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If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices, is it ethical to hold a shoplifter accountable? The answer, in my mind, is that it is not

If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices, is it ethical to hold a shoplifter accountable? The answer, in my mind, is that it is not only not ethical to do so, but it is grossly unethical to do so.

brigandish 7y ago
It's not fair but we shouldn't conflate the judgement of other's actions with choosing how we ourselves act. If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices should I then steal? No. They've no relevance to each other, I am responsible for my actions.
- SantalBlush 7y ago
  Applying a double standard between people is in itself unethical; that is my entire point. We can all choose to live by Amazon's rules, where maximizing profit without regard to ethics is acceptable, or we can live by our conventional sense of morality (which is what I want.) But insofar as we hold ordinary people to a different standard than Amazon, we are behaving unethically. The shoplifting is not central to my point.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    Your whole point hinges on the claim that Amazon routinely and deliberately acts fraudulently and is never held to account. But Amazon and companies like them are absolutely held accountable for legal breaches all the time. Here's just one recent example: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/05/ftc-settlement-amazon-yields-70-million-consumers-advice https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/05/... Companies are under constant scrutiny by various bodies and agents including regulators, consumer protection groups, media outlets, unions, review sites, consumer word of mouth - not to the simple market reality that if too many customers feel defrauded, they'll soon stop being customers. It's a huge leap to argue that since some counterfeit goods have been sold via their platform, blatant theft from them or other companies is therefore justifiable, particularly when you don't mention that those counterfeit goods were sold by third parties, and that Amazon has a formal process to refund customers who have been sold counterfeit goods and to bar such sellers from their platform: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/201165970 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/201165970 We all learned as children that theft and dishonesty is wrong, because in families and societies alike, things quickly break down if it becomes widespread. It's pretty simple.
    - 1000units 7y ago
      Your example is comical. By my reading, Amazon stole (and was ordered to return) $70 million from Americans by offering their children fake playmoney for their real money. Where are the punitive damages? $70 million is piss to Amazon. Here's another comical example from recent: Facebook is fined $5B for privacy violations. Their stock goes up for the day.
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        Nowhere did I say the conduct of the big tech companies is anything resembling perfect, nor that the regulation of them is perfect. The point was that none of this justifies property theft from other big companies, and that we all learned this as children. But sure, petty theft can be a powerful form of protest I guess, so if that's important to you, knock yourself out.
        1000units 7y ago
        The claim was big corporations get to rip off and exploit little people virtually at will, and your refutation was that they are punished (or at least get slapped in the wrist as evidenced), everything is at balance in the moral realm, and a hostile personal orientation against them is unwarranted. You've now updated your argument to Big Tech may be evil but that doesn't mean we should assume Big Grocery is too. That could be right, but if we look closely I'm sure we could find some tremendously nasty things happening there too. The incentives are making Big Money, not doing good. This is an issue of our (Post-)Industrial society.
        tomhoward 7y ago
        I'd started writing a longer reply, then thought "you know what, it's Sunday night here, I've just started drinking a really nice glass of wine and my partner is about to serve up the home-made pasta we've spent the past couple of hours preparing... life's too short for this" and wrote a low-effort reply. As your previous comment began with "your example is comical" didn't exactly make me feel like a good-faith effort at serious discussion was likely to be worth the investment, and you came right though and asserted that I'd said things that I did't say at all. So here we are. For what it's worth, I don't think "big tech" or "big grocery" is "evil" or "not evil" in any binary sense. People and organisations respond to incentives and societal standards. Sometimes those incentives and standards are healthy and lead to broadly beneficial outcomes and sometimes they are perverse and lead to negative outcomes. Countless economists over several centuries have explored these topics far more deeply than I can in an HN comment late on a Sunday evening. For some people it's really important to think that the big tech companies are evil and to blame for all society's ills, and now people are claiming that means it's really important to go easy on people who shoplift. OK then, they're welcome to that view. I still think society is better if people - both individuals and corporates of all sizes - act ethically and morally and don't steal or defraud, and I don't think individuals can expect politicians and corporations to act ethically if we're not willing to act ethically in our personal lives. That said, I'm not a law-and-order hardliner, and I have actually shoplifted in my life, at a young age, though not for any reasons to do with waging any just war against supposedly evil corporations. I was just in a bad place in life. So I have plenty of compassion for people who end up doing wrong due to being in bad circumstances. Anyway, like I said, it's late on a pleasant Sunday evening and life is too short to spend any more time talking about this, so I'm out.
- aey 7y ago
  Maybe you should steal, and still be responsible for your actions or inaction (I am not recommending this). If you consider them evil, then sabotage is justifiable. Do we have an objective set of morals that are above the law? Was the Soviet government evil? What about any corporation that is not carbon negative?
rednixion 7y ago
Sounds like you are just trying to justify whatever logic allows you to benefit. Amazon resold a fake charger so you should be allowed to steal that guy's bananas, got it.
- 1000units 7y ago
  His argument is "I live in a low-trust society, in which large and powerful institutions are only out for themselves, carelessly fuck me, nobody cares, and so it is my moral obligation to protect my personal interests by whatever means possible." It's a very sour mindset, but it's also very common in third world countries and American inner-city ghettos where affairs are quite nasty.
praxulus 7y ago
If a wealthy, influential person is not convicted of a murder they clearly committed, does that mean it's grossly unethical to hold anyone else accountable for murder?
- 1000units 7y ago
  If that's the norm, yes. If the rich can kill my people with protection from the state, we have a moral obligation to war with them.

brigandish 7y ago

It's not fair but we shouldn't conflate the judgement of other's actions with choosing how we ourselves act. If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices should I then steal? No. They've no relevance to each other, I am responsible for my actions.

SantalBlush 7y ago
Applying a double standard between people is in itself unethical; that is my entire point. We can all choose to live by Amazon's rules, where maximizing profit without regard to ethics is acceptable, or we can live by our conventional sense of morality (which is what I want.) But insofar as we hold ordinary people to a different standard than Amazon, we are behaving unethically. The shoplifting is not central to my point.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  Your whole point hinges on the claim that Amazon routinely and deliberately acts fraudulently and is never held to account. But Amazon and companies like them are absolutely held accountable for legal breaches all the time. Here's just one recent example: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/05/ftc-settlement-amazon-yields-70-million-consumers-advice https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/05/... Companies are under constant scrutiny by various bodies and agents including regulators, consumer protection groups, media outlets, unions, review sites, consumer word of mouth - not to the simple market reality that if too many customers feel defrauded, they'll soon stop being customers. It's a huge leap to argue that since some counterfeit goods have been sold via their platform, blatant theft from them or other companies is therefore justifiable, particularly when you don't mention that those counterfeit goods were sold by third parties, and that Amazon has a formal process to refund customers who have been sold counterfeit goods and to bar such sellers from their platform: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/201165970 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/201165970 We all learned as children that theft and dishonesty is wrong, because in families and societies alike, things quickly break down if it becomes widespread. It's pretty simple.
  - 1000units 7y ago
    Your example is comical. By my reading, Amazon stole (and was ordered to return) $70 million from Americans by offering their children fake playmoney for their real money. Where are the punitive damages? $70 million is piss to Amazon. Here's another comical example from recent: Facebook is fined $5B for privacy violations. Their stock goes up for the day.
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      Nowhere did I say the conduct of the big tech companies is anything resembling perfect, nor that the regulation of them is perfect. The point was that none of this justifies property theft from other big companies, and that we all learned this as children. But sure, petty theft can be a powerful form of protest I guess, so if that's important to you, knock yourself out.
      - 1000units 7y ago
        The claim was big corporations get to rip off and exploit little people virtually at will, and your refutation was that they are punished (or at least get slapped in the wrist as evidenced), everything is at balance in the moral realm, and a hostile personal orientation against them is unwarranted. You've now updated your argument to Big Tech may be evil but that doesn't mean we should assume Big Grocery is too. That could be right, but if we look closely I'm sure we could find some tremendously nasty things happening there too. The incentives are making Big Money, not doing good. This is an issue of our (Post-)Industrial society.
        tomhoward 7y ago
        I'd started writing a longer reply, then thought "you know what, it's Sunday night here, I've just started drinking a really nice glass of wine and my partner is about to serve up the home-made pasta we've spent the past couple of hours preparing... life's too short for this" and wrote a low-effort reply. As your previous comment began with "your example is comical" didn't exactly make me feel like a good-faith effort at serious discussion was likely to be worth the investment, and you came right though and asserted that I'd said things that I did't say at all. So here we are. For what it's worth, I don't think "big tech" or "big grocery" is "evil" or "not evil" in any binary sense. People and organisations respond to incentives and societal standards. Sometimes those incentives and standards are healthy and lead to broadly beneficial outcomes and sometimes they are perverse and lead to negative outcomes. Countless economists over several centuries have explored these topics far more deeply than I can in an HN comment late on a Sunday evening. For some people it's really important to think that the big tech companies are evil and to blame for all society's ills, and now people are claiming that means it's really important to go easy on people who shoplift. OK then, they're welcome to that view. I still think society is better if people - both individuals and corporates of all sizes - act ethically and morally and don't steal or defraud, and I don't think individuals can expect politicians and corporations to act ethically if we're not willing to act ethically in our personal lives. That said, I'm not a law-and-order hardliner, and I have actually shoplifted in my life, at a young age, though not for any reasons to do with waging any just war against supposedly evil corporations. I was just in a bad place in life. So I have plenty of compassion for people who end up doing wrong due to being in bad circumstances. Anyway, like I said, it's late on a pleasant Sunday evening and life is too short to spend any more time talking about this, so I'm out.
aey 7y ago
Maybe you should steal, and still be responsible for your actions or inaction (I am not recommending this). If you consider them evil, then sabotage is justifiable. Do we have an objective set of morals that are above the law? Was the Soviet government evil? What about any corporation that is not carbon negative?

rednixion 7y ago

Sounds like you are just trying to justify whatever logic allows you to benefit. Amazon resold a fake charger so you should be allowed to steal that guy's bananas, got it.

1000units 7y ago
His argument is "I live in a low-trust society, in which large and powerful institutions are only out for themselves, carelessly fuck me, nobody cares, and so it is my moral obligation to protect my personal interests by whatever means possible." It's a very sour mindset, but it's also very common in third world countries and American inner-city ghettos where affairs are quite nasty.

praxulus 7y ago

If a wealthy, influential person is not convicted of a murder they clearly committed, does that mean it's grossly unethical to hold anyone else accountable for murder?

1000units 7y ago
If that's the norm, yes. If the rich can kill my people with protection from the state, we have a moral obligation to war with them.