At its core it’s an ethics problem of Kant vs Utilitarianism. On the one hand Kantians are big into the golden rule. They would point out that we shouldn’t accept stealing in society, because we as individuals don’t want to be stolen from. If you can steal from a store why not steal from your friend’s parents or the local community centre? In fact why don’t we just all go steal the things we want whenever we want? Utilitarians on the other hand would argue that someone stealing food (if they really need it) creates more good than some investors losing a small amount of profit does harm. Utilitarians think we should live in a world that minimizes harm and maximizes good. If you’re familiar with the trolley car problem they would pull the switch to kill the 1 guy instead of the 5 on the track. They argue there is no objective system of ethics but rather every moral problem depends on the situation and the circumstances of the perpetrator and victim.

In my experience people on both sides of the political spectrum fall into utilitarian and Kantian camps. But I think people who fall on the left of the political spectrum and who also have utilitarian beliefs have a much more amplified opinion on this because they not only see stealing as a lesser of two evils but they view the whole capitalist system as an exploitation of the working class, and that the gains were ill gotten in the first place and theft is almost a natural revolutionary action to take back what is rightfully there’s.

The additional complication though is that this is also an economic problem in an economic system. Sure maybe if it was a one-off thing where somebody desperate stole something from a store one time then no systemic problem would occur, but because this is happening in larger volumes it becomes a multi-period prisoners dilemma. As opposed to the single period prisoners dilemma where defecting is the optimal choice, in the multi-period version participants develop rational expectations. Recently grocery stores such as target have been closing in inner cities because shoplifting has become endemic and they no longer believe they can make a profit there. This is terrible for inner city residents that do not commit theft because it raises the cost for them to transit and find groceries. So the system of “stealing when you need” isn’t tenable in this economic system.

Whether you believe that means we need to change the economic system or alternatively you believe we need to impose harsher penalties for crime, what’s clear is that in the end we will need a legislative solution, and so we probably should’ve just gone and done that in the first place.