Unpopular opinion: I find this comparison a bit off. Compare your theft from the till to your boss taking $100 from your pocket and it seems more even.
Right but, as far as the law is concerned, shorting you $100 is not the same as stealing it from you, because you did not possess it until it was given to you. But that does not mean it isn’t a crime, it’s just considered a different type of crime.
Stealing from a tin is theft of money in someone else’s possession to which you have no right to.
You are owed your wages. It would be a crime not to pay what you are owed, to fullfil their binding legal obligation. We call it theft (because it is) but the distinction is that it’s a failure to deliver something in their possession to you.
And the reason the punishment isn’t the same is because if we start jailing people for failure to pay money they owe someone else, it is going to hurt the poor faaaar worse than the wealthy or the business owners.
It’s just not a good analogy. The point it’s trying to make is fine but the example is poor.
It’s not, though. The money your boss pays is done in exchange for services, not goods, nor does your boss actively take your possessions.
You don’t provide services to the store, so there’s no equivalent. The closest thing is simple shoplifting (you take the goods but do not pay) but there are tons of videos online that prove that many stores won’t do much to stop shoplifters. Some stores will keep track of how much you’ve stolen and only take action after passing a certain threshold, something employees can also do as wage theft is illegal but higher amounts are easier to win the lawsuit over.
The distinctions you name are completely irrelevant, because in both cases people are robbed of $100 they legally own. It doesn’t matter if physical goods or services are exchanged, or if the owner also physically possessed the money at some point.
Idk where you live, but shop owners in my country will absolutely go after every penny someone has stolen from a store, and rightfully so!
“Robbed” implies taking something. That’s not the same as breaking your promise.
Equating wage theft to robbery is about as dumb as equating digital piracy to theft. The feeling of being owed something doesn’t determine whether or not something is theft or not, you need to actually take someone’s possessions by all the legal definitions I know.
Arguably, wage theft is worse than normal theft. Not only are you breaking your promise, you’re doing so at the point where the worker can no longer do anything about it. You can take the goods off a shoplifter and put them back into the store, but you can’t give back the time with their families someone has sacrificed for you. Money can be replaced with other money, and unless there’s some kind of sentimental value, goods can be expressed in a purely monetary value for replacement (and the labour associated with that). Plus, people without money, like the ones that don’t get paid for their work, are more likely to steal out of desperation, encouraging actual theft.
Luckily the courts are pretty strict against wage theft and/or unlawful firing. A shoplifter stealing diapers and bread may get away with little more than a warning, but refusing to pay out even a small amount of money will piss off a judge enough to force the matter.
Again, no one is saying that they are the same. The argument is that their differences don’t matter in this context, because the negative outcome for the victim is the same. And that’s absolutely not the case for physical theft vs digital piracy, not even close.
Taking $100 is theft. Period. You can’t accidentally pocket $100 out of a register.
Boss shorting your check $100 could be an accident. Often not even their accident these days with payroll software. Until it happens consistently it’s not guaranteed intentional.
And yet the accidental theft of walking out of a store with unpurchased goods is still punishable by the same laws that would affect those with destructive intent.
Sure, intent “should” be a major factor in crime, but it is definitely skewed in how it is regularly applied.
Because the most reasonable explanation for being shorted on a paycheck is an accounting error, meaning no malice intended. Unless the employer tried to keep the money after realizing the mistake, they should at most be given a fine.
Assuming the original post meant robbing the store, that’s quite different. There is malicious intent to deprive strangers of their money, and probably at threat of violence. Or even if it was just unattended, the theft is still done with malicious intent. The last situation is much like pickpocketing, so the analogy fits.
If the Law was fair the same amount of harm would be punished by the same sized penalty, quite independently of the method by which such harm was inflicted, and taking $100 from your pocket inflicts exactly the same amount of harm as shorting your paycheck by $100.
There is a reason murder and manslaughter are punished differently. Intent matters when judging people. If you accidentally break an item in a store, that should be treated differently than someone running in there and purposefully smashing the same item.
My reading from the original post is that it’s about the intentional not paying of the correct salary, not something accidental, in which case my point stands that it’s the same harm caused, with intent, hence should be the same penalty.
Unpopular opinion: I find this comparison a bit off. Compare your theft from the till to your boss taking $100 from your pocket and it seems more even.
If he shaft you for a 100$ on your paycheck or he takes it from from your pocket, it’s still the same thing. You are a 100$ short by malicious intent.
Right but, as far as the law is concerned, shorting you $100 is not the same as stealing it from you, because you did not possess it until it was given to you. But that does not mean it isn’t a crime, it’s just considered a different type of crime.
Stealing from a tin is theft of money in someone else’s possession to which you have no right to.
You are owed your wages. It would be a crime not to pay what you are owed, to fullfil their binding legal obligation. We call it theft (because it is) but the distinction is that it’s a failure to deliver something in their possession to you.
And the reason the punishment isn’t the same is because if we start jailing people for failure to pay money they owe someone else, it is going to hurt the poor faaaar worse than the wealthy or the business owners.
It’s just not a good analogy. The point it’s trying to make is fine but the example is poor.
Oh in that case I’ll just pocket the $100 a customer gives me for groceries, instead of putting it in the drawer to which it is owed.
Since we want a consistent rule, the store should be repossessed just like a car, or at least missed wages should have massive late fees.
The fact that the comparison feels off to many despite being perfectly valid is exactly the point.
It’s not, though. The money your boss pays is done in exchange for services, not goods, nor does your boss actively take your possessions.
You don’t provide services to the store, so there’s no equivalent. The closest thing is simple shoplifting (you take the goods but do not pay) but there are tons of videos online that prove that many stores won’t do much to stop shoplifters. Some stores will keep track of how much you’ve stolen and only take action after passing a certain threshold, something employees can also do as wage theft is illegal but higher amounts are easier to win the lawsuit over.
The distinctions you name are completely irrelevant, because in both cases people are robbed of $100 they legally own. It doesn’t matter if physical goods or services are exchanged, or if the owner also physically possessed the money at some point.
Idk where you live, but shop owners in my country will absolutely go after every penny someone has stolen from a store, and rightfully so!
“Robbed” implies taking something. That’s not the same as breaking your promise.
Equating wage theft to robbery is about as dumb as equating digital piracy to theft. The feeling of being owed something doesn’t determine whether or not something is theft or not, you need to actually take someone’s possessions by all the legal definitions I know.
Arguably, wage theft is worse than normal theft. Not only are you breaking your promise, you’re doing so at the point where the worker can no longer do anything about it. You can take the goods off a shoplifter and put them back into the store, but you can’t give back the time with their families someone has sacrificed for you. Money can be replaced with other money, and unless there’s some kind of sentimental value, goods can be expressed in a purely monetary value for replacement (and the labour associated with that). Plus, people without money, like the ones that don’t get paid for their work, are more likely to steal out of desperation, encouraging actual theft.
Luckily the courts are pretty strict against wage theft and/or unlawful firing. A shoplifter stealing diapers and bread may get away with little more than a warning, but refusing to pay out even a small amount of money will piss off a judge enough to force the matter.
Again, no one is saying that they are the same. The argument is that their differences don’t matter in this context, because the negative outcome for the victim is the same. And that’s absolutely not the case for physical theft vs digital piracy, not even close.
Why’s that?
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Intent?
Taking $100 is theft. Period. You can’t accidentally pocket $100 out of a register.
Boss shorting your check $100 could be an accident. Often not even their accident these days with payroll software. Until it happens consistently it’s not guaranteed intentional.
And yet the accidental theft of walking out of a store with unpurchased goods is still punishable by the same laws that would affect those with destructive intent.
Sure, intent “should” be a major factor in crime, but it is definitely skewed in how it is regularly applied.
Because the most reasonable explanation for being shorted on a paycheck is an accounting error, meaning no malice intended. Unless the employer tried to keep the money after realizing the mistake, they should at most be given a fine.
Assuming the original post meant robbing the store, that’s quite different. There is malicious intent to deprive strangers of their money, and probably at threat of violence. Or even if it was just unattended, the theft is still done with malicious intent. The last situation is much like pickpocketing, so the analogy fits.
If the Law was fair the same amount of harm would be punished by the same sized penalty, quite independently of the method by which such harm was inflicted, and taking $100 from your pocket inflicts exactly the same amount of harm as shorting your paycheck by $100.
There is a reason murder and manslaughter are punished differently. Intent matters when judging people. If you accidentally break an item in a store, that should be treated differently than someone running in there and purposefully smashing the same item.
My reading from the original post is that it’s about the intentional not paying of the correct salary, not something accidental, in which case my point stands that it’s the same harm caused, with intent, hence should be the same penalty.