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If you want to demonstrate to someone why the legal system is designed for the wealthy and not the common people, I don't think you can do better than the entir
by ToucanLoucan 3y ago
If you want to demonstrate to someone why the legal system is designed for the wealthy and not the common people, I don't think you can do better than the entire subject of wage theft. Wage theft utterly eclipses every other form of larceny in the United States at least, and it is practically legal in every way apart from the letter of the law. Few companies ever see any consequences at all, and the few that do, it's fines here and there. No criminal liability. Certainly no SWAT teams raiding gated communities daily to haul off white collar criminals the way they'll roll out and obliterate an entire home (sometimes even the correct one) to catch someone selling weed.
The societal impact of this crime cannot be overstated. Billions of dollars stolen from workers, practically free of consequence.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoMost companies dont pay many taxes either.
- billy99k 3y agoany proof of this? Every company I've worked for pays lots in taxes.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago1$ is lots of taxes. Most companies use countless loopholes.
- TheCleric 3y agoExactly. How many hand wringing articles have we seen in the past few years about roving bands of shoplifters vs how many about wage theft?
- Jensson 3y ago> Wage theft utterly eclipses every other form of larceny in the United States at least If you define being late with payments as theft, then I'd bet that rent theft is way larger than wage theft. I don't see why you would say that it is theft when you are late with payments to a worker but not theft when you are late with payments to a company. If being late with payments isn't theft, then "wage theft" isn't theft, just like you missing to pay your rent one month isn't theft.
- castlecrasher2 3y agoAgreed, and not sure why you're being downvoted for this.
- autoexec 3y agoMaybe because if you redefine things that aren't theft as theft you can make any number of things more prevalent than wage theft, or maybe because it confused paying someone late with paying someone never, or maybe because it equated people who are unable to pay due to not having enough money for their basic needs with corporations who most often have plenty of money and assets but still refuse to pay their employees, or for any number of other reasons that it was a terrible argument.
- castlecrasher2 3y agoI don't understand the chord this opinion strikes. Unless you're letting your personal bias get in the way, there's not a distinct difference between the two.
- autoexec 3y agoIf you can't find a difference between the walmart employee late on rent because he doesn't have enough money to pay it until friday comes around, and walmart who has literal billions in profits, but has been repeatedly caught stealing money from workers you'd have to be keeping your eyes shut. Zero personal bias is required to see that those situations aren't even close the same thing.
- castlecrasher2 3y agoThat you're relying on "if you can't find the difference you must be blind!" as an argument proves my point; it's an emotional argument, not a rational one, and there is no functional difference between the two.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago