as I work retail, every single day, I see people stealing stuff…
and given the law, and my corporation stand about non-interference,
I can’t do anything about it… but this thread is far more about the
personal response to stealing than the corporate side of it…
in stealing, one can find rationalizations up the wazoo… they can afford it,
I am due it, I need it to survive, hell, there are probably hundreds if not
thousands of rationalizations we can use to justify stealing among other actions…
never underestimate the human ability to self-rationalize, well anything…
the act of self-rationalization is really the act of lying to oneself…
look at how far UR has gone in his attempt to rationalize the
coup attempt on Jan 6, 2021… the democrats did this, they did that,
that happened, BLM, and so the coup attempt is rationalized by the actions
of others… and we do this on a personal level too… the other has caused
me to steal or to lie or to even murder… we blame this other, be it society,
the law, big corporations, big pharma, communists… to justify our actions and why?
because on some level, we know our actions, be it stealing or lying or murder or
theft, to be wrong… but we need some rationalizations, some justifications
to ease our conscience… and blaming the other is such an act… I lie
because the “other” is also lying or the “other” is taking something from me,
or some other rationalization that allows us to justify our lying…or stealing…
this attempt to blame the “other” is simply another attempt to avoid
personal responsibility for our own actions… the ones who steal from my store,
they feel themselves to be innocent due to their own rationalizations, their
justifications of their actions allow them to think they are innocent because of
their own rationalizations…
and given society indifference to its citizens, to allow people to starve
and suffer, we also allow people to have these rationalizations… it is easy to
self-rationalize when the society itself doesn’t seem to give a fuck if one lives or dies…
what should the response of the society be?
one possible response is to do what society/the state ought to have done
in the first place, in which we engage with the citizens to get them jobs,
education, housing… in other words, we as a society provide the framework in
which people can succeed…it is hard to succeed when you lack the proper
resources to live one’s life… so we allocate resources to people in order
to give them a chance to succeed… the path to success lies with giving people
the basics of existence… as we have defined them in an earlier post…
we know from Maslow’s pyramid, that the basic need of people is to
the bodily needs, food, water, shelter, education, health care…
if we fail in providing this, we simple prevent people from any type of
success… how can you succeed in life if all you are doing is to
engage in the animal need to get food, water, shelter, education, health care…
we have left millions of people at that stage of existence in which they spend
their days, just trying to meet their bodily needs… they don’t have time
to do anything else… and we offer up these people easy self-rationalizations to
steal, lie, cheat because their basic needs aren’t being met… I am starving because
society/the state is keeping me from achieving those basic needs of food, water, shelter,
education, health care… we practically hand these people the means to
self-rationalize any attempt by them to steal or cheat or lie… as a
society, we are preventing them from being able to have a chance to succeed…
if all your time is trying to feed yourself, you don’t have time to become
something more…a “productive” member of society…
so, let us take away these possible self rationalizations
by providing people with the basic necessities of life, that which
ALL human beings are due because
“all people are created equal”
and this “truth” creates the possibilities of treating people equal,
by providing for those who cannot provide for themselves the
the bottom level of what is needed as a human being…the basics
necessities of food, water, shelter, education, health care… and then
once these basic necessities are met, that allows people to strive
to become something more… to reach higher into the possibilities of
being human… to reach the next levels of love, safety/security, self-esteem,
but if we provide people with the basic level of existence, we take out
one basic possibility for them to self-rationalize lying, stealing, cheating…
if everyone is starting at the same level by reaching their basic needs,
then the self-rationalizations we use to avoid responsibility for our actions,
can end…if everyone has the same chance by having their basic needs met,
then that allows them fewer chances to self-rationalize… it doesn’t end it,
but it does reduce it…
in other words, we remove or eliminate the reasons people can use
to avoid taking responsibility in their lives…if everyone is educated,
people can no longer use that excuse to avoid taking responsibility for
their lives…if people have the tools to succeed, then they can no longer
claim to have any reason for their failures…
the society itself can provide the means for people to
take responsibility for their actions… by providing for
the bottom-line necessities of life, that removes the possibilities
that people can lie, or steal or cheat based on the fact that they
were deprived or neglected or denied certain basic necessities…
like food or water, or housing or education or health care…
conservatives are always babbling about taking personal responsibility,
but never provide the means for people to take such personal responsibility…
If I am provided with the basics, food, water, shelter, housing, education,
health care, I have far less means to avoid taking personal responsibility…
how can I self-rationalize if I was provided with the basic means of
meeting my own needs… we can remove the possibilities of
self-rationalization if we remove the ways and means for such
self-rationalization…
and this become a union between the self, the individual and the state/society…
for that is what is called for in life… that the state/society provides
the self, the individual with the means of gaining the necessities of life
and the self, the individual then is lead into performing acts which
benefits society/the state… if we provide the basic needs of individuals,
they are far less to commit acts that harms that society/the state…
what incentive to steal or lie or cheat do people have if their basic needs
are met?
Kropotkin