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Comment by bittercynic | Hacker News Reader

Though the thesis of the article is clearly true, the way they discuss manufacturing crime panics detracts from the argument. There actually does seem to be something going on with retail theft, and I say this based on speaking to people who work in retail.

2 retail workers in the last 2 weeks have told me about thefts happening in their stores where someone loads up a cart with merchandise and rolls it out the door. It doesn't mean that society is crumbling or that we need police to be more vicious, but I think there is something going on and it would be worthwhile to address it somehow. It feels corrosive to the fabric of society when this stuff happens. Maybe not as corrosive as cops beating and killing people, but it's also bad.

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> where someone loads up a cart with merchandise and rolls it out the door

There's 2 different things here, though. There's casual shoplifting, and there are organized gangs of shoplifters. What you're describing is organized gangs of shoplifting, and that's not cause by a corrosion in the fabric of society, that's caused because these gangs know that retailers aren't interested in stopping them.

A random person might steal an item or two, but a random person isn't going to load up a cart with merchandise and walk out the door. But organized crime will happily take advantage of retailers who won't do anything about them.

I meant to suggest the other direction - brazen theft of a cart full by organized gangs is corrosive to the fabric.

A person sneaking an item or two into their pocket is pretty much only affecting the store and that individual. I guess it has a broader effect if it happens so much that the store locks up the merchandise so customers have to ask for assistance.

Interesting—my reaction is the opposite. Organized crime sucks, but it doesn't strike me as a social problem, but rather an enforcement problem. Organized crime finds a technique that works because they're constantly looking for new ways to steal, and if the retailers don't find a way to close that loophole (like, for instance, security guards), then they'll just keep exploiting it.

On the other hand, when shoplifting is normalized to the point where everyday shoppers don't feel any shame about shoplifting, then that shows there's significant damage to our social fabric. But this isn't what's happening.

People have lost faith that society can work for them and have observed those in power engaging in corruption and grifts. They then conclude that only a sucker plays by the rules.

There's bound to always be some number of people in that situation, but there's also plenty of ways we can do better to make society work for more of us.

My pet theory is that the #1 problem in the USA in the past few decades is wealth inequality, and if we can find ways to stop the rich extracting wealth from the poor, many of our issues will sort themselves out.

It's worth a shot. It seems clear that political power can be bought, and when rich people buy their way into power, most of the time it's a bad thing

It is a policy choice that crime is allowed, inequality and low crime exist side by side in places like Shanghai, Tokyo, and Singapore

The difference is that being poor in those places does not lead to life or death desperation amongst poor people.

Being poor in Shanghai leads to returning to whatever bumfuck village for government benefits because you don’t have a Shanghai hukou

The other two don’t have such an issue because they have cheap and small housing options, which are effectively banned in the US due to the effect of various regressive and “seemingly progressive” housing policies

What do you mean by "low crime"? All of those places are well known for their 'secret societies'.

The idea that crime is caused by "society being unjust" is a very common delusion.

It's much simpler. People notice they can just take things with no consequences...so they do.

The culture that I live in here in the Czech Republic would paint your statement as pretty false. The police here are extremely laid-back and it's pretty easy to get away with petty thievery, yet crime is exceptionally low because people are not desperate enough to risk even the low chance of getting in trouble. You only take chances when you have nothing to lose and you only have nothing to lose when you have been completely excluded from society.

In addition to avoiding the risk, it just feels good to play by the rules if you think the system is reasonably just. I suspect a large fraction of people prefer to be honest and pay for the products and services they want.

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