GentleJerk
Carrot juice pimp.
- Dec 14, 2021
- 1,373
It's okay. Just take a deep breath, loosen those shoulders. Flick the kettle on, and make a nice warm cuppa. Relax.
I used to have trouble understanding this. Now, I see what it's really all about, and how this works in the grand scheme of things....
I now condone shoplifting from big corporations and supermarkets. Heck, I even encourage it.
"...In a world were everything already belongs to someone else, where I am expected to sell away my life at work, in order to get the money to pay for the minimum I need to survive, where I am surrounded by forces beyond my control or comprehension that obviously are not concerned about my needs or welfare, it (shoplifting) is a way to carve out a little piece of the world for myself- to act back upon a world that acts so much upon me. It is an entirely different sensation than the one I feel when I buy something..."
"...When I pay for something, I'm making a trade; I'm offering the money that I bought with my labor, my time, and my creativity, for a product or service that the corporation wouldn't share with me under any other circumstances. In a sense, we have a relationship based on violence: we negotiate an exchange not according to our respect or concern for each other, but according to the forces we can bring to bear on each other. Supermarkets know they can charge me a dollar for bread because I will starve if I do not buy it from them; they know they can't charge me four dollars, because I will go somewhere else. So our interaction revolves around unspoken threats, not love, and I am forced to give up something of my own to get anything from them..."
"...Everything changes when I shoplift. I'm no longer negotiating with faceless, inhuman entities that have no concern for my welfare; instead, I'm taking what I need without giving anything up. I no longer feel like I am being forced into an exchange, and I no longer feel as if have no control over the way the world around me dictates my life. I no longer have to worry about whether the pleasure I receive from the book I purchased was equal to the two hours of labor it cost me to be able to afford it. In these and a thousand other ways, shoplifting makes me feel liberated and empowered..."
"...The shoplifter wins her prize by taking risks, not by exchanging a piece of her life for it. Life for her is not something that must be sold away for seven or eight dollars an hour in return for survival; it is something that is hers because she takes it for herself, because she lays claim to it." - Shoplifter.
The shoplifter makes do with an environment that has been conquered by capitalism and industry, where there is no longer a natural world from which to gather resources, and everything has become private property- without accepting it or the absurd way of life it entails. To shoplift is to affirm immediate needs over artificial and abstract "ethics" and other such ethereal constructs.
Shoplifting is a refusal of capitalism and the exchange economy. It's a denial that people deserve to eat, live, and die based on how effectively they are able to exchange their labor and capital with others.
It's a denial that a monetary value can be ascribed to everything, that having a delicious piece of chocolate in your mouth is worth exactly fifty cents, or that an hour of one person's life can really be worth ten dollars more than that of another person.
It's a refusal to accept the capitalist system, in which workers have to buy back the products of their own labor, at a profit to the owners of capital. Shoplifting says NO to all the objectionable features that have come to characterize the modern corporation.
It's an expression of discontent with the low wages and lack of benefits that so many exploiting corporations force their employees to suffer in the name of company profits.
It's a refusal to pay for low quality products that have been designed to break or wear out soon, in order to force consumers to buy more.
It's a refusal to fund the environmental damage that so many corporations perpetrate heartlessly in the course of manufacturing their products and building new stores.
It's a refusal to support the corporations that run private, local businesses into bankruptcy.
But what about the people in the corporations? What about their welfare? First of all, corporations are distinct from traditional private businesses in that they exist as separate financial entities from their owners. So the shoplifter is taking from a non-human entity, not directly from the pocket of a human being. Second, since workers are paid set wages (minimum wage for example) that depend more on how little the corporation can get away with paying, rather than on how much profit it is making, the shoplifter is not hurting the workforce at any given company either.
The stockholders, who are always far richer than your average employee or thief, are the ones who stand to lose a little if the company suffers significant losses; but realistically, no campaign of shoplifting could be intense enough to force any of the wealthy individuals who actually profit from these companies into poverty. Besides, modern corporations have money set aside for shoplifting losses, because they anticipate them. That's correct - these corporations are aware that there is enough dissatisfaction with them and their capitalist economy that people are going to steal from them remorselessly.
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I am recently having to witness people with full-time employment, line up at the food charity donation warehouses, because they can't afford basic necessities such as milk, bread, and toilet paper. These are law abiding citizens who toil away each day for a living, lining up with the drug addicts and the jobless, to beg for handouts. Like the great depression, there is still food production, and resources, but lately no one can afford to buy the things they need... This shit isn't right. Something is very wrong indeed.
So if you decide to shoplift, know that somewhere out there is a jerk who loves you and supports you 100%! Shoplifters of the world unite!
I used to have trouble understanding this. Now, I see what it's really all about, and how this works in the grand scheme of things....
I now condone shoplifting from big corporations and supermarkets. Heck, I even encourage it.
"...In a world were everything already belongs to someone else, where I am expected to sell away my life at work, in order to get the money to pay for the minimum I need to survive, where I am surrounded by forces beyond my control or comprehension that obviously are not concerned about my needs or welfare, it (shoplifting) is a way to carve out a little piece of the world for myself- to act back upon a world that acts so much upon me. It is an entirely different sensation than the one I feel when I buy something..."
"...When I pay for something, I'm making a trade; I'm offering the money that I bought with my labor, my time, and my creativity, for a product or service that the corporation wouldn't share with me under any other circumstances. In a sense, we have a relationship based on violence: we negotiate an exchange not according to our respect or concern for each other, but according to the forces we can bring to bear on each other. Supermarkets know they can charge me a dollar for bread because I will starve if I do not buy it from them; they know they can't charge me four dollars, because I will go somewhere else. So our interaction revolves around unspoken threats, not love, and I am forced to give up something of my own to get anything from them..."
"...Everything changes when I shoplift. I'm no longer negotiating with faceless, inhuman entities that have no concern for my welfare; instead, I'm taking what I need without giving anything up. I no longer feel like I am being forced into an exchange, and I no longer feel as if have no control over the way the world around me dictates my life. I no longer have to worry about whether the pleasure I receive from the book I purchased was equal to the two hours of labor it cost me to be able to afford it. In these and a thousand other ways, shoplifting makes me feel liberated and empowered..."
"...The shoplifter wins her prize by taking risks, not by exchanging a piece of her life for it. Life for her is not something that must be sold away for seven or eight dollars an hour in return for survival; it is something that is hers because she takes it for herself, because she lays claim to it." - Shoplifter.
The shoplifter makes do with an environment that has been conquered by capitalism and industry, where there is no longer a natural world from which to gather resources, and everything has become private property- without accepting it or the absurd way of life it entails. To shoplift is to affirm immediate needs over artificial and abstract "ethics" and other such ethereal constructs.
Shoplifting is a refusal of capitalism and the exchange economy. It's a denial that people deserve to eat, live, and die based on how effectively they are able to exchange their labor and capital with others.
It's a denial that a monetary value can be ascribed to everything, that having a delicious piece of chocolate in your mouth is worth exactly fifty cents, or that an hour of one person's life can really be worth ten dollars more than that of another person.
It's a refusal to accept the capitalist system, in which workers have to buy back the products of their own labor, at a profit to the owners of capital. Shoplifting says NO to all the objectionable features that have come to characterize the modern corporation.
It's an expression of discontent with the low wages and lack of benefits that so many exploiting corporations force their employees to suffer in the name of company profits.
It's a refusal to pay for low quality products that have been designed to break or wear out soon, in order to force consumers to buy more.
It's a refusal to fund the environmental damage that so many corporations perpetrate heartlessly in the course of manufacturing their products and building new stores.
It's a refusal to support the corporations that run private, local businesses into bankruptcy.
But what about the people in the corporations? What about their welfare? First of all, corporations are distinct from traditional private businesses in that they exist as separate financial entities from their owners. So the shoplifter is taking from a non-human entity, not directly from the pocket of a human being. Second, since workers are paid set wages (minimum wage for example) that depend more on how little the corporation can get away with paying, rather than on how much profit it is making, the shoplifter is not hurting the workforce at any given company either.
The stockholders, who are always far richer than your average employee or thief, are the ones who stand to lose a little if the company suffers significant losses; but realistically, no campaign of shoplifting could be intense enough to force any of the wealthy individuals who actually profit from these companies into poverty. Besides, modern corporations have money set aside for shoplifting losses, because they anticipate them. That's correct - these corporations are aware that there is enough dissatisfaction with them and their capitalist economy that people are going to steal from them remorselessly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am recently having to witness people with full-time employment, line up at the food charity donation warehouses, because they can't afford basic necessities such as milk, bread, and toilet paper. These are law abiding citizens who toil away each day for a living, lining up with the drug addicts and the jobless, to beg for handouts. Like the great depression, there is still food production, and resources, but lately no one can afford to buy the things they need... This shit isn't right. Something is very wrong indeed.
So if you decide to shoplift, know that somewhere out there is a jerk who loves you and supports you 100%! Shoplifters of the world unite!
