petit larceny

On the morality of stealing from corporations

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

By now you've probably seen the clip circulating around. The New York Times had New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino and rich socialist Hasan Piker join the paper’s Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman on “The Opinions” do discuss the morality of microlooting and petty theft.

The guests drew a clear line at dine and dash, but stealing from Whole Foods? Well, that was quite alright.

The video of the conversation was titled: “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?”

Tolentino, far from a starving artist, had confessed that she had stolen lemons from Whole Foods. “I think that stealing from a big box store,” she admitted, stating her platform, “it’s neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action.”

When questioned by Spiegelman whether widespread theft would might eventually cause price increases, Piker chimed in: "Yeah, chaos…Full chaos. Let's go."

Tolentino welcomed it. “I kind of am inclined toward this,” she said, adding, “Everyone, try it. See what happens.”

Maybe they were partially joking. But fundamentally they were stating something a meaningful portion of the population believes: that stealing from big corporations, morally speaking, is not a big deal. But is it?

The Case for Stealing

The pro-stealing-from-corporations argument isn’t new and it isn’t as fringe as some people may like to believe. Proponents argue that Walmart has made $29.3 billion in operating income last year while paying workers wages that frequently require them to rely on food stamps. Amazon admitted that its drivers were sometimes forced to pee in water bottles. When the gap between what a company extracts and what it gives back is that obscene, the argument goes, the moral weight of shoplifting a $12 item approaches zero.

An argument Piker made, to further alleviate any feelings of guilt, is that large retailers build in what they call “shrinkage”—a more polite and official term for theft—directly into their pricing. So the loss is already priced in.

Another point, raised in response to a short video I made asking for input, was the idea of wage theft.

The data here is striking: employers stole more from workers through minimum wage violations, uncompensated overtime, and off-clock work than the total value of all burglaries, robberies, larcenies, and auto thefts combined—yet most employers face no criminal charges.

So who is really stealing from whom? Why should a person barely able to afford rent or groceries feel shame for stealing from a company making billions annually, whose CEO earns millions, while charging the consumers barely getting by as much as it can?

The case against stealing

As to be expected, there are some counterarguments. I prefer to pose them as questions.

If you haven't personally experienced wage theft by a particular company, what entitles you to steal from them because someone else has been aggrieved by them? And how does your theft help that person? Shouldn't the focus be on solving the underlying issue—strengthening penalties, improving enforcement, holding executives accountable?

Wage theft is wrong, and it's the most compelling argument in the pro-stealing case. But if stealing is wrong, isn't it inherently wrong regardless of scale? Stealing is, at its core, taking something you didn't earn, trade for, or receive freely. The corporate version may cause more aggregate harm—but aren't both acts still theft? And if one is wrong, isn't the other?

There's a strong enforcement asymmetry argument here. But justifying retail theft as a response to that asymmetry may be misplaced anger. The problem is that the law isn't being applied fairly or consistently. The fix is better accountability—not to steal downward while employers steal upward. That accounting won't balance well for anyone.

And who gets to decide which stores are most deserving of being stolen from? Is it really determined by the damage these corporations do—or by the desirability and accessibility of their goods? (eg. crimes of opportunity)

Large retailers often respond to rising theft by closing stores, and they tend to close them in the lowest-income neighborhoods first. Does widespread retail theft not ultimately hurt the very people on whose behalf the argument is being made?

Then there's the shrinkage argument turned on its head. If theft is already priced in, that cost gets passed on somewhere—to consumers. And the more theft there is, the more shrinkage gets priced in. Doesn't that mean low-income consumers end up paying more for the same goods?

But the silver lining is that property crime isn’t actually increasing—it has been falling sharply since the 1990s. Although we saw a spike during the pandemic, it has been trending downwards in recent years, despite what various pundits might suggest. Some cities, however, fare better than others.

(The last time I was in New York, I was struck by how even the most basic, inexpensive items at CVS were locked behind cases, which might partially account for the 20% drop in early 2026).

When is stealing the better moral choice?

Some people will argue that stealing is always immoral, and to some extent they are correct. But sometimes people are faced with two immoral choices, and they have to pick one.

In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew. He does something technically immoral to save a life. For this, he receives a 19-year sentence. Hugo's point isn't subtle: the law can be perfectly applied and morally monstrous at the same time. The moral context matters—and Valjean's context is life or death.

As for the New Yorker’s Tolentino, she stole lemons—hardly a life necessity, and something she can easily afford.

I suppose that brings up the utilitarian calculus: stealing a $12 item from a billion-dollar corporation is very low, but the benefit to a hungry person is massive. The benefit to a person who wants lemons in their tea? Priceless, I guess.

The math is clear when the need is immediate and massive. Things get murkier when something becomes a want vs an immediate need, and the scale grows and it becomes a societal issue.

We already acknowledge, in our legal system, that theft exists on a moral spectrum. Sentencing guidelines account for circumstances—the amount taken, the need behind it, the harm caused. A starving person stealing bread is not tried the same way as an armed robber. The law, for all its flaws, builds in context.

Kant would say rules must hold universally or they collapse entirely. He argued that you shouldn’t lie when it’s convenient, even if a murderer were to ask where you friend was hiding—though you wouldn’t have to volunteer that information either. He has a point. But strict rule-following produces its own horrors, and most of us know it.

So I’m a little more flexible. If a starving child needed a loaf of bread and the only way to get it was to steal it—as long as I’m not depriving another starving person of it—not only do I think that would be the more moral path, I would help steal it.

Rules matter. But so does asking whether they are just.

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