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By letting the capitalistic class write the laws we let them dictate the morality of the country.
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Not familiar with the laws of California but I think the spirit of the post is that the cops will be on your ass immediately and you will be put in jail if you walk with $100.
If your boss steals $100 from you it then becomes a matter for the courts before anyone in the company faces even the slightest threat of jail.
I’d add Wilhoit’s Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect”
But I’d adjust: “North American Democracy consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups (the rich) whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups (workers) whom the law binds but does not protect
No no no! Let me continue to be obtuse, a felony against an LLC ( like, ohhhhh, I dunno this little mom and pop startup) is a damning life ending thing that will forever alter the trajectory of the poor business owner’s life and livelihood. They could’ve had a bright future, free to do anything, go anywhere, hell even go to the stars all of that jeapordized by one measly little honest mistake of an accounting error ~~that was multiplied thousands of times across the workforce spanning years summing entire lifetimes of earnings~~ . Surely you can’t mean that they would be held to no recourse while the overly empowered and emboldened working class holds it’s jack boot stranglehold on poor honest golden parachute equipped hedge fund daddies who raised money from their well to do friends and family to buy a house outright for the optics of starting out of a garage with nothing…
God damned delusional liberals
Because one of these things is stealing a possession, and one of these things is failing to pay a debt. And.we generally don't jail people for failing to pay debts, at least not immediately. And that's a good thing to, otherwise the poor would be getting jailed all the time.
It's not perfectly fine, but they're weighing it against Wage Theft, which outweighs all other types of theft in the US based on sheer dollar-value of how much is stolen.
No, it's not okay to just steal from the till, but the point is the business owner can call the cops on us if we do that, which results in our immediate arrest, yet conversely if they steal from our paychecks we have to take them to small claims court and we better have the receipts to prove it, and usually (except maybe places like California) all the business has to do is.... pay back what they owe you. Nothing for damages or lost opportunities due to having less money. Nope, just pay back what they already owed you to begin with. What a joke of a slap on the wrist.
Theft is theft, should be the same penalties for either side and business owners shouldn't get such free range to fuck over people with no consequences. Some of us would just like to see an equal playing field where wage theft meant I could call the fucking cops and have the asshat who stole my fucking legally owed money arrested.
Today I learned that wage theft actually refers to a crime, and is not just a word for paying people less than the value they create.
Crime is ABSOLUTELY a social construct. Why was it legal several months ago to have an abortion across the US but now several states are criminalizing the same? Have abortions changed? No - politics did, I would argue spurred on by the desire for capitalists to keep a steady supply of low wage uneducated exploitable desperate workers.
Why is it suddenly criminal in the state of Georgia to give food and water to people lining up at polling stations? Because one class wants to make it uncomfortable and inconvenient for another class, and I would argue race, of people to vote.
For more, from Harper’s Magazine “Legalize It All” (How to Win the War on Drugs):
Same as it ever was - criminalizing social classes to disempower them is the name of the game. If you aren’t wise to this you haven’t been paying attention.
Adding - it’s illegal in Japan for me to possess and consume cannabis but perfectly legal in Canada for me to do the same.
It would be illegal for me to walk around in certain countries without a headscarf, how is that not a social law?
It’s illegal in Russia to speak against the war, and people have been imprisoned for the softest infractions of this. In North America I have free speech in this regard.
Does anyone really go to jail for wage theft though? Especially at the same severity that walking out with $100 till bucks would?
From my perspective, it seems like the boss gets a slap on the wrist the first time, while the worker gets fired and carted off to jail the first time.
I think that's the point of this meme, but there are some nuances involved (aka why does the law treat these people differently? I think there may be a reason having to do with intent here, but that is discussion outside of the scope of what this meme is getting at.)
It might be a felony, but is it enforced?
If something is illegal but isn't enforced, it's not illegal.