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You know what the top locked item in every major grocery store is? Fucking baby formula. I wouldn't just shut the fuck up if I saw someone trying to steal formula, I would actively help them
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Shoplifting
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See, this is where it does get difficult. Baby formula is popular because its resellable. In fact there has been a time, and I don't know if that's still ongoing, where there were issues with baby formula in China, some of it got poisoned in some way. So Chinese parents started distrusting Chinese-made baby formula. This opened a market for reselleing non-Chinese baby formula to Chinese customers.
If you look online you can see lots of articles for example showing that in Australia Chinese resellers bought up all the baby formula stores had on the shelf, with the only goal to resell it.
Now I don't know how many tried to just steal it instead, but that number is surely not 0. So if a shop only has 3 packages left and a person is trying to steal all of them, it might not be for their baby, if they even have one.
If we are talking about other products, bread, potatoes, rice... I agree with you. Baby formula... is difficult.
I would just give them the benefit of the doubt. If someone is stealing baby formula you keep your god damned mouth shut. End of story. Even if they steal it to sell it, it probably means that someone might be able to afford it down the line. I would not risk ratting someone out for trying to feed their baby. How is this even a concern? It might not be someone who tries to feed their baby so I better rat them out, just in case? That's fucked up.
I wouldn’t give a shit if someone shoplifts from (e.g.) Whole Foods (aka Amazon). But then WTF am I doing in there in the 1st place if I have a problem with that store?
Ethical consumers boycott the worst companies and patronize the lesser of evils. We don’t feed the stores we have contempt for in the first place, so there is never a circumstance where I would witness a shoplift from a shitty merchant. When I see a shoplift happening, it would generally only be in a shop that I consider relatively progressive and decent (one that I chose to set foot in).
BTW, I can’t do videos so apologies if I’m missing the context. Just replied to the title.
No, you got the context right.
But look at what you're writing.
You have enough financial security that you can buy from "ethical" stores even if they're more expensive than other options.
You have reliable enough transportation that you can get to "ethical" stores even if they aren't within walking distance or on public transit lines.
You have the time, and energy, and information resources, to identify what stores meet your ethical code and what don't.
That's all privilege. You realize that's all privilege, right?
And if you're going to look down at people who shop at businesses whose ethics they disagree with, I say, with kindness but very sincerely, check your privilege.
(And then there's the less important point of relative privilege, and how someone desperate enough to steal food needs that food more than the store owner needs money for the food, no matter how good a person the store owner is, because to each according to their needs, right?)
I don’t imagine that Whole Foods is for poor people, but I’ve not been in there for a long time. I recall that it was higher end, and yet unethical at the same time once Amazon became the owner.
You have enough financial security that you can buy from “ethical” stores even if they’re more expensive than other options.
In the grocery markets, that does not seem to be the case. I’m now well outside Whole Foods regions and shop on a tight budget and see good deals at all the grocers (those I boycott and those I don’t). I’ve made somewhat a game of eating cheaply. For the past year, my daily food cost is ¾ the cost of a Big Mac. And yet I still manage to (what some would consider) over-eat.
You have reliable enough transportation that you can get to “ethical” stores even if they aren’t within walking distance or on public transit lines.
I’m in the city. There are mom & pop grocers walking distance from my house. Apart from that I can reach all shops by bicycle about equally.
You have the time, and energy, and information resources, to identify what stores meet your ethical code and what don’t.
Grocers are different in this regard. I take the time to dig up dirt on tech companies but identifying bad grocers doesn’t require time and effort. The info just comes to you. I see “boycott store X” in graffiti all over town along with a dedicated URL for it. I don’t think grocers need any kind of deep probing, AFAICT. Most of my extensive ethics research is on brands that are in the shops. Every shop has Nestlé, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, etc.
That’s all privilege. You realize that’s all privilege, right?
This doesn’t obviate anything I said. It’s orthogonal to the issue. Your mind was boggled because customers rat out shoplifters. I unboggled it. There is not enough price variation from one grocer to another that would push poor consumers one direction or the other depending on their budgets. There are some small boutique-eske bio shops which have higher prices but that’s not where I’m drawing lines.
What you’re saying is more of what I see with online shopping. Poor people need Amazon. I boycott Amazon. OTOH, I’ve chosen a simple life and hardly buy anything non-essential anyway, unless it’s 2nd hand from the street markets.