[cont]

I take a rather Hobbesian view on stealing - i.e. in the absence of socially derived rules and laws, people are naturally inclined to take what they need or want by right. Every human society has developed laws and customs to constrain that natural tendency, and these are learnt by individual humans through childhood processes of socialization and enculturation. Like most social phenomena, there is wide diversity both between and within societies concerning the values relating to property, and how they are learned and enforced.

I think that whether or not stealing can be justified depends on the particular circumstances, the type of property, and the individual ethical configuration of the person doing the stealing. As others have pointed out, people steal things all the time in our (and every) society - apart from simply taking physical property that someone else owns, they steal ideas, they evade taxes, they strip companies of assets and steal workers' entitlements, they profit from others' misfortune etc etc.

Collectively, States steal land from each other and from Indigenous owners, governments steal wages and children, etc. Indeed, a central plank of early 'libertarian' thought is that all taxation is theft - a sentiment that underlies extreme forms of contemporary libertarianism and undoubtedly 'justifies' to its perpetrators any number of "insidious, surreptitious or subtle" schemes designed to evade paying legally assessable taxes.

Of course stealing is justified - at the moment it is done by the perpetrators of it. Of course, the ethics of such justification is another question entirely.

Col
No cheap shot intended I was emphasising Foxy's point that while stealing is wrong in 'absolute terms' (a concept I have difficulty with). Practically speaking it often depends on the circumstances.
In hind sight I erred in that read you post as being ultra pro the boss … not focusing solely on the issue as you were … my bad …sorry.

Runner.
As I said I acknowledge the intellectual absolutism of stealing but I have difficulties of it in practical terms. My post to you was to point out that Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on morals or compassion. Event in the Bible are morally questionable if taken in absolutism. My mantra has always been “ it depends on **context**”

RobP
This is off topic.
We all should strive for perfection even though we all know that is functionally impossible. My point to you is that if the action potentially dangerous then it is beholden on us to be more assiduous in observing the law.
Would I be happy with being pinged every time I lapsed? No but it *would* be my fault.
“Why me? They’re speeding too” is a shallow argument in that the facts are I/you were breaching the law.
Some years ago I was a witness in case where a man was made a paraplegic and his young son killed. The driver’s defence was “I was keeping up with the flow of traffic”. The police accident squad testified he was doing approximately 5-7ks over the 60 limit and because of the road conditions he was unable to stop.

A few years later my family and I were ‘’T” boned and were lucky to survive by a driver who “was only doing a few ks over”.

As a crisis councillor I dealt with several similar stories. I still see that accident in my mind every time I get into a car. Accidents happen to people maybe even you no just statistics.

CJ,
Good post Some day we should have a debate it’d be interesting.

Examinator,

Acknowledging this is off topic, I would say that keeping up with the traffic is very hard NOT to do in today's world. There are plenty of aggressive and impatient drivers on the road who make life very difficult not to drive along with everyone else.

But, yes, I agree with you that a culture change is needed across the board.

Bronwyn,

'Anansi and examinator were both perfectly correct to deduce from your little lecture to Pelican exactly as they have done. '

You sure? I see it as a pretty big streatch. Col seemed to assert that the rate of pay was incorrectly assumed in pelicans mind and never discussed the legislated minimum wage.

It's a long way from..

'...If he could do that, surely you are overestimating the prevailing “rate of pay” for the job?'

to..

'Obviously you feel that minimum wage laws and paying off the books to avoid payroll tax workers comp etc and hiding income is ok'

I think Col probably didn't read the whole post, and saw the many references to 'substandard wages', 'grossly underpaid' but not one sentence....'We got paid cash in hand, no penalty rates and for well less than award wages.'

So Col has wrongly assumed the wages were only unfair in pelicans mind. Sloppy? Or perhaps he doesn't believe it's wrong to break this law?

The rest have assumed that this means he is promoting a businesses breaking the law in this area (maybe), and added on extra assumptions about payroll tax, workers comp and hiding income, and stealing from the tax office.

Col,

What would Margaret Thatcher have to say about all this?

Gosh CJ when you make one of your longer posts you are positively brilliant. :)

Houllebecq - I can't speak for Maggie or Col but I think Maggie Thatcher might have expected nothing less than ethical adherence by both employer and employee in the laws that she set out for them. And woe betide.

Folks,
It seems that we all understand that theft is wrong in absolute terms but in with some practical lee-way for circumstances.

A PC asside; After all we pretend to be human (:-) for conspiracy theoriest in our midst.) and occasionly sin (for the religiously inclined)and (for the atheists)we screw up.

It has occured to me that the seminal issue we're all struggling with isn't "is stealing justified" but "is it ever **just**".
bound up in that are the conicepts of "what is just" and "what is justice".

Maybe that's a new(follow up) topic for debate hmmm? You're on a roll CJ and Pelecan. I await that with interest.