A Nation Of Shoplifters

Rob is a kind man, who listens carefully to his conscience and usually follows its advice. He's well off, no family to support, well respected in his field and well balanced - so there's no real explanation, as far as I can see, for the fact that he shoplifts.

Wakefield took a look at all the Evian bottles in his apartment. Expensive habit, she thought. “Not if you steal them from Sainbury’s,” Rob replied.

Didn’t he feel bad?

"Nope," he said, with a defiant smile. "And anyway, your other friends shoplift too."

And it turned out that they did. There are even internet chatrooms where you can discuss how to do it.

"Look, nice-tasting water should be free," said Rob, as I stared at him, still disapproving, over tea. "If I paid for it, I would resent it, and in fact I resent having to go to the horrible supermarket at all."

In Britain, the educated classes rather frown on supermarkets. They have a cult of local and fresh. So that makes it easier to steal from them.

Fortunately the educated classes in the US don’t just frown on Wal-Mart. They wouldn’t be seen dead shopping there. And, of course, they wouldn’t dream of shoplifting in an independent bookstore.

But who knows what they get up to in Barnes & Noble.

But I have a soft spot for the supermarkets. Their workers work hard, and they bring an unimaginable bounty to us every day. On top of that, US retail and food processing are the most productive in the world. It was hard work and attention to detail that got them there.

So I believe they deserve every penny that I spend with them.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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