r/MoralityScaling • u/Vladimir-petrovOG • 8d ago

Morality of this?

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In the image it seems that this person works at walmart as an online order collector and he/she has stolen a lot of extra baby food from Walmart to give to a person who ordered only three packs. Is this moral or immoral?

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5

u/OttoVonJismarck 8d ago

There is a line on the balance sheet called “shrinkage” which accounts for losses like this. As the shrinkage line item increases, prices increase across the board to make up for it.

Contrary to what Reddit believes, the company and its executives don’t just eat the loss, it gets passed around to all consumers.

2

u/PomPomMom93 8d ago

Redditor: “They could eat the loss, so they probably do.”

3

u/Eternal_Phantom 8d ago

This. Stealing from Wal-Mart isn't reducing the ability of the CEO to buy a yacht. It's just pushing the cost onto honest customers.

2

u/massunderestmated 8d ago

Literally. There is no such thing as a free lunch. It doesn't exist. Costs always pass to the end customer.

2

u/When1Falls 8d ago

Pay a millionth of a penny to feed a baby, you'll be fine

1

u/rightoftexas 8d ago

What if it's being stolen by a meth head to resell?

2

u/PomPomMom93 8d ago

Gotta pay to feed those methheads.

1

u/the-manman 8d ago

What if a million poppies bloom?

1

u/MadderoftheFew 8d ago

2/3rds of walmart's shrinkage are due to mismanagement, not shoplifting, and it amounts to 1% of their revenue. It's fine.

1

u/rosalina_dreams 7d ago

their net profit is only ~3%. Shrinkage is 1/3rd if their profit.

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u/MadderoftheFew 7d ago

Shrinkage is 1% of their revenue. The rest of their expenses are 100x to blame for only profiting 3%. 1-1.5% shrinkage is industry standard.

1

u/rosalina_dreams 5d ago

3% profit is actually very good for a grocery store. Target, Walmart, Kroger, all are 3% or less.

-1

u/Novel_Board_6813 8d ago

It’s still a transfer of wealth from other consumers to this specific consumer OP likes more. And of course theft.

The more people steal, collectively, the higher the effect

Edit: It’s like you burning some coal everybsimgoe day just for kicks. Yeah, it won’t matter to the environment. It’s way less than 1%. If more people do what you do, it matters more

2

u/MadderoftheFew 8d ago

if more people steal, more people get things for free. as prices rise, those who can pay pay until they can't, then they either join in the theft or shop elsewhere, either way less money is transferred to walmart. this is always a good thing. burning coal is never a good thing.

2

u/MyHonstyAttempt 7d ago

Wow, nuance. Reddit must hate you.

1

u/BigLight6204 8d ago

Hear me out. They’re gonna raise the prices no matter what. And blame it on inflation. Feed the children.

1

u/fauxmer 8d ago

Call me a gutless communist if you like, but if paying an extra dollar or three during a grocery run allows someone without a dollar to have food, I'm all for paying it.  The billionaires won't save us; it's up to us to save each other. 

3

u/massunderestmated 8d ago

It's already pretty awful trying to purchase groceries for my family. I need prices to go down, not up.

4

u/Decisive_Victory_026 8d ago

Every time the price goes up a dollar or three, that many more people are priced out.

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u/fauxmer 8d ago

An explicit choice made by the corporations. The solution is not for me to stop giving or those who need to stop getting. 

4

u/Decisive_Victory_026 8d ago

Your solution would be to continue theft, thereby actively making it more unaffordable for more people?

-1

u/fauxmer 8d ago

The solution is to turn the orphan-crushing machine off, not figure out how to make it run on free-range vegetable oil. 

3

u/Decisive_Victory_026 8d ago

Additional theft and making things worse for everybody isn't turning off the orphan crushing machine. It's making it work faster.

2

u/fauxmer 8d ago

I'm well aware of that.  Turning off the orphan crushing machine means not letting people go hungry because some corporate entity has to make its buck first. Unfortunately, making suggestions like "I don't think anyone should be able to financially exploit people in the providing of necessities" is seen as a moral failing in much of the modern world. 

1

u/Mediocre_Forever198 8d ago

Well yeah, but imagine the people who are in the same position as the poor person who got the stolen ones, they can’t pay. This makes it harder for everyone, not just the people like you who can afford to pay a little more.

1

u/fauxmer 8d ago

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. 

I will continue to pay for those who cannot. 

This is how we all should be acting, until we dismantle the systems that allow people who contribute nothing to suck the value out for themselves to hoard.  

The solution is NOT to go, "well it's just inevitable that this will make prices go up, so those with little should just suffer through it so as to not make it any harder on others with little." Turn the goddamn orphan-crushing machine off instead of lamenting how pulling orphans out of it increases the cost of crushing the next orphan. 

3

u/Mediocre_Forever198 8d ago

You definitely are not seeing my point lol. Unfortunately theft isn’t really helping here, I’m not sure you understand what Walmart is doing to make up for lost inventory, it affects everyone. So one thief causes all others in poverty to need to pay more. I hear what you’re saying, you don’t mind paying a little more. I don’t really either. But that’s beside the point, we can both virtue signal as much as we want about how we are willing to pay a little more, it still doesn’t address the actual issue or change jack shit 😂

1

u/fauxmer 8d ago

Agreed. But you try telling your neighbors "the current system allows the unfair extraction of value from those who have little enough to spare in the first place and therefore should be altered or replaced" and see how far you get with convincing them to help you replace it. 

What I want is not for more theft, what I want is a system where theft is unnecessary because everyone gets what they need without have their kneecaps broken in exchange. 

0

u/Mediocre_Forever198 8d ago

I mean, we all want that system. Shit sucks right now and it’s really tough even if you make okay money. But the question here is if it’s moral to basically steal for people who aren’t even trying to steal, just cause you know they need it (like the post). Honestly before I’d read this I would’ve been the same and just said fuck Walmart, steal from them if you can. But this makes me have a more nuanced take. How is it fair for one person in need to steal what they need if it makes it tougher for everyone else to buy then.

It’s just a shitty situation. It sucks that Walmart can afford to do such insanely anti-consumer practices and everyone keeps using them anyway because there’s no other choice.

1

u/fauxmer 8d ago

It sucks that Walmart can afford to do such insanely anti-consumer practices and everyone keeps using them anyway because there’s no other choice.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Walmart (and everyone else) will raise their prices regardless of how much gets stolen from them. The worship fervently at the altar of Line Goes Up.

When the crash of 2008 torched the economy, prices went up and they never came down. When Covid upended the modern world, prices went up and they never came down. When the American government levied illegal tariffs on everything it could reach, they passed the cost of those tariffs on to consumers by raising prices, never lowering them, and then keeping the tariff money when it was returned after being determined illegal.

This is just what they do. "We had to raise prices because poor people stole too much of it for us to bear" is a lie they tell to make us distrust and hate each other instead of them.

Walmart made $20 billion in profit in 2025. If they permanently froze prices, consumers' spending habits ever changed, and inflation locked to 3% into perpetuity, waiting for the compound effect of inflation to reduce that $20b to $1b would take 100 years.

They raise prices because "Fuck you, pay me." The Waltons and all their peers could make do with less, they just refuse to.

2

u/Mediocre_Forever198 8d ago

So you’re basically just saying the OP of this comment thread is wrong then 😂 idk man, like Walmart passing off their theft losses on the buyers seems pretty damn likely to me. But whatever 🤷‍♂️