If everyone were super wealthy would there still be stealing and robbing?

Oh fuck yeah.

Yes. When I was a kid and worked at the grocery store, they would bust people for shoplifting. Sometimes they bought 200$ worth of groceries and stole a 50 cent item. I think some people like the thrill of stealing.

HA LOL. It is the super wealthy that do most of the stealing.

If everyone had that kind of money, inflation would make it worthless. People would then steal so they could have the even more enormous amounts of money it would take to buy the more desirable goods.

I think it’s all relative isn’t it? If everyone had more money there would still be things that were out of some peoples’ grasp? And if you made sure everyone had the same amount of money, people would spend it on different things and then perhaps realise that they wanted stuff that they hadn’t bought and so steal them…maybe?

I think there are probably two parts to this question; an economic one and a moral one… it’s a bit late for me to think about this now but the former part is not my forte and the latter needs a fresh head and fresh coffee but GQ!

@keobooks I think some people like the thrill of stealing.
Elucidate, if some people steal just for the thrill of stealing would they be the norm or an anomaly? People want to believe humans are inherently good, but if that were so, would stealing just to steal be as uncommon as people who want to eat dirt? If people will steal no matter how much they had because there would always be someone they felt had more, or for entertainment sake, would that lend to people being bad naturally thus the need for cops to keep them from wanton stealing?

@Hypocrisy_Central—I have no idea. I just know that shoplifters rarely steal out of need. They like to shoplift. I don’t know too much about other kids of robbers.

The point has already been made that in such a society a loaf of bread would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, and wealthy would mean billionaires.

Can you say Bernie Madoff

As ragingloli said…

OH why heck yes. Greed knows no bounds!

@Hypocrisy_Central Wealth is the material goods and resources—it’s the stuff people (and machines) extract and produce.

You can’t make everyone wealthy by simply depositing sums in a computer and giving everyone bank notes. It would have to be backed up with an equivalent increase in production.

However, production has increased in recent decades. The resources, manpower, technology and automation, and productive capacity are all there to satisfy everyone’s needs and give everyone a comfortable life—but it doesn’t, for various irrational economic and political constraints, which are entirely artificial and self-imposed.

Yes, the majority of shoplifters are adults, and most of them can afford to pay for the purchase. However, I do think if we all had more equality in our weath it might reduce some of the shoplifting. We’ve had middle class moms in affluent Boca Raton shove items under their baby in the baby carriage. I had an employee who had considerable wealth shoplift. We had an employee return items he never bought onto his credit card, and using a fellow employees number as the original salesperson, which means that employee lost money in his pay check. We have seen actors in the news who make quite a bit of money caught shoplifting.

Part of the joy of stealing is sticking it to the man. Much stealing is reclaiming what is rightfully yours (or everybody’s) anyway.

Try to steal something once a day. It’s like taking a purgative dump.