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Comment by wahnfrieden | Hacker News Reader

The largest category of property theft in the US is wage theft. Are workers justified to use threat of lethal force to regain stolen wages from their employers?

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Well, I have some Appalachian ancestry so I might be skewed redneck[0] here, but sometimes yes. Or at least a good whooping. There’s an old bit from some comedian (Chris Rock?) that everyone should get one free smack on someone annually, maybe that’s a good line?

As a young, starry eyed entrepreneur living in the city I got in on a startup as Employee #1, built the entire company from scratch. Worked insane overtime, had some limited equity (5% ISO)… but the founder had certain strategies and tactics.

Always had excuses and lies for me about how he uses some app with his bank that mails the checks and I don’t know why the paycheck hasn’t come in the mail, he’ll go in person tomorrow and demand the manager though! Fast forward two months, the overdue check would arrive. Except now you might be waiting on last month and your current one as well…

I watched this same tactic repeat with contractors, our marketing and graphic design folks. Except not only would he delay for months making them sweat, he would give them a story about cash flow issues but he could settle the account now for, say, 40% of the original amount. They all took the deal, knowing they would likely never see a dime otherwise.

I ended up leaving the company after a 7th(?) wave of not being paid, we had received a 500k investment three months prior and our two man firm was magically out of money again so I called bullshit.

Sure, maybe you could retain legal council and see him in civil court 3 months later after your water was shut off for non-payment and you apartment evicted. Theoretically, we have non violent means of retribution here. Theoretically, you who burnt savings up trying to stay afloat while your credit card has interest and your apartment and utilities accrue late fees.

The guy really know how to toe the line of legal-but-immoral here… I don’t know, maybe a good whooping would be a sound solution for him? Who knows.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March

I asked the question provocatively for OP to consider their suggestion but I understand the defensive need for workers to arm themselves in American history within living memory, many such cases where capital and state and organized crime all banding together against workers with extreme violence to coerce them antagonistically. Not to mention the ongoing modern cases of American business putting hits on workers abroad as a form of union negotiation

Workers in America have softened and given up their power in decades since but these conditions could easily return domestically, where it’s not just a fair wage being sought but survival under direct attack

Wage theft is abhorrent but does not have the implication of violence behind it, so I would say no, take it to the law and go work somewhere else. It's a far cry from knowing a stranger has broken into your house and violated one of the few sanctuaries you have and potentially put your family at risk, and left behind the trauma of family members never feeling safe in that home again (and that is something I can tell you from experience). You do not know what he is thinking or what his motivations are. You do not know how he will react to your presence or to the presence of your family, but you do know for him to have broken in he is not in the right state of mind and his reasoning skills have issues.

Oh I thought you were talking about property loss, not violent break and enter into your home. So you’re talking with people speaking out against lethal force in home invasion. Ok. Got it

Yes, sorry I should have been more clear about that in my initial post. I would not condone someone going out and explicitly seeking violence after the fact.

The thief has your box of savings and are walking away. You recognise the thief, and can give the police its name. You happen to have a gun. Are you morraly permitted to commit violence to stop the thief? And how does this violence compare to the violence you can commit to the vage thief?

I am entitled to a citizens arrest of the suspect, with all the liability that implies for myself if I am wrong.

If the subject refuses to comply, then enough physical violence to restrain them until police arrive or at least my property is returned is absolutely warranted. No more violence than this though, and it's a very subjective line. If I end up being wrong about it being my property, I am in some serious shit if I decide to go down this route.

This whole meme that you can do whatever you want to my property and you can't do anything about it is just silly. It's not reality for most of humanity, and is a very small bubble in western history so far.

I'm doing fine in life now so my bar for this is far higher. However at much more desperate times in my life, stealing the tools out of my truck would have been existential and I would have fought anyone I caught stealing them to the death if required. It's a huge amount of privilege to say property doesn't matter and can easily be replaced.

I also have in the past showed up at thieves homes to retrieve my stolen property - luckily no violence was ever needed, and I had no plans to engage in it going into those situations. The vast majority of the time if you confront such a thief they will instantly give up because they are simply not used to any pushback whatsoever from victims (or anyone at all whatsoever these days).

Was this likely a stupid personal decision for my own safety? Yep. But it was the only decision you can make if you actually care about society. We are seeing the results of too many people making the rational personal choice at the expense of the greater good today.

Too much of a hypothetical to give a real answer to that, imho. I do not think it is immoral to protect your savings or property if someone has gone to the lengths of violating your safety by breaking in to your home. If you know and recognize them, and you're familiar with them, you would probably know well enough to know that they are not a threat and didn't break in with the intention to hurt you. But all that goes out the window if you happen upon an unexpected stranger in your home in the spur of the moment.

With a wage thief, it's not an action that could directly threaten you. You would be making the choice to go well out of your way to cause harm to them, it'd be premeditated violence. And I would hope no one would choose to do that.

FYI your original post sounded like you were advocating shooting purse snatchers or shoplifters in the back as they ran away with the goods.

Home invasion is quite a bit different from property theft.

Leaving aside the question of justification, one of the mysteries of life in the United States is that with so much gun violence there is so little of what you describe.

That becomes less of a mystery when you look at the gun violence details. A significant chunk is self-inflicted, and another significant chunk is gang related. Remove those and that leaves a surprisingly small amount of gun violence when you consider there are 1.5 guns per American.

In the vast majority of cases when people use guns to prevent theft, no shots are fired. Usually brandishing a weapon is sufficient. These incidents happen all the time, yet they don't appear in any official statistics.

Theft is different in the sense that you don't willingly engage in a transaction at all. Wage "theft" is not usually theft; it's one party not fulfilling their obligations.

In practice not paying someone for work already done is really bad, so we should (and do, to varying degrees) have laws to try to protect workers.

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