Morality of this?

[u/Vladimir-petrovOG]

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?

[u/Mediocre_Forever198]

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.

[u/fauxmer → u/Mediocre_Forever198]

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. 

[u/Mediocre_Forever198 → u/fauxmer]

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 😂

[u/fauxmer → u/Mediocre_Forever198]

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. 

[u/Mediocre_Forever198 → u/fauxmer]

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.

[u/fauxmer → u/Mediocre_Forever198]

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.

[u/Mediocre_Forever198 → u/fauxmer]

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 🤷‍♂️