Abbie Would Be Proud

In the late 1960s activist Abbie Hoffman wrote a book called Steal This Book. He had a devil of a time getting anyone to publish it because of its title but once it was published it was widely popular. The book is a guide to living in a heavily capitalist society for those who are being financially strangled by it every single day. His view is that the only way to rid ourselves of capitalism is to hurt the enablers of it in the only way that they can understand. You have to take away their profit. He explains many ways for a person to live virtually if not totally without using money. Some of the lessons are doable but many are (I thought) utterly impossible, especially now. Capitalism has a much bigger bite on society today, but I am hearing more and more stories of people doing so many of the things that Abbie wrote about that I have to wonder how many people are still reading his book today. It is available at many bookseller outlets more than 50 years later.

Whenever you order something from Amazon, Ebay or Etsy, and possibly other venues you have to wonder how many of those things are actually coming from a “Homeboy Shopping Club”. I frequently watch videos on YouTube by a fellow named Cash Jordan who reports from his home in New York City about all of the crime and troubles there. Many times, he talks about the enormous problem that they have with shoplifting. There are hundreds of news stories in his videos of people brazenly walking into stores and picking up whatever the hell that they want and just walking out with it because the shoplifting laws there are extremely lax. In the last year or so I have had the feeling that many of my online orders are being fulfilled by sellers who have obtained the merch by “five finger discount”.

My feelings are very mixed on this subject. On the one hand I can’t help but draw upon my upbringing when I was taught that stealing is wrong. I still believe that it is, strictly speaking. I have had my house broken into before. My computer was stolen. Locked boxes with important papers were stolen, and my jewelry was stolen. I was in no position to replace any of it. It seems a bit two-faced to say that stealing is wrong in some situations but not in others, I suppose, but I cannot help but feel that I am being robbed all of the time now with incredibly high prices that I am paying for everything while the manufacturers and sellers of everything that I buy are making obscene profits. So, I cannot actually feel bad about how people are stealing tons of merchandise in broad daylight when it is (possibly) their ill-gotten gains that many times offer me these items at a price that I can afford. Retailers aren’t doing that and they are completely unapologetic about how outrageous their prices are.

We are encouraged to feel badly for these retailers who are closing their stores because of theft. Truly, I do feel bad for small businesses and family-owned stores. If this is their only source of income then that really is tragic. I used to have an Etsy shop where I sold custom made clothing to supplement my income and it was extremely helpful in making ends meet until I started getting customers who would say that there was something wrong with the item but would refuse to return it to get a refund. They wanted their money back but refused to send the item back which isn’t standard practice anywhere that I know of. If you want a refund at Walmart, you have to return the item. When the buyers didn’t get to “have their cake and eat it too” they would leave snotty reviews which ruins your shop’s reputation. Eventually it ceased to be a lucrative business and ceased to be fun. It is too bad, too, because the first 2 - 3 years that I had the shop there were many very good customers who bought from me. I miss them.

So, it is a tough call in today’s world to get irate with people who are “boldly going” and stealing thousands of items from high end stores or just stores with high end prices when they are (most likely) just people trying to get by in this world and make a living by “robbing the rich to help the poor”. I am the poor now that everything that I need to survive costs me double and even triple the amount that it used to. Good old Abbie Hoffman advocated stealing back when prices didn’t even approach what they are now, but it was his view that capitalists rob from the poor to enrich themselves and the only way to stop it is to destroy their bottom line, which is profit over people. I wish that Abbie was here now. I would love to hear his opinion on how much stealing is going on today. No one likes being stolen from but it is far worse for the average person just trying to live a decent life. The wealthy can absorb the hit. They can get reimbursed by their insurance company. I cannot afford insurance. They can write the loss off on their tax returns. My tax return looks like “poverty row” now. Large retailers have many other stores. I can’t even have my Etsy shop anymore. So honest to God, I and millions of others need a Robin Hood advocate in this world now. And we still need an Abbie Hoffman to speak out loudly about the injustice of the capitalist system. It needs to go.