I shoplift to survive, it’s not like a hobby, there’s nothing revolutionary about not paying for shit. Walmart will continue to exist. If its existence was ever genuinely threatened, they would put cops at every entrance and fuckin chase you hard. Seeing people roleplay like they are some master criminals for lifting some potato chips just throws me off kilter. Lifting is badass but there’s nothing revolutionary about it. I do it so I can afford food.
Shoplifitng is a direct challenge to private property. That in itself is the bases of capitalism. Hence you would get cops guarding Walmart, if it became to common.
However it is also not a practise, which shows a workable alternative. At least shoplifting does not have a clear obvious way to distinguish between what you actually need and what you just want to have. Taking what you want, is just not workable with limited resources.
This is a critique of online shoplifting “culture” which is so utterly and profoundly eyewatteringly yuppy liberal white kids getting kicks. Shoplifting doesn’t give me a rush, and I don’t want it too. Same with pickpocketing, or honestly dealing.
It’s quite literally just a part of life, normal, it’s something that basically everyone does. It seems so fuckin odd to draw attention to it. It’s not called “shoplifting”, it’s called “racking”. You sound like an undercover cop. This whole place does. It feels like this place is cops parodying what they think shoplifters are like.
Revolutionary actions lead to tangible revolution or liberation. If you don’t see the slave freed, or the structure destroyed, then you did nothing.
Militant resistance to the IDF is revolutionary. Directly liberating animals from testing labs is revolutionary. Hamas is revolutionary. The black panthers are revolutionary. Calling shoplifting revolutionary is like calling boycotting revolutionary just serves to make people complacent in a similar fashion to liberalism. Your not going to boycott capitalisim to death.
The reason you can’t afford food is because precariousness is baked into the system, it’s a necessary component to force people to participate in capitalism largely against their will, whether they realize it or not. So, in that sense, surviving in any other way than by selling your labor is at least a little revolutionary, isn’t it?