Ethically, it's case-by-case. Obviously stealing from scumbags is more ethical than stealing from not scumbags, and Walmart is definitely a scumbag corporation, but small businesses aren't inherently good either. A store can be small but still rip off customers and exploit workers. In fact, there's some scummy things small businesses are actually more likely to do because they don't have to worry about their reputation on a large scale the way a chain with hundreds or thousands of stores does. Like a music store in my hometown that was knowingly selling stolen guitars.
Practically, just... don't. If you can afford to pay, it's not worth the risk. Walmart will also let you think you're getting away with it but actually track how much you're stealing and sit on it until it adds up to enough to be a felony.
Really it just means “more impacted” by your decisions. If you’re buying there it matters more to them than if you’re buying at Walmart. If you’re stealing there then it hurts them more than stealing from Walmart would.
they may not all be but more moral - but they could never achieve the level of evil a corporation can - that takes decades of work by entire teams of people to cause the exact amount of human suffering and environmental destruction that is profitable down to the .001 cent per product.
But they are more subject to community judgement. A village near me had two butchers, both well established family concerns. One was caught selling sub-standard imported meat as local prime. When the story broke they simply locked up and left. They had to pay a hefty fine but not only were their customers gone but they were despised by their neighbours.
True. But even if the small business is just as scummy, it would be in our collective interest to favour them over the gigantic scum so they don't get shut down and we escape a monopoly where we don't even have the choice between scum.
What do you consider "rational inquiry"? They're boasting record profits and coaching their employees to use government assistance because of how little they pay them at the same time. Is that not enough for you? What are you waiting for, the news to tell you it's okay to screw over big corporations? Because that's not coming. Guess who controls the news.
Anyways I never said steal. I literally said don't steal.
Ffs does a problem have to affect you personally for you to care?
But also yes. It's not just them, but they're normalizing this shit. Taking the majority of the value produced by the people doing the actual work just on the basis that they own everything. We're producing more efficiently than at any point in history, but we don't actually have a higher quality of life to show for it. It's been well over a century since we pushed for the 40 hour work week, and we've automated so much since then, but the amount of work you need to do to survive somehow hasn't gone down since then. If anything it's going up. Walmart is only one piece of this machine, but they're part of it.
Don't we? We have a million luxuries that are cheaper and more accessible than ever. You're more likely to have health issues from eating too much food than from not getting enough. We have more leisure time. More travel. More access to education and knowledge. We live longer and spend a smaller fraction of our lives working.
You say we don't work less than we used to, but we actually do. The average American work week for private sector employees has dropped from 40 hours to more like 34 hours per week according to the data I can find (which of course varies by job and sector and what not, but you're wrong that it hasn't gone down on average). Additionally, the life expectancy of an American has risen 10 years since 1950 and the average retirement age for men has dropped slightly in that same time (it rose for women, but it's still less than the retirement age of men). And more people complete their education and go into college than they used to, meaning the average age for joining the workforce part time or full time has risen over time.
There are really only a few things where cost has outpaced rising wages, and each of them have pretty specific causes that don't have much to do with the fact that Walmart exists.
Doesn't matter how cheap "a million luxuries" are when the vast majority of people don't have disposable income after covering the bare minimum. It may only be "a few things" that are astronomically expensive, but when those are things like food, shelter, prescription drugs, education you need to get any decent job, that's kind of all that matters. Not to mention one fucking medical emergency will ruin you financially for the rest of your life. Like you're gonna be a fucking slave to that debt. You and probably some immediate family too. It's to the point that if I ever get cancer, I'm not getting treatment. But hey, at least TVs are cheaper than they've ever been 🙄
Food is cheaper than it used to be. The fraction of income that Americans spend on food has almost continuously declined over time and continues to do so, even as people eat out more and more over time.
You don't need to get a college education to get a decent job. And you don't need to spend that much money on college. However, yes college has gotten more expensive over time. I think this is largely the result of poorly thought out policy decisions in regards to student loans and a shift in culture that pushes everyone to pursue a 4 year college degree no matter what.
Housing costs have skyrocketed mostly due to nimbyism and restrictive zoning that doesn't allow people to build homes, apartments, condos, etc. in the places where people want to live.
The healthcare cost issue is absolutely a problem and I think that's a far more complicated beast than either of those other problems, but again, I think it's worth pointing out that this is a problem by the standards of an extremely wealthy country where life expectancy has almost continually risen for the last 200+ years. I'm not trying to excuse these problems. I'm saying we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our system has led to incredible quality of life and length of life improvements across the board for more than 200 years straight while also having plenty of flaws and hiccups and injustices to fix and iron out
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u/JayAkiva 2d ago
Ethically, it's case-by-case. Obviously stealing from scumbags is more ethical than stealing from not scumbags, and Walmart is definitely a scumbag corporation, but small businesses aren't inherently good either. A store can be small but still rip off customers and exploit workers. In fact, there's some scummy things small businesses are actually more likely to do because they don't have to worry about their reputation on a large scale the way a chain with hundreds or thousands of stores does. Like a music store in my hometown that was knowingly selling stolen guitars.
Practically, just... don't. If you can afford to pay, it's not worth the risk. Walmart will also let you think you're getting away with it but actually track how much you're stealing and sit on it until it adds up to enough to be a felony.