At the local Barnes & Noble, the in-store coffee shop is next to the vast selection of magazines for sale. Many coffee drinkers grab multiple magazines and take them to their table with their coffee and read them. After coffee, most, but not all, put the magazines back in the racks without paying for them. They are “stealing” content that is meant to be purchased. Is this a form of shoplifting? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Usually, retail thieves — even ones eager to justify their behavior — know they’re thieving: They’re stealthy about it. But what your coffee drinkers are doing is out in the open. They evidently don’t think that they’re breaking the rules; you’re not so sure. The norms and expectations here are ambiguous, then. In the end, it’s up to a vendor to set the rules about what people can do with the items on display. You ask if the conduct you observe is acceptable. Maybe the real question is: What does the store think?
We can make inferences from its actions. Bookstores have always allowed some consumption of unpurchased content — you flip through a book and size it up before you buy. And a Barnes & Noble with a coffee shop is going for a certain vibe; there are business benefits in being welcoming. That’s why the company website encourages you to sit in the coffee shop, use its Wi-Fi and read e-books free on your Nook. Nor are the unpurchased magazines a loss, exactly. The store pays the publishers only when magazines are sold to customers. Unsold copies are recycled.
Store managers could, if they wanted, crack down on the behavior, but — aside from cases of egregious abuse — they generally don’t. And, of course, the store has chosen to locate the magazines near the seating area. In sum: It isn’t just your coffee drinkers who are acting as if what they’re doing is OK. Barnes & Noble is, too.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader whose friend admitted to shoplifting. She wrote: “A close friend of many years whom I’ve always thought of as an extremely honest, ethical person recently confided in me that she shoplifts on a regular basis. She explained that she never steals from small or independently owned businesses, only from large companies, and only when no small business nearby carries the items she needs. She targets companies that are known to treat their employees badly, or that knowingly source their products from places where human rights are violated, or whose owners/C.E.O.s donate to ultraconservative, authoritarian-leaning candidates, etc. … When she told me, I thought, Stealing is wrong. But as we discussed it, I realized I was oversimplifying a complex moral issue. Is it wrong to steal food to feed your starving children? What if I stole a legally purchased gun from a person I knew was about to commit a mass shooting? Are those who bring office supplies home from their workplace also thieves? I find myself struggling with the question of whether an individual’s actions are morally defensible if they do more good than harm.”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “The moral and legal proscription of theft is meant to create a system that allows people to hold on to their possessions and dispose of them only when they choose to. Theft undermines this system — a system we all have reason to value and a duty to help sustain by keeping to the rules. Your light-fingered friend may protest that she steals only from retail outlets connected to bad actors. But the rest of us aren’t picking and choosing in this way; we pay what we owe at the checkout counter. So she’s taking advantage of our compliance without complying herself. … Because you care about her, you should try to persuade her to drop her unfortunate hobby — and her insistence that it’s fine to steal from others when you disapprove of them. She might see things differently if you pointed out that this rationale would encourage those of us who disapprove of theft to steal from her.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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Why doesn’t the letter writer’s friend boycott the company to show her disapproval? Many of us do that. Old saying: Principles cost money. Therefore, we do not shop at “lowest price” businesses. — Susan
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I appreciate the Ethicist’s response but I would encourage the letter writer’s friend to consider the stores’ workers. They are the ones most burdened by “shrinkage”: losing out on bonuses when inventory doesn’t match up, having to perform added security duties or being forced to put more product behind locked cases. The theory of change here is off. A big company will never feel the effect of her few petty thefts (and they can raise prices on frequently taken items if they do). A cashier or stocker, however, might. The best revenge is to shop elsewhere. — Hayley
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I agree with the Ethicist and have one thing to add: hard working people, often single parents, work for these retailers. When you have mouths to feed you do not have the luxury to take retail jobs with only those companies that have values similar to yours. Would any company share all of your values? I doubt it. I have worked for two big-box retailers in my career. I chose both because they were close to home and provided health care benefits, two things I needed as a single parent. Stealing from these companies means the prices potentially go up. Not only do the employees suffer from higher prices, but the consumers, usually working-class people themselves, suffer too. Additionally, as a 30-year retail veteran, I know that stores with high shrink are more likely to be closed. When a big-box retailer near me closed for high shrink it left many families in a food desert. We still do not have a replacement for that store. Imagine not being able to feed your children fresh vegetables because you do not have a car and there are no grocery stores nearby. The shoplifter is in fact hurting the very people she claims to want to protect. — Kim
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The letter writer’s friend is justifying her pilferage from large corporations by believing that she would be harming them. The truth is that, as the Ethicist explained so well, what she is actually doing is making the rest of us pay more; she appears to be unaware how commerce works. I hope the letter writer can convince her friend that what she is doing is simply wrong. I am bipolar and before I was even aware of that, I went through a phase where I would steal silly things such as three Band-Aids out of a box or a sample lipstick, never anything large or costly. Over a decade ago, I was caught walking out of a store with a $9.99 pair of sunglasses on my head. The irony of this is that I had no idea they were there. I had been trying on sunglasses and would put a pair on my face, and if I liked them, I would “save” them on my head. In the end, I decided not to buy them, but I had forgotten that there was a pair still on my head. I was spotted by Walgreens security leaving the store after paying for my order. I explained my innocent action, but the guard took me back to the security office nevertheless. A policeman was called and although I wasn’t charged, I was given a summons to appear in court. Without a lawyer, I was asked to plead guilty, not guilty or no contest. Not understanding the difference, I plead no contest. That third degree misdemeanor has followed me since then. It made it impossible for me to rent an apartment I wanted and stopped me from continuing my business. If I could, I would remind this high-minded warrior that these tiny infractions can cause long-term annoyances. — Miranda
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I have shoplifted for decades, since I was a boy. I am now a senior citizen. It is strictly for my own pleasure and satisfaction. I feel no remorse about it. I have been caught twice with minimal issues. I shall continue. It is a part of me. — C.K.