I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about – relationships. Wait! Wait! Please, don’t go switching over to Pacifica just yet. This isn’t going to be what you think it is, I swear.
I recently read in a magazine that the Reverend John Papworth, of the Church of England, last year told an interviewer for the BBC that shoplifting is not a sin. While he was careful to point out he is not encouraging people to shoplift, Reverend Papworth gave two reasons to support his position. One, since supermarkets and other mercantile outlets fill airwaves and billboards with enticements to buy products people often can’t afford, Reverend Papworth doesn’t think it’s fair to blame the individual for giving in to temptation. Second, and more important, Reverend Papworth believes stealing involves the betrayal of a moral relationship. Moral relationships are only possible between people, the reverend says, one cannot have a moral relationship with the corporation which owns the supermarket, because the corporation is a thing, a non-living entity, with which it is impossible to enter a moral relationship.
These are the kind of relationships we’re talking about, aren’t you glad you stayed? While it seems John Papworth is breaking new theological ground, I think he’s only expressing principles laid down by Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” in the early 1920s. It is impossible to have an “I-Thou” relationship with a corporation. The only proper relationship is “I-It,” which means the individual has no moral obligation to the corporation at all.
Certainly, these are the rules by which corporations have played since their inception. Corporations routinely violate workers’ rights, safety and environmental laws, as well as securities and exchange regulations. They break the law deliberately, when they’re caught they pay a fine – corporations can’t be jailed – write it off as a cost of doing business and keep on going. If a corporation cannot sin, how can it be sinned against?
A popular anti-shoplifting argument says shoplifting only increases prices for everyone. I’m sure that’s true, corporations pass along the cost of shoplifting. They also pass along the cost of the fines I just mentioned as well as the cost of the outrageous salaries and bonuses they pay their executives, but you don’t hear any hue and cry about that. If you shoplift, at least you have something to show for those higher prices.
Well, shoplifting isn’t fair, but is it fair that the so-called convenience stores in the poorest urban neighborhoods charge two or three times what stores in the suburbs charge for the same goods? One reason corporations have such an advantage over us is that individuals are guided by a moral code and corporations are not.
I’ll admit you’re pretty stupid if you go and steal a pack of gum from the drug store, but if you’re a parent with a sick child, you have every right, even a moral obligation, to steal cough medicine.
When I was a teenager I worked in a convenience store and I was shocked to watch the elderly customers buying cat food at the end of the month when money was tight. They were starving themselves to death rather than take a nickel away from a division of Tops not-so-friendly markets. The aspect of this I find most immoral is that we cannot manage to shoplift health care, decent schools or public transportation that works.
As a postscript, I should tell you John Papworth was booted out of the Church of England for speaking his mind on shoplifting. I should also tell you that I don’t shoplift, not because it’s wrong or because I don’t want to be caught, but because I have no need to shoplift. If I needed to, I would. Nor am I suggesting anyone listening to this should go out and begin shoplifting, but if you do, one piece of advice:
Don’t Get Caught
I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about – relationships. Wait! Wait! Please, don’t go switching over to Pacifica just yet. This isn’t going to be what you think it is, I swear.
I recently read in a magazine that the Reverend John Papworth, of the Church of England, last year told an interviewer for the BBC that shoplifting is not a sin. While he was careful to point out he is not encouraging people to shoplift, Reverend Papworth gave two reasons to support his position. One, since supermarkets and other mercantile outlets fill airwaves and billboards with enticements to buy products people often can’t afford, Reverend Papworth doesn’t think it’s fair to blame the individual for giving in to temptation. Second, and more important, Reverend Papworth believes stealing involves the betrayal of a moral relationship. Moral relationships are only possible between people, the reverend says, one cannot have a moral relationship with the corporation which owns the supermarket, because the corporation is a thing, a non-living entity, with which it is impossible to enter a moral relationship.
These are the kind of relationships we’re talking about, aren’t you glad you stayed? While it seems John Papworth is breaking new theological ground, I think he’s only expressing principles laid down by Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” in the early 1920s. It is impossible to have an “I-Thou” relationship with a corporation. The only proper relationship is “I-It,” which means the individual has no moral obligation to the corporation at all.
Certainly, these are the rules by which corporations have played since their inception. Corporations routinely violate workers’ rights, safety and environmental laws, as well as securities and exchange regulations. They break the law deliberately, when they’re caught they pay a fine – corporations can’t be jailed – write it off as a cost of doing business and keep on going. If a corporation cannot sin, how can it be sinned against?
A popular anti-shoplifting argument says shoplifting only increases prices for everyone. I’m sure that’s true, corporations pass along the cost of shoplifting. They also pass along the cost of the fines I just mentioned as well as the cost of the outrageous salaries and bonuses they pay their executives, but you don’t hear any hue and cry about that. If you shoplift, at least you have something to show for those higher prices.
Well, shoplifting isn’t fair, but is it fair that the so-called convenience stores in the poorest urban neighborhoods charge two or three times what stores in the suburbs charge for the same goods? One reason corporations have such an advantage over us is that individuals are guided by a moral code and corporations are not.
I’ll admit you’re pretty stupid if you go and steal a pack of gum from the drug store, but if you’re a parent with a sick child, you have every right, even a moral obligation, to steal cough medicine.
When I was a teenager I worked in a convenience store and I was shocked to watch the elderly customers buying cat food at the end of the month when money was tight. They were starving themselves to death rather than take a nickel away from a division of Tops not-so-friendly markets. The aspect of this I find most immoral is that we cannot manage to shoplift health care, decent schools or public transportation that works.
As a postscript, I should tell you John Papworth was booted out of the Church of England for speaking his mind on shoplifting. I should also tell you that I don’t shoplift, not because it’s wrong or because I don’t want to be caught, but because I have no need to shoplift. If I needed to, I would. Nor am I suggesting anyone listening to this should go out and begin shoplifting, but if you do, one piece of advice:
Don’t get caught.