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

[Karadalis]

In terms of the law: both are equal

In terms of morality: equal... its something you should not do rich or not... its still wrong

In terms of effect on the victim: Stealing from a poor man is worse then stealing from a rich man. Steal 10 dollars from a person that only has 10 dollars and you took everything he got. Take 10 dollars from someone who has a million dollars and he wont even notice it nor will it have any impact on his live.


So after these three points... yes it is more dispicable to steal from a poor person, because they are allready down on their luck and chances are your theft can completly ruin them, whereas depending on how much you steal the rich person might not even be slightly inconvienienced.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Outside of leftie la la land (i.e the Escapist) where everyone is a down trodden victim forced into servitude by The Man and his evil corporations it's pretty obvious that the moral implications of theft pertain to depriving someone of something that is rightfully theirs; whether they have no copies or 10,000 copies of the item stolen is immaterial.

Leftie la la hand? What? I don't know how you think it's conducive to begin a post with a blanket insult to the website you are apparently quite an active member of. Does it help you sleep better at night or are you just feeling spiteful?

How is it immaterial? If a man has ten thousand copies of Bladerunner's director's cut and one is stolen you are saying that this person should be exactly as upset, concerned, disturbed and worried as if someone had one copy and it was stolen from them?
If you had ten million pounds (a fairly impressive sum) and I took £500 from you, barely a drop in the water no? You would be as distraught, precisely and completely as sad as you would be if I took £500 out of your £600 savings?
I really hope not, that means you have no sense of scale, of course there's a material difference in stealing from a rich individual and a poor individual. Context matters. The taking is the same but the loss is different. You see that right? That the loss to the individual, the actual choice stolen is different.

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.

This is a good example of leftie la la land thinking. Riddled with generalisations, largely untrue, refers to a "special term" these anonymous "capistalists" use which is never explained - all of course parroted as gospel!

Edit: the poster has included the term now as an 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'" -

it's worth nothing, as a very initial observation, this is an economic terms used widely and is not "a goal" forced on people by faceless "capitalist", it is factor that naturally arises in a market economy.

In the 70s the UK was held in the grip of successive control economy government, who amongst other far left wing policies, as in they weren't modern capitalists, tried to achieve 100% employment. The results were catastrophic, the UK was bankrupt, the pound plummeted, interest rates hit 17%, inflation soared.

Oh...oh this is rich.

Goddamned lefties with their restraint and control over the economy. Bring back Thatcher and her rampant crusade against industry and the common man! Harrumph!
Really now, are you actually going to attempt to argue that Thatcher's conservative, laissez-faire love affair somehow helped our country? Her obsession with privatisation and driving competition between sectors all but crippled our country. We are still so lost in her insanity that most of my peers can't even envisage a world without such disgusting economic policies. You think that she saved us?
What on earth have you been smoking?

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

From a spectators view both are equally bad morally, but from the view of the victim the rich person is still way better of financially.
Usually when you steal from a poor person you'll steal a much bigger percentage of his wealth, so he's hit harder.

So: Morally they're equally bad but the actual verifiable and measurable damage done is diffrent.

 

[BeoW0lfe]

Whoever said it earlier hit the nail on the head here. There's a whole lot of "the rich were robbing the poor" and "the rich deserve it" going on in here. I find it utterly disgusting that the idea that the violation of any person's right to their property is any more or less important than anyone elses. Stealing my shit is no more/less wrong than stealing your shit, or Bill Gate's shit, or Oscar the Grouch's shit. It's ALL WRONG. Equally so. The idea that "some people can/can't recover" is valuing somebody's rights above those of other people.

ps: The entitlement in some of these posts is appalling. "Oh noes that rich guy won't be able to buy a new boat this week"? That is a laughable strawman. What is even more concerning is that even those taking more reasonable positions are talking as if the 'rich' and 'poor' are permanently separate entities. The gap between rich and poor may be increasing, but that doesn't mean economic mobility is extinct. An education, even a community college degree, into something practical (read, not 14th century french literature), coupled with frugality and investment of your savings, can easily move you up rather than down.

 

[Karadalis]

ps: The entitlement in some of these posts is appalling. "Oh noes that rich guy won't be able to buy a new boat this week"? That is a laughable strawman. What is even more concerning is that even those taking more reasonable positions are talking as if the 'rich' and 'poor' are permanently separate entities. The gap between rich and poor may be increasing, but that doesn't mean economic mobility is extinct. An education, even a community college degree, into something practical (read, not 14th century french literature), coupled with frugality and investment of your savings, can easily move you up rather than down.

Yeah... totaly... if it wasnt for the crippling debt that the US collage system will put their students in. The US of A is crippling its own intellectual offspring in the name of profit before they can even get to start their careers. If you would actually spend some time looking at the entire college situation you would notice that these debths go up into the tens of thousands... a great start for any young unexperienced college student into the working live. Thats the right enviroment to be successfull.

So once again the rich and priviliged have a headstart, not only because they are well connected allready, but because they can actually pay for their education.

And then theres the fact that poor people can only get rich if they have the help of allready rich people. It takes money to make money.

A black dude out of the ghetto will not hit it big with his mix tape unless a record label picks him up and promotes him. A dude that wants to open up a restaurant wont be able to unless a bank lends him money. An inventor is never gonna see a dollar for his invention if no rich people invest into him. A local politician is never going to run for presidency because a run for the office deavours millions upon millions.

You yourselfe say that the gap between the rich and the poor becomes ever greater but somehow still believe in the american dream because a pitifull handfull make it now and then?

0,1%... you read that right... 0,01% of the top have as much as 90% of the bottom (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequality-top-01-worth-as-much-as-the-bottom-90)

Time to take off those american flag colored shades and realize that the american dream is just that... a dream.

As to the matter of stealing:

Ofcourse stealing is allways wrong. But we are talking what being stolen from means for the victim. And honestly even if i stole from Bill gates.. lets say 10.000 dollars every month.. the dude makes that amount in a couple of hours.. chances are he would never even notice. It wouldnt even inconvenience him. Is it still wrong and punishable by law? Ofcourse it is!

But when i steal 10.000 dollars from a middle class family father i might just have ruined his entire live because he cant pay his bills anymore and might have to sell his other possesions, maybe will lose his family, his house, his job.

So it stands to reason that a person should be punished harder for robbing poor people because it has a greater effect on the victims live. Steal from a poor man and you might destroy his live, steal from a rich man and you might have inconvenienced him a bit.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Whoever said it earlier hit the nail on the head here. There's a whole lot of "the rich were robbing the poor" and "the rich deserve it" going on in here. I find it utterly disgusting that the idea that the violation of any person's right to their property is any more or less important than anyone elses. Stealing my shit is no more/less wrong than stealing your shit, or Bill Gate's shit, or Oscar the Grouch's shit. It's ALL WRONG. Equally so. The idea that "some people can/can't recover" is valuing somebody's rights above those of other people.

Is it equal? I mean seriously, is it actually an equivalent crime? Is there an equivalent amount of loss?
If you take £500 from someone with £520 in their bank account you may well have destroyed their life, that's not hyperbole or being absurd that's a genuine truth. I don't have any savings and not because I spend all my money on drugs and video-games but because I'm paying off the crippling debt I've accumulated as a result of acquiring higher education. If someone stole my money I would be completely fucked. I would be kicked out of my house to live on the street (which is illegal) and debtors would take everything I own for the government. I would be unable to get a job because I'd be homeless and as such I'd have no means to free myself. Steal my money, I lose my life.

If you take £500 from someone with £20,000,000 in their bank account then they might notice, they might even be pissed. Wouldn't cripple their lives, they wouldn't lose their home or be unable to get that money back.

You understand that there is a difference in the circumstances which directly affects the impact of the theft. You get that right? It's not a difficult proposition, some people can take the hit better.
Go punt a toddler as hard as you can and then do it to a well built adult. You could kill the toddler but the adult should survive the kick. Circumstances matter.

ps: The entitlement in some of these posts is appalling. "Oh noes that rich guy won't be able to buy a new boat this week"? That is a laughable strawman. What is even more concerning is that even those taking more reasonable positions are talking as if the 'rich' and 'poor' are permanently separate entities. The gap between rich and poor may be increasing, but that doesn't mean economic mobility is extinct. An education, even a community college degree, into something practical (read, not 14th century french literature), coupled with frugality and investment of your savings, can easily move you up rather than down.

Economic mobility is highly impractical, the notion that a poor person can shed the shackles of society and waltz into whatever life they want is obscenely incorrect. Poor people live in poor neighbourhoods which receive worse educational facilities and funding, furthermore their parents and friends are likely in similar situations having received poorer education and thus being less able to impart knowledge directly which might tip the balance. The poor person would likely have to work in order to survive alongside their education (for example while doing my AS-A levels (aged 16-18) I worked 2 jobs alongside my full-time schooling to survive) and this would hamper them too.

Then you have job prospects which are always better for those in affluent areas (which are obviously more expensive to live in, thereby only the richer have the better prospects).

As for getting an education, firstly there's nothing wrong with studying C14th French Literature if you desire, for starters that's a Master's+ level degree which means you have been accepted by the university of your choosing to study it (jesus, talking about strawmanning and then just putting out a massive strawman? Poor form). Secondly you can of course find use for such studies, the notion that specific facets of knowledge are useless is pretty disgusting. Knowledge starts to become holistic as you gather more of it, interpreting literature from a specific period requires an understanding of contemporary politics and social norms as well as education and economic factors which have to be compared to the present. The knowledge is not so limited as you pretend.

Secondly investment of what savings? You understand that a degree will almost always wipe any money you have right? You know the only people it doesn't hit are those who can get mummy and daddy to pay for it. You won't have savings when you go to get your higher education, much less after it, unless you're rich to begin with.

The conservative notion that those who are poor are poor because of bad choices on their part is disgusting. You believe that the poor choose their life? That they're too thick to choose otherwise and then you blame them for being stupid?

Jesus. You're a walking stereotype.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I would say it cannot be equal in most situations because it would cause more harm and hardship to someone who is poor than to someone who is wealthy.

 

[Do4600]

Of course it's worse to steal from the poor, being poor means you're economically vulnerable. When I type "economically vulnerable" I mean that a person's life is in danger because of their economic status. A rich person is in danger of losing a high standard of living, a poor person is in danger of actually dying.

It's the moral difference between the questions, "Would you take a check for $10,000 if it meant killing somebody?" and "Would you take a check for $10,000 if it meant ruining somebodies year?"

What if that rich man is an employer who now, because of the robbery, can't afford to pay all his employees? Depending on how much you take, You might have hurt a dozen poor people by robbing that rich man.

Because rich men have all the money from their business in their own personal account?