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Before we can understand why people steal, we must properly understand what stealing is.

A quick search through any dictionary will likely turn up a definition similar to that which I found on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Stealing): "[Stealing] is a general term that encompasses offences such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, trespassing, shoplifting, intrusion, fraud (theft by deception), and sometimes criminal conversion." As you can see, the human mind is ingenious as ever when it comes to acquiring property. It should be noted that what sets these forms of theft apart from so called "legitimate" methods of acquiring property is their illegality; however, that is not the sole criteria that defines theft, for certain forms of thievery are most assuredly legal to this day (although, of course, if you feel no ethical qualm over evicting citizens and bulldozing their homes to put up a profit-making development under eminent domain legislation, this certainly shouldn't concern you).

Given the wide variety of methods for stealing, it would be reasonable to expect a similarly wide variety of reasons for it. However, although the excuses presented by a captured thief are often quite colourful, the real reason can nearly always be boiled down to just one of two categories.

Need - or greed.

Although different people are bound to have different ideas of what constitutes a need, a reasonable person can certainly sum up the essentials. Food; water; air; shelter; anything necessary for the continuation of vitality can be considered a need. It should be noted that in today's society, health care and occupational training are necessary for survival, and thus constitute a need by any reasonable interpretation. Those who lack access to these basic needs may be compelled to steal them, for by definition, without them the would-be thief cannot survive. For obvious reasons, society should take this into account when determining what truly constitutes theft - a society that fails to provide for the needs of its citizens, and then outlaws their attempts to meet their own needs, is guilty of no less than murder.

Greed is an altogether more complex creature. The nature of desire is not as well understood as many like to believe, and greed is very much an adjunct of desire. Where does greed come from? Certainly it is human nature to wish to have more than the bare essentials; having extra makes one less susceptible to shortages. It is also human nature to desire a means of asserting individuality and authority, both of which can be reinforced through power - and power is very much conveyed by material wealth in modern society. However, I feel that the most powerful driving force for greed is the very nature of our own society itself.

Capitalism is a system that defines success in material wealth. From the time a modern human is an infant, he or she is constantly exposed to this message of material success at any cost. Social pressures reinforce this driving need for wealth; advertising molds it into concrete desires. The whole of the capitalist system is structured so as to conflate greed with need until none can tell the difference.

Once the hapless consumer has mistaken his artificially inseminated greed for a basic need, he or she acts accordingly - one must procure a need at any cost, for without it one cannot survive. Given the situation, its a wonder everyone isn't a thief.

On the other hand, so long as the wealthiest civilization in human history allows people to starve to death daily, I'm forced to conclude that we all, in fact, are.

Learn more about this author, Timothy Ellis.
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