Poll: Do you think stealing from the poor is worst than stealing from the rich?

[Battenberg]

If you hack an account at random and it so happened to be someone who is poor, then I'd say it's as morally bad as if you had ended up with a rich account, but still does more damage, and your carelessness with such things really doesn't reflect well on you. But then, you're already hacking people's accounts and stealing their money, so that ship has sailed.

But if you deliberately target a poor man's account over a rich one, then yeah, that is far worse.

This pretty much sums it up for me. Honestly can't see any reason why anyone would pick the "worst to steal from a rich person" option. Both are generally bad (with some possible exceptions) but knowingly stealing from someone who barely has enough to live off as it is a whole other level of dick move.

I actually had exactly this happen to me a few years back. I had an account which had somewhere around £30-£50 in it and someone nicked the whole lot. Between being pretty young at the time and the fact that the bank actually covered the amount for me (good guy Nationwide) I didn't think much on it at the time but looking back it's a real asshole thing to do.

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

They're equal on an ethical level (stealing is still stealing) but far different on the consequences. A wealthy victim has a far better chance on recovering than someone who has very little in terms of financial clout. Being wealthy by definition means that one has an excess of money, while someone who's poor is the exact opposite.

 

[Lightknight]

A rich person may not even notice if they are, by definition, rich.

And what's the definition of rich? Unless they got rich by accident, they'll pretty much notice when $100 are missing. Because if they don't notice that, probably they won't notice when they are overspending either (and they'll stop being rich eventually if they keep living like that).

$100 isn't as much as you think it is. Let's consider rich to be upper middle class for this discussion. In order to go from lower middle to upper middle you need to make 100k in household income. Someone making over $100k wouldn't necessarily notice 00.1% disappearing. You'd be surprised how many people have that much or more withdrawn from their bank account in error (double charge, theft, recurring subscription they didn't realize they'd signed up for) and not notice it for months if ever. If you have any friends that have worked in a bank or card company, just ask. You don't even have to be all that wealthy to miss something like it.

The fact of the matter is, you only have to need something to immediately know that its gone.

 

[Akjosch]

Morally, that wholly depends on how much the person will miss whatever was stolen.

For example, if the only remaining and highly cherished photo of someone's parents was stolen, it matters not how rich or poor they are.

 

[Strazdas]

Legally they are the same. As far as my personal opinion goes i am a one that believes in relative harm. If you steam a sandwitch from a starving person you do more damage than if you steam 100 sandwitches from a millionaire. Therefore in my opinion the first one is worse.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

That argument consequentally means you also hold no value over law, either, so we cannot trust your judgement. Now, stay away from my house.

 

[Kerethos]

A monetary loss is likely to be more damaging to a person with little money, but the theft of something with mainly sentimental value would likely hit each person equally hard.

I mean if you steal from the rich guy and he can't buy his diabetes medicine that day, and so ends up loosing a foot, I'd say that'd be worse than stealing a poor mans money and having him go hungry for a day. Just to pick an extreme example.

My point is that a theft becomes morally worse because of the consequences it has for the one it's stolen from.

Simply put: The more damage the theft causes the victim, the worse the theft was. It doesn't really matter if the victim is wealthy or poor.

 

[Abomination]

It's a simple measure of "harm". The poor would be harmed more by having $100 stolen than a rich person.

The crime that causes the most harm is the worse crime.

Stealing form the poor is worse than stealing from the rich.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Coming from a relatively wealthy family, it's equal, when you are a kid then it's hammered to your head that stealing from rich is "better" but now as an adult it's saying that one's rights are inferior because he doesn't suffer as "badly" for it, giving examples from real life would derail the thread completely so I'll refrain.

It's funny, because I was about to point out that last bit as a reason why it is better to steal from the rich.

Just goes to show to what extent this is a matter of perspective.

Though to be fair the argument that it is better from the rich isn't one about rights. Far from it. It's one about consequence and suffering.

It has nothing to do with rights, as a concept, but rather the idea that it simply has less effect on the wealthy.

However, it's also a matter of proportion.

If I steal $100 from a very poor person, I may in effect have stolen their entire supply of food for 2 weeks...
If I steal $100 from a multi-millionaire, I've merely annoyed them a little, and in practical terms they'd barely notice.

Of course, if I empty out the entire bank account of a very wealthy person, this may well have a pretty big effect on their life.
Though again it depends on context. (How much of their wealth is tied to what they have on the bank?)

I think though, that if you frame it in generic terms it loses most of it's meaning.

The only way it works out as 'better' to steal from the rich, is if you are talking about stealing stuff of roughly equal value (or in an approximation of equal value) from both parties.
And the only thing that makes it better is the reduced impact it has on them.

But, for it to have a reduced impact, it must represent a relatively trivial amount.

Stealing $1 from a homeless person would be unbelievably vicious, but stealing it from someone on minimum wage is more like a minor nuisance, while stealing it from someone one a multi-million dollar income would be so trivial that they likely wouldn't even notice.

You can keep increasing the amount, and soon you'll in effect be stealing everything someone has...

But I guess you get the point here. It's better only to the degree that it has less practical impact. (And stealing something with personal or sentimental value negates the argument completely anyway...)

 

[Gladion]

A rich person may not even notice if they are, by definition, rich.

And what's the definition of rich? Unless they got rich by accident, they'll pretty much notice when $100 are missing. Because if they don't notice that, probably they won't notice when they are overspending either (and they'll stop being rich eventually if they keep living like that).

No, they often do not. There are numerous stories of super rich people who would tip sometimes 5 bucks, sometimes 500, because it literally makes no difference to them and they don't understand how money works, because it's not ever an issue to them.

If you want to define rich... well, probably all of us, sitting in front of computers. But I guess the OP was talking about people who would not feel the impact of a robbery. And I don't quite understand your desire to defend the rich. They don't need it. If it's about the principle, well... Sure, you can come up with a scenario in which a rich person's existence is destroyed due to a robbery, but it's extremely unlikely to happen, whereas you can easily derail a poor person's life with very little effort.

 

[FalloutJack]

A rich person may not even notice if they are, by definition, rich.

And what's the definition of rich? Unless they got rich by accident, they'll pretty much notice when $100 are missing. Because if they don't notice that, probably they won't notice when they are overspending either (and they'll stop being rich eventually if they keep living like that).

No, they often do not. There are numerous stories of super rich people who would tip sometimes 5 bucks, sometimes 500, because it literally makes no difference to them and they don't understand how money works, because it's not ever an issue to them.

If you want to define rich... well, probably all of us, sitting in front of computers. But I guess the OP was talking about people who would not feel the impact of a robbery. And I don't quite understand your desire to defend the rich. They don't need it. If it's about the principle, well... Sure, you can come up with a scenario in which a rich person's existence is destroyed due to a robbery, but it's extremely unlikely to happen, whereas you can easily derail a poor person's life with very little effort.

The tragic part of it is that the rich SHOULD feel a little pressure now and then so that they remember what an uncertain future feels like, but the kinds of rich we're talking about probably lost touch with that kind of reality a long time ago.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Premises most seem to assume are true.
A1) All humans are in possession of basic human rights which ought to be protected.
A2) Violation of basic humans rights is immoral.
TF1) Some actions are moral which makes some others immoral. (naturally neutral actions would also exist)
B1) Harming others through the theft of money or property can infringe on these human rights.
TF2) Stealing is immoral.
C1) There can be varying degrees when violating basic human rights. (starving a man from a single meal vs starving a man for weeks)
C2) Theft of property and/or money is a greater violation of these rights on those with less property and/or money.
TF) It is more immoral to steal from the poor than the rich.

I disagree with A1, A2, TF1 which means I naturally find the rest of it completely incoherent. Stealing from the poor is not any more wrong than stealing from the rich, just as killing a man is not any more wrong than running over a cat in a video game. There is no moral factor in this question.

Do you have a system of morality at all? It needn't be an objective moral system, mine isn't but still encompasses problems like theft from another. Most of my morals run off of a choice theft basis, how much choice do you take and give is fairly indicative of moral bad or good.

So for me, this question is simple, which person has more choice taken from them? Extremely unlikely circumstances aside, the poor person loses more choice from losing money than the rich person. That is; £100 is more to an individual who has less savings.

 

[JayRPG]

Considering most of the world's modern society and economics is based on a system that causes such disproportionate wealth gaps to begin with, I'd say that the poor are already being stolen from every day.

Coming from someone who is quite comfortable there is no denying it is worse to steal from the poor, they have already drawn the short straw, and 9 times out of 10 that theft will cause more damage, destruction, and death than stealing from the rich.

I try not be a raging anti-capitalist considering I have benefited somewhat from the system, but there is no denying how bad it is when modern economists and politicians actually have a specialised term for the level of unemployment (4-8%) they deem necessary to prevent inflation getting out of control; And not only does capitalism require a sizable unemployed population to function, it is also enforced that the unemployed (that they deem necessary, remember) need feel bad about being unemployed, and in almost all cases around the world are given support well below the poverty line and are often the source of harsh policies.

Poor people are already a safety net for the wealthy, it's morally despicable to steal from the poor, it is only morally wrong to steal from the rich.

Edit: For those interested, the necessary Unemployed term used commonly around the world is called the NAIRU, or the 'Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment'

 

[Namehere]

This is actually a fascinating question. In a bygone era it might in fact have been worse to steal from the rich, given how they acquired their wealth. If a lord lost a hundred gold coins, you can be sure he'll tax it out of his population to the best of his ability, making a poor persons life in that region all the more miserable for the theft. Then of course there's the madcap search for the thief or thieves. Not a guard patrol anyone wants to run into.

In the modern age it's almost universally accepted in the western world that the poor can't necessarily sustain the financial lost as well as the rich. But in many third world countries I suspect stealing from the rich, especially those with political or military/police clout, would provoke patrols nobody wanted to run into and everything from punitive taxation measures to random looting by said patrol. It's amazing the difficulty one can have in determining the difference of position between crime bosses and certain regional 'leaders' by action alone. Generally a tittle is most helpful in clarifying.

It's also important to note that in all the above scenarios the poor person being stolen from doesn't have access to the same support structure of friends and business associates as the rich person. Theoretically, taking everything from a rich person could lead to the worst, however they may also have friends to reach out to that a poor person could never have made. These friends could be quite helpful and influential in getting a poor person, once rich, back on his or her feet again if not even rich. A poor person, especially from a particularly impoverished country - perhaps best called 'run of the mill' - could hardly be expected to rely for any extended period of time on handouts because all of their family and friends are struggling themselves as it is. This makes recovery far more difficult.

And for those saying that all of this is merely false moral equivalency or feel good, I don't view it that way. I think even the law should take into consideration the final ramifications of one's action, thus the distinction between assault and attempted murder. Economic warfare is a well known doctrine and it extends beyond governmental battle fields into the day to day of everyone's life. With that said an economic blow can be more dangerous, even potentially lethal, to some then to others. And when hit criminally with a blow, such amounts of danger as the victim was exposed to should count towards the seriousness of the crime.

Those switching this to medication? So take a rich man or a poor man's irreplaceable medicine that is life saving/enabling? Sounds more like an act of assassination then mere theft to me. And I think everyone not living in a war zone and buying black-market penicillin would agree that stealing medicine, particularly from the hands of those who need it, is a disgusting activity and leaves the thief complicit in the outcome/results of that theft.

That would be my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I'm gonna say stealing from the poor for really no other reason then its kicking some one while they're down.

 

[Stg]

Lets say stealing is stealing and if they hack your bank account, they are stealing everything in the account. So, lets say the OP has $500 in his and this other target Mr. Rich has $500,000 in his account and the thief is going to steal every penny from just one of the accounts.

Honestly, having lived on the edge where I argued over using an almost expired coupon on .50 ramen packs and now I'm sitting on a decent sum in my bank account, I honestly believe the rich person would take the hit a lot harder than the poor person. Yea, it sucks being poor, but if you don't have much money to your name to begin with, it won't be that devastating as you're probably already living on a budget.

When I was poor and in college, someone broke into my car at a concert and stole my backpack (probably hoping for a laptop but jokes on them, poor people don't have laptops). That was absolutely devastating, but I bounced back pretty quick the next day. If someone broke into my car now, they could easily walk away with a lot more than just a backpack filled with homework and clothes (I was kinda living in my car at the time).

 

[Therumancer]

As a general rule behind every fortune someone worked really hard, even kids who inherent trust funds and such do so because their parents or grandparents, or whomever did something to earn that money. I do not think "oh well, they can afford it" is an excuse to rob someone. What's more it oftentimes amounts to the same thing in the long run, because like it or not these things tend to trickle down, if you say start robbing CEOs and the like they are just going to start charging more or paying their people less to compensate so it tends to trickle down so the poor people lose money as well. The comic book/TV thief logic about "well don't worry, it's all insured" doesn't matter either because when insurance companies take a bath on stuff that is really valuable they raise their prices and everyone winds up paying for it as well.

At the end of the day it's no different if some hoodlum robs a neighborhood convenience store, or Sachs 5th Avenue, he's still a hoodlum robbing a store.

 

[renegade7]

Stealing from the poor certainly would feel more wrong, but in practice I think it's not any worse.

The reason I say that is that when you say it's not as much of a huge deal to steal from the rich, you make stealing justifiable. When you say that it's okay to steal from someone who has more you're making yourself the arbiter of who it's okay to hurt. Sometimes life's not fair, and sometimes that means that genuinely shitty people will become fantastically wealthy through sheer luck. But also understand that not all rich people are evil Wall Street fatcats. You can't just give yourself the right to hurt people based on a hasty generalization, because that makes life even more unfair.

Is it more acceptable to disfigure a beautiful person than a plain one? Is it more okay to brain damage a brilliant person than an average one?

Also, one person shoplifting might hurt Wal-Mart more than it might hurt a local business, but what if everyone decided that it was okay to shoplift? Stealing isn't illegal because of the amount of harm that one theft causes, but because of the harm that would occur if everyone felt that stealing was okay.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Do I think it's worse to take the food out someone's mouth than to take from someone to whom everything is replaceable? Obviously.

I'm a little concerned about the people who answered they were equivalent, very concerned about the few who answered that it is worse to steal from the rich. Depends, I can see that I guess. If the poor person spotted you on the street and whipped your ass for no reason yesterday, and the rich person does a lot of charity, it would be more moral to rob that poor person. It might not have to be quite thay extreme, but it would have to be pretty drastic a difference to justify how taking from someone who likely won't miss what's taken could be worse than, or even equivalent to, taking from someone who it's gonna make miss payments.

 

[Vlado]

This is a silly question. Of course it's worse to steal from the poor - percentage-wise, the amount stolen would be way bigger.