8 ms·

This is the way our world works. If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months. If you illega

This is the way our world works. If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months. If you illegally fix the price of potatoes and steal billions from the market, you will be allowed to operate for years in the open while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way.

Ekaros 2y ago
Let's be honest hear. If you go to store and steal sack of potato. I doubt either the store or police will even attempt to track you anymore... Retail theft is just left to happen.
- dijit 2y ago
  Not really, theres a handful of selective enforcement; but as far as crimes go they are prosecuted much more frequently as a percentage of total of infractions than something like price fixing.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I've seen some pretty gnarly fights between grocery store security and shoplifters. Back when I worked in one I had to take our security guard to the hospital to have a bite wound treated. There are more of them nowadays, with guns prominently displayed. It feels like we're not far from a world where they stop bothering to chase them down and just start shooting them in the back. I think you just have a nice neighborhood.
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    No, you didn't. Loss Prevention in damn near any store are not allowed to even make physical contact with a shoplifter - it's a "you're fired" level policy violation. LP document, try to get the person to stop by hanging around or chasing them out of the store, try to convince the person to drop stuff, and if the person cooperates, keep them hanging around until law enforcement shows up. Companies don't want employees or customers to get injured and come after them for damages, which would almost certainly be worth far more than whatever the person is running off with. There are a slew of cameras covering the parking lots for a reason - with photos and video of the person, the car, etc - it is trivial for cops and courts to handle.
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      I did. I was working as a cashier for the first one, this was several years ago. I was asked to help put handcuffs on the shoplifter since our LP guy had is hands full restraining him. I should have objected to being asked to stand by as backup when confronting a shoplifter, but I'm a pushover. But just this year I saw a grocery store security guard beat the shit out of a homeless person that they caught stealing (this was in the receiving area, not the parking lot--no cameras as far as I'm aware). This may not have been within policy, or legal, but it surely happens. It takes a certain sort to opt into a job where your primary function is intimidating people all the time.
- bovermyer 2y ago
  I doubt that. "Loss prevention" divisions in larger corporations might allow for some amount of unpunished theft, but once that number gets high enough, they'll implement measures to control it. Sometimes, that takes the form of locking down shelves, but I imagine some take a more reactive approach. Additionally, the amount of video and audio (and other data) recorded is increasing, not decreasing. As tracking technology gets more sophisticated, systems of identification, location, and retaliation will also get more sophisticated. Even automated. I don't think it'll be too long before we'll have "arrest-a-thief" as-a-service.
  - UncleEntity 2y ago
    > I don't think it'll be too long before we'll have "arrest-a-thief" as-a-service. I believe that's called '911'...
    - rocqua 2y ago
      You can't solve capacity or 'caring' problems at 911 by just paying more, or threatening to buy services elsewhere. So there's good reason to think it's not what corporations want.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  Nope. Theft and shrink (from employees) accounts for 5% of losses and it has not gone up - at all - from historical trends. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth-vs-reality-trends-retail-theft https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth... https://www.vera.org/news/the-truth-about-retail-theft https://www.vera.org/news/the-truth-about-retail-theft https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities-separating-fact-from-fiction/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities... https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-crime-stores/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-c...
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    As multiple of these articles acknowledge, any attempt to debunk shoplifting information from official crime data is on shaky ground, because most thefts are not reported to law enforcement. The guy who strolls out of Target with a bag full of shampoo isn’t in the crime data unless some store employee sees it happen and decides it’s worth calling the police to make a report about. I don’t think this is something where the cops would know better than retailers.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Yet if the large grocery store chain doesn't consider it even worth a phone-call or web-form-submit--knowing they already have the footage of the event--it does kinda blunt the idea that it's a big problem.
- techjamie 2y ago
  We'll absolutely document a theft of a sack of potatoes if we notice it, because it's never just the sack of potatoes. The vast majority of thieves get emboldened and either up their thefts, or continue to repeat offend at a low level. The one sack of potatoes is likely actually a sack of potatoes every week, and it doesn't really take long to rack up a dollar amount worth prosecuting over. I can get my local detectives hungry to file a warrant at the $100 mark. Shoplifting is a bad game where the store has every edge, and only has to win once. The shoplifter has to win every time. If they don't, they usually find the line between getting away with it and jailtime is much thinner than they thought.
pseudalopex 2y ago
> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. Blame both.
- tomaskafka 2y ago
  Oh, and don't forget the voters, who mostly don't care, thus enabling the cartels that extract value from them to grow unchecked.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I'm not sure that the voters don't care -- it's mostly that they don't know. Because they are being constantly flooded with messaging that screams in other directions: "it's the immigrants!!" "it's trans people!" "it's those f*ing libs!!" "it's those MAGA idiots!!" etc. etc. And because these things are complicated, it's hard to boil them down to a few words that stick with voters, and attempts to do so come off as "West/East Coast Elitism". This is why populism is great for large monopolistic corporations so long as it can be channeled away from them (which they spend a great deal of money on).
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    The potato cartel has convinced a lot of voters that what's good for the cartel is good for everyone...
- chipotle_coyote 2y ago
  Yes. I see this kind of "if your lock is easy to pick and your house is robbed, it's not the burglar's fault" argument a lot -- it's the lock-maker's fault! It's your fault for not doing enough research on locks! Or more commonly on HN, it's the fault of too much regulation somehow? -- and, it's like, okay, all of those factors may be worth considering, but the burglar still made a conscious decision to rob you. The burglary is not some inevitable consequence of systemic failure. If somebody leaves their laptop on a bar top for a few minutes to go to the bathroom and you steal it, "hey, they left it there" is not some kind of magic get out of jail free card for you. You chose to steal it. And, yep: if four companies that control 97% of their market conspire to fix prices together, they are making a conscious decision to do so. There may be systemic failures which make it easier for them to do that than there should be, but they're still choosing to do it knowing that it's wrong. I'd go so far as to say that they're actually counting on people pointing the finger anywhere but at them. It's not us, it's just inflation! It's not us, it's the Biden administration! It's not us, it's something something something Covid! Yeah, okay, but at the end of the day, you're consciously choosing to price gouge. Doctorow's point is, I think, that companies are deflecting from this by saying "it's not us, it's the apps, man! They're telling us what the optimal prices are, and we're just following their command!" But that's still, at the end of the day, price-fixing. It's _outsourced_ price-fixing, but it's still price-fixing.
crawfordcomeaux 2y ago
Don't blame anymore because blame is an act of supremacy. Responsibility says it's shared to varying degrees through various classes of equivalence among all. The thieves are trying to eat or feed people in the context of oppression that capitalism is. Capitalism is a system of oppression that requires poverty to work, so is an economic system of oppression. "Crimes" committed in the context of oppression are required when "noncrimes" are insufficient for meeting needs. Cartels operate without regard for human life and support the context of oppression. Totally different level of responsibility. Politicians create the system based on choices made due to support from the cartels. They're in some classes of equivalence with the politicians because they're interacting in a way that promotes the context of oppression. They're all operating within the context of oppression that is individualism.
- bovermyer 2y ago
  Hypothesizing for the moment that all of that is true and accurate, what do you propose the solution is?
  - crawfordcomeaux 2y ago
    Rampant open air community building for learning how to care for one another. Underground railroads for moving people to safety. Learning armed self defense. We're literally in a country that is setup to become a prison & the fences may already be built and just not fully turned on yet.
- crawfordcomeaux 2y ago
  Wearing these down downvotes as a badge of honor. Appistocracy gotta keep the truth down
confidantlake 2y ago
The potato thieves and the politicians are the same team.
drweevil 2y ago
The politicians didn't build this. The cartel owners did, so they are absolutely blame worthy. But politicians sit back and do nothing about it, due to regulatory capture.
- delfinom 2y ago
  Well I would argue political donations that politicians gladly accept leads to them sitting back and doing nothing.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  News flash: either the head of Potato Cartel inc was tapped to run the US Potato Thief Catching Commission, or the head of the US Potato Thief Catching Commission retired from public life and took a position as head of Potato Cartel inc
gruez 2y ago
>while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Examples? Usually when this argument is trotted out, there's two factors not mentioned: the amount "stolen" is the amount transacted (ie. total potato sold, rather than the additional profit made), or that the government's case is shaky and the settlement reflected that.
- hermannj314 2y ago
  Big banks role in 2008 financial crisis. Facebook fines from FTC regarding user privacy. But your point shows the asymmetry in the system. Most thieves don't get to argue costs of goods stolen vs. sticker price of goods stolen and then get to reach a cushy settlement because the government is scared of losing a protracted battle.
wat10000 2y ago
A real world example: wage theft in the US is bigger than all other forms of theft combined. How often do you hear about it? We hear endlessly about shoplifting rings and lax enforcement by lefty prosecutors. When was the last time you saw coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed? When was the last time somebody went to jail for not paying their workers what they’re owed?
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I routinely see coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed. People do sometimes go to jail for not paying workers what they’re owed (https://kfoxtv.com/amp/news/local/el-paso-contractor-jailed-for-wage-theft-failing-to-pay-workers-and-subcontractors-joseph-arroyos-theft-of-service-theft-of-property https://kfoxtv.com/amp/news/local/el-paso-contractor-jailed-...), but this article illustrates pretty clearly why you don’t hear more about it. Advocacy orgs aren’t going to brag about some random contractor or McDonalds supervisor going to jail, and the corporate fat cats they could brag about rarely commit wage theft themselves.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    We need to redefine what it means to commit this sort of crime. The modern corporation is an expert in dodging responsibility. Upper management will make it very clear that everyone is expected to follow the law at all times. Then they’ll set up incentives, requirements, and quotas that more or less require breaking the law to meet. When the inevitable occurs, they’ll wring their hand and say, we don’t condone that behavior. The management chain needs to be held more responsible for actions at the bottom. That doesn’t mean we put them in jail for every misdeed by some front-line worker, but they shouldn’t be allowed to turn a blind eye to systematic lawbreaking.
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      Wage theft, like any other kind of theft, is a self-incentivizing crime. I agree people shouldn't be allowed to turn a blind eye to systematic lawbreaking, but no system of incentives can erase the fundamental accounting identity that a business unit will have more money if they pay workers less than promised.
paulddraper 2y ago
I virtually guarantee you will not be arrested immediately.
Frieren 2y ago
> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. The potato cartels are controlling the politicians. They are directly to blame. Get rid of the super-rich and we will get politicians that work for the public instead of the super-rich.
RobotToaster 2y ago
They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own But leaves the lords and ladies fine Who take things that are yours and mine. The poor and wretched don’t escape If they conspire the law to break; This must be so but they endure Those who conspire to make the law. The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common’ And geese will still a common lack Till they go and steal it back. English nursery rhyme, circa 1700.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  So the silly Haitian goose drama in Ohio was really a message to all the plebs? Meanwhile, citizens are being stopped and harassed for their papers because they don't look right.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months Have you been to San Francisco? We don't prosecute petty crime in America. If you want a proper example, compare it to wage theft (including by small businesses).
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > We don't prosecute petty crime in America. Yes we do; at rates that horrify the rest of the world. It's very expensive. You can find a lot of detail here: [0]. > Most people in the U.S. criminal legal system are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses. 0 - https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Most people in the U.S. criminal legal system are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations I've probably committed misdemeanors; I don't think I've committed a felony. If misdemeanors are committed at a higher rate than felonies, and felonies are prosecuted at a higher frequency than misdemeanors, most prosecutions will be misdemeanors and most uncaught crime would have been charged as a misdemeanor. > low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole It's difficult to call probation or parole violations "low-level offenses" without knowing the underlying offense.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      > most prosecutions will be misdemeanors So... We do prosecute petty crime? Ok then. And since America has far more prisoners than basically any other country... We're prosecuting a lot of them. > It's difficult to call probation or parole violations "low-level offenses" without knowing the underlying offense. Feel free to read through the link instead of just the quoted section. There's no shortage of statistics and source data in the Methodology link.
barbazoo 2y ago
Politicians don’t exist in a vacuum. People are to blame too. So are business owners.
charles_f 2y ago
> blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. Politicians are only doing what the potato cartel is telling them to, because if they weren't they'd be replaced by big-potato-friendly politicians. You can't blame a single actor. What's to blame is the system itself. As long as what's driving it is capital, whomever and whatever makes it grow most will be rewarded, under the risk of being replaced. There's only one metric that counts in this game, and it's no surprise that everything arranges around its optimization. World is controlled by big potato.
vhcr 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act
Terr_ 2y ago
> "[...] but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?" -- Snuff by Terry Pratchett
ddtaylor 2y ago
Blame can be shared. They lobbied to have and keep the systems. The concept or argument that someone accomplished this in this way on accident or without understanding the ethical repercussions is laughable.
delusional 2y ago
You can not have a lawful and fruitful society if the inhabitants of that society don't want it. There is no law that you can pass to make the billionaire asshole not be an asshole. You can make him not a billionaire, but the inhabitants of the American society will not allow that. That is a population problem. Not a political one.
malshe 2y ago
> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. The corporations and politicians are not independent though. The corporations lobby to get a rigged system they want.

Ekaros 2y ago

Let's be honest hear. If you go to store and steal sack of potato. I doubt either the store or police will even attempt to track you anymore... Retail theft is just left to happen.

dijit 2y ago
Not really, theres a handful of selective enforcement; but as far as crimes go they are prosecuted much more frequently as a percentage of total of infractions than something like price fixing.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I've seen some pretty gnarly fights between grocery store security and shoplifters. Back when I worked in one I had to take our security guard to the hospital to have a bite wound treated. There are more of them nowadays, with guns prominently displayed. It feels like we're not far from a world where they stop bothering to chase them down and just start shooting them in the back. I think you just have a nice neighborhood.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  No, you didn't. Loss Prevention in damn near any store are not allowed to even make physical contact with a shoplifter - it's a "you're fired" level policy violation. LP document, try to get the person to stop by hanging around or chasing them out of the store, try to convince the person to drop stuff, and if the person cooperates, keep them hanging around until law enforcement shows up. Companies don't want employees or customers to get injured and come after them for damages, which would almost certainly be worth far more than whatever the person is running off with. There are a slew of cameras covering the parking lots for a reason - with photos and video of the person, the car, etc - it is trivial for cops and courts to handle.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I did. I was working as a cashier for the first one, this was several years ago. I was asked to help put handcuffs on the shoplifter since our LP guy had is hands full restraining him. I should have objected to being asked to stand by as backup when confronting a shoplifter, but I'm a pushover. But just this year I saw a grocery store security guard beat the shit out of a homeless person that they caught stealing (this was in the receiving area, not the parking lot--no cameras as far as I'm aware). This may not have been within policy, or legal, but it surely happens. It takes a certain sort to opt into a job where your primary function is intimidating people all the time.
bovermyer 2y ago
I doubt that. "Loss prevention" divisions in larger corporations might allow for some amount of unpunished theft, but once that number gets high enough, they'll implement measures to control it. Sometimes, that takes the form of locking down shelves, but I imagine some take a more reactive approach. Additionally, the amount of video and audio (and other data) recorded is increasing, not decreasing. As tracking technology gets more sophisticated, systems of identification, location, and retaliation will also get more sophisticated. Even automated. I don't think it'll be too long before we'll have "arrest-a-thief" as-a-service.
- UncleEntity 2y ago
  > I don't think it'll be too long before we'll have "arrest-a-thief" as-a-service. I believe that's called '911'...
  - rocqua 2y ago
    You can't solve capacity or 'caring' problems at 911 by just paying more, or threatening to buy services elsewhere. So there's good reason to think it's not what corporations want.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
Nope. Theft and shrink (from employees) accounts for 5% of losses and it has not gone up - at all - from historical trends. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth-vs-reality-trends-retail-theft https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth... https://www.vera.org/news/the-truth-about-retail-theft https://www.vera.org/news/the-truth-about-retail-theft https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities-separating-fact-from-fiction/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities... https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-crime-stores/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-c...
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  As multiple of these articles acknowledge, any attempt to debunk shoplifting information from official crime data is on shaky ground, because most thefts are not reported to law enforcement. The guy who strolls out of Target with a bag full of shampoo isn’t in the crime data unless some store employee sees it happen and decides it’s worth calling the police to make a report about. I don’t think this is something where the cops would know better than retailers.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Yet if the large grocery store chain doesn't consider it even worth a phone-call or web-form-submit--knowing they already have the footage of the event--it does kinda blunt the idea that it's a big problem.
techjamie 2y ago
We'll absolutely document a theft of a sack of potatoes if we notice it, because it's never just the sack of potatoes. The vast majority of thieves get emboldened and either up their thefts, or continue to repeat offend at a low level. The one sack of potatoes is likely actually a sack of potatoes every week, and it doesn't really take long to rack up a dollar amount worth prosecuting over. I can get my local detectives hungry to file a warrant at the $100 mark. Shoplifting is a bad game where the store has every edge, and only has to win once. The shoplifter has to win every time. If they don't, they usually find the line between getting away with it and jailtime is much thinner than they thought.

pseudalopex 2y ago

> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. Blame both.

tomaskafka 2y ago
Oh, and don't forget the voters, who mostly don't care, thus enabling the cartels that extract value from them to grow unchecked.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  I'm not sure that the voters don't care -- it's mostly that they don't know. Because they are being constantly flooded with messaging that screams in other directions: "it's the immigrants!!" "it's trans people!" "it's those f*ing libs!!" "it's those MAGA idiots!!" etc. etc. And because these things are complicated, it's hard to boil them down to a few words that stick with voters, and attempts to do so come off as "West/East Coast Elitism". This is why populism is great for large monopolistic corporations so long as it can be channeled away from them (which they spend a great deal of money on).
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  The potato cartel has convinced a lot of voters that what's good for the cartel is good for everyone...
chipotle_coyote 2y ago
Yes. I see this kind of "if your lock is easy to pick and your house is robbed, it's not the burglar's fault" argument a lot -- it's the lock-maker's fault! It's your fault for not doing enough research on locks! Or more commonly on HN, it's the fault of too much regulation somehow? -- and, it's like, okay, all of those factors may be worth considering, but the burglar still made a conscious decision to rob you. The burglary is not some inevitable consequence of systemic failure. If somebody leaves their laptop on a bar top for a few minutes to go to the bathroom and you steal it, "hey, they left it there" is not some kind of magic get out of jail free card for you. You chose to steal it. And, yep: if four companies that control 97% of their market conspire to fix prices together, they are making a conscious decision to do so. There may be systemic failures which make it easier for them to do that than there should be, but they're still choosing to do it knowing that it's wrong. I'd go so far as to say that they're actually counting on people pointing the finger anywhere but at them. It's not us, it's just inflation! It's not us, it's the Biden administration! It's not us, it's something something something Covid! Yeah, okay, but at the end of the day, you're consciously choosing to price gouge. Doctorow's point is, I think, that companies are deflecting from this by saying "it's not us, it's the apps, man! They're telling us what the optimal prices are, and we're just following their command!" But that's still, at the end of the day, price-fixing. It's _outsourced_ price-fixing, but it's still price-fixing.

crawfordcomeaux 2y ago

Don't blame anymore because blame is an act of supremacy. Responsibility says it's shared to varying degrees through various classes of equivalence among all. The thieves are trying to eat or feed people in the context of oppression that capitalism is. Capitalism is a system of oppression that requires poverty to work, so is an economic system of oppression. "Crimes" committed in the context of oppression are required when "noncrimes" are insufficient for meeting needs. Cartels operate without regard for human life and support the context of oppression. Totally different level of responsibility. Politicians create the system based on choices made due to support from the cartels. They're in some classes of equivalence with the politicians because they're interacting in a way that promotes the context of oppression. They're all operating within the context of oppression that is individualism.

bovermyer 2y ago
Hypothesizing for the moment that all of that is true and accurate, what do you propose the solution is?
- crawfordcomeaux 2y ago
  Rampant open air community building for learning how to care for one another. Underground railroads for moving people to safety. Learning armed self defense. We're literally in a country that is setup to become a prison & the fences may already be built and just not fully turned on yet.
crawfordcomeaux 2y ago
Wearing these down downvotes as a badge of honor. Appistocracy gotta keep the truth down

confidantlake 2y ago

The potato thieves and the politicians are the same team.

drweevil 2y ago

The politicians didn't build this. The cartel owners did, so they are absolutely blame worthy. But politicians sit back and do nothing about it, due to regulatory capture.

delfinom 2y ago
Well I would argue political donations that politicians gladly accept leads to them sitting back and doing nothing.
cratermoon 2y ago
News flash: either the head of Potato Cartel inc was tapped to run the US Potato Thief Catching Commission, or the head of the US Potato Thief Catching Commission retired from public life and took a position as head of Potato Cartel inc

gruez 2y ago

>while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Examples? Usually when this argument is trotted out, there's two factors not mentioned: the amount "stolen" is the amount transacted (ie. total potato sold, rather than the additional profit made), or that the government's case is shaky and the settlement reflected that.

hermannj314 2y ago
Big banks role in 2008 financial crisis. Facebook fines from FTC regarding user privacy. But your point shows the asymmetry in the system. Most thieves don't get to argue costs of goods stolen vs. sticker price of goods stolen and then get to reach a cushy settlement because the government is scared of losing a protracted battle.

wat10000 2y ago

A real world example: wage theft in the US is bigger than all other forms of theft combined. How often do you hear about it? We hear endlessly about shoplifting rings and lax enforcement by lefty prosecutors. When was the last time you saw coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed? When was the last time somebody went to jail for not paying their workers what they’re owed?

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I routinely see coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed. People do sometimes go to jail for not paying workers what they’re owed (https://kfoxtv.com/amp/news/local/el-paso-contractor-jailed-for-wage-theft-failing-to-pay-workers-and-subcontractors-joseph-arroyos-theft-of-service-theft-of-property https://kfoxtv.com/amp/news/local/el-paso-contractor-jailed-...), but this article illustrates pretty clearly why you don’t hear more about it. Advocacy orgs aren’t going to brag about some random contractor or McDonalds supervisor going to jail, and the corporate fat cats they could brag about rarely commit wage theft themselves.
- wat10000 2y ago
  We need to redefine what it means to commit this sort of crime. The modern corporation is an expert in dodging responsibility. Upper management will make it very clear that everyone is expected to follow the law at all times. Then they’ll set up incentives, requirements, and quotas that more or less require breaking the law to meet. When the inevitable occurs, they’ll wring their hand and say, we don’t condone that behavior. The management chain needs to be held more responsible for actions at the bottom. That doesn’t mean we put them in jail for every misdeed by some front-line worker, but they shouldn’t be allowed to turn a blind eye to systematic lawbreaking.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Wage theft, like any other kind of theft, is a self-incentivizing crime. I agree people shouldn't be allowed to turn a blind eye to systematic lawbreaking, but no system of incentives can erase the fundamental accounting identity that a business unit will have more money if they pay workers less than promised.

paulddraper 2y ago

I virtually guarantee you will not be arrested immediately.

Frieren 2y ago

> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. The potato cartels are controlling the politicians. They are directly to blame. Get rid of the super-rich and we will get politicians that work for the public instead of the super-rich.

RobotToaster 2y ago

They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own But leaves the lords and ladies fine Who take things that are yours and mine. The poor and wretched don’t escape If they conspire the law to break; This must be so but they endure Those who conspire to make the law. The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common’ And geese will still a common lack Till they go and steal it back. English nursery rhyme, circa 1700.

datavirtue 2y ago
So the silly Haitian goose drama in Ohio was really a message to all the plebs? Meanwhile, citizens are being stopped and harassed for their papers because they don't look right.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months Have you been to San Francisco? We don't prosecute petty crime in America. If you want a proper example, compare it to wage theft (including by small businesses).

mandmandam 2y ago
> We don't prosecute petty crime in America. Yes we do; at rates that horrify the rest of the world. It's very expensive. You can find a lot of detail here: [0]. > Most people in the U.S. criminal legal system are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses. 0 - https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Most people in the U.S. criminal legal system are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations I've probably committed misdemeanors; I don't think I've committed a felony. If misdemeanors are committed at a higher rate than felonies, and felonies are prosecuted at a higher frequency than misdemeanors, most prosecutions will be misdemeanors and most uncaught crime would have been charged as a misdemeanor. > low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole It's difficult to call probation or parole violations "low-level offenses" without knowing the underlying offense.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    > most prosecutions will be misdemeanors So... We do prosecute petty crime? Ok then. And since America has far more prisoners than basically any other country... We're prosecuting a lot of them. > It's difficult to call probation or parole violations "low-level offenses" without knowing the underlying offense. Feel free to read through the link instead of just the quoted section. There's no shortage of statistics and source data in the Methodology link.

barbazoo 2y ago

Politicians don’t exist in a vacuum. People are to blame too. So are business owners.

charles_f 2y ago

> blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. Politicians are only doing what the potato cartel is telling them to, because if they weren't they'd be replaced by big-potato-friendly politicians. You can't blame a single actor. What's to blame is the system itself. As long as what's driving it is capital, whomever and whatever makes it grow most will be rewarded, under the risk of being replaced. There's only one metric that counts in this game, and it's no surprise that everything arranges around its optimization. World is controlled by big potato.

vhcr 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act

Terr_ 2y ago

> "[...] but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?" -- Snuff by Terry Pratchett

ddtaylor 2y ago

Blame can be shared. They lobbied to have and keep the systems. The concept or argument that someone accomplished this in this way on accident or without understanding the ethical repercussions is laughable.

delusional 2y ago

You can not have a lawful and fruitful society if the inhabitants of that society don't want it. There is no law that you can pass to make the billionaire asshole not be an asshole. You can make him not a billionaire, but the inhabitants of the American society will not allow that. That is a population problem. Not a political one.

malshe 2y ago

> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. The corporations and politicians are not independent though. The corporations lobby to get a rigged system they want.