or looting? Well, unlike stealing from another poor person, in this case, the only ones to potentially lose money are a bunch of already rich af shareholders, who got rich by stealing the value you produce when working.
Plus, the argument of "looting" is almost always used as a way to dismiss protesters demands and deny their legitimacy, but do not be fooled. Fox News and MSNBC (and even CNN lmao let's not kid ourselves) will always find a way to make protesters look bad, by either lying or focusing their news reports on one even of the protests, like the burning of a trash bin, instead of literally everything else. Why? Because they are not your allies. As people of the working class (and whether you want it or not), mainstream medias serve the interest of big corporations and of the Status Quo, thus, they are not comitted to serving your interests.
So fuck this. You should not feel like you got anything to prove to the people in suits you see on TV, to Trump, to Biden or anyone else who works in politics. You do not want their approval, because these people are not your allies. A bunch of people want to steal shit from Walmart? Let them. If Walmart decides to fire their employees after this, that's Walmart's fault. Walmart isn't firing the employees of one of their looted shops because they feel like these employees are responsible, they're doing this in order to make an example of these employees, and to make you feel like the protesters' and looters' action are wrong. Because, if at the end of the day, the only one hurt is Walmart's board of shareholders, people may actually stop caring about rich people's property being destroyed. Firing your staff after your shop has been looted is an act of class warfare. Be mad at Walmart, not at protesters or looters.
Okay, so this was long as fuck and went in too many different directions, but I hope I did get the point accross. Have a nice Monday and support the folks in Chicago's streets. If I forgot anything feel free to leave a comment scolding me.
Great post!
In my experience, the hard part in reaching liberals on the "wage labor is theft" argument is that liberals inherently see wage labor as voluntary, and so they respond with something like: "Well, if the workers feel they are being exploited, then they shouldn't have signed the contract with their employer in the first place. How can it be theft if they agreed to their wages?"
My response to that is along the lines of "Well, capitalism requires exploitation in order to exist. If all workers were able to *voluntarily * band together and join a union that could then voluntarily negotiate high enough wages to cover the value the workers produce, the economy would collapse overnight. The more capitalism can collectively suppress wages towards subsistence level, the healthier it is as a system. The more labor can collectively bargain for higher wages, the weaker and more stagnant/precarious the system becomes."
Basically, they believe that wage labor is ethical because it's voluntary. It's very hard to change someone's ethical beliefs, especially by arguing for a different set of ethics, which is essentially what the "wage labor is theft" argument is doing. So when I reach out to liberals, I try a dialectic argument instead of an ethical argument, where I assume their ethics and try to show how capitalism contradicts them. If capitalism was truly voluntary, it would collapse. If capitalism works, then it can't be truly voluntary. That cuts through all the complicated ethical philosophy crap, and they are either forced to change their ethics or accept that capitalism is unethical.
I've been trying to argue with some free market type of people (mostly cause they're old friends) and they simply cant grasp that no, it actually isn't voluntary, and that no, most people dont have the chance or possibility to quit and go find a better job.
I have friends like that too, and pointing out that wage labor is involuntary almost never works. In my experience, I have to tacitly agree with them that wage labor is voluntary--that the negotiation between worker-capitalist is a mutually beneficial agreement. Then I try and apply their exact same logic to worker-worker relationships, and show that if workers voluntarily worked together in a mutually beneficial way that it would destroy the economy. Capitalism can only survive by actively suppressing the ability of workers to work together in their own self-interest. The only voluntarism permitted in capitalism is between worker-capitalist and capitalist-capitalist, while worker-worker voluntarism on the other hand is actively suppressed by every lever of power available to capital.
"There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence it is that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e. the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e. the working-class."
choosing to work OR die is technically a choice, in the most specious sense of the word. that is, i volunteer to pick the option that isn't literally starve, be homeless, or be in destitution until my body gives out. but this forced choice is much closer to coercion than the autonomy and liberty required of an active choice. capitalism holds a gun to our head, commands us to work, then goes "SEE? THEY LOVEEEE IT. THEY CHOSE IT." it's a situation most people would object to and say no, obviously the guy didn't volunteer, he was clearly victimized and agreed under duress. so ya fuck the choice discourse, the accurate term is wage slavery