- Consider welfare. Consider food stamps.
Yes, lets break this down:
Bob is desperately poor. His family is freezing in an apartment he can’t afford to heat, let alone keep up with the rent. They face hunger every day, and have no money for even basic medical needs. Bob needs money to pay the bills, and food to keep his family fed, or they are in grave danger of dying from any number of situations.
Mary is a rich owner of a furniture manufacturing business. She has ample money to meet most desires of her family, and lives in a huge house on several acres of land. Let us assume for reasons of moral simplicity that Mary has earned her money more or less justly, and doesn’t exploit her workers.
Bob, seeing Mary’s abundant resources, approaches Mary and asks for money to pay for his aforementioned problems. Mary, for reasons of her own, declines to help Bob. Maybe she’s already given what she thinkis is “enough” to local charities, maybe she’s just an stingy miser, maybe she’s afraid if she helps Bob directly then many other poor and destitute would come to her door. Her reasons shouldn’t nessecarily factor into whether what occurs next is theft or not.
Bob, distressed that Mary turned him down, and ever more desperate to save himself and his family, sends Mary a letter stating that if she doesn’t provide him with the requested funds, then he’ll have to take “drastic measures”. Mary, shrugging it off, ignores the letter. Finally, Bob is at the end of his rope. Despite his better judgement, Bob gets a bat and a few of his friends together and break into Mary’s home during the evening. They approach her, and demand the cash. If she refuses, they’ll kidnap her. They don’t intend to harm her, but if she resists they can’t promise anything. Mary, under threat of her freedom and life, goes to her home safe and gives Bob $10,000 in cash. This will help him just cover his bills for the next year. They depart peacefully.
The next year Mary recieves a letter from Bob. He’s been trying to get back on his feet, but times are tough and despite his best, honest efforts, the money from last year is gone and his family is on the edge of starvation again. He requests another $10,000, and says that if it will not received, then he’ll have to return with his friends again. He suggests that it would be easier this year if Mary just pays the money up front.
Is this theft? Yes, pretty clearly. Is it wrong? Well, not as wrong as some guy making a living stealing cars. But in the grand scheme of things, yes, this is still a sort of injustice. In fact, it might be LESS wrong if Bob simply broke into Mary’s house and stole the money. Instead, he now threatens her with imprisonment, and has in essence taken control of a portion of her life.
Now consider that it’s not just Bob doing it. but the local chief of police. He’s still giving the bulk of the money to Bob, but he’s keeping a little for himself. And Mary’s getting pretty pissed. She’s talking about hiring a body guard. To placate her, the chief tells her that he’ll go over to the shop of Bob’s friend Steve, and give him a hard time. Steve has a small chair-making shop. His chairs, although the same price as the one’s from Mary’s factory, are of much higher quality because they are hand-crafted. He’s been cutting into her business for a long time, but she was trying to play the game fair and square. Now she’s getting ticked by Bob’s annual fees, and decides that she needs to make it back somewhere. So she agrees to play nice with the chief of police, if the chief agrees to go fine Steve for health & safety violations. The chief then keeps the fines, and Steve is forced to raise his prices, to the benefit of Mary’s business.
Now we have a society where, instead of mutual, voluntary co-operation, everyone is trying to get ahead by sticking their hand into the other guy’s pocket. Some say this is “nessecary” for modern society to exist. And to an extent, that may or may not be true. But the problem comes from when it ceases to be seen as an evil, and is isntead twisted into a virtue or “right”.
Bob stealing bread to feed his family may be wrong, but it can be forgiven. But if Bob ceases to see that what he is doing is wrong, and instead sees that bread as his right, then you’re set up for tragedy.