From: Fatima Ramone
Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2019 8:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: cheese
Hi ,
My name is Fatima and I have a question about property. I will try to keep it short
I hope you can give me answers or recommend me some reading materials:
-I shoplift ; I take some cheese from the supermarket´s shelf.
-I skip cheese; I wait until the supermarket throws it away and I collect it from the bin. (private bin)
In both cases I´m taking supermarket´s property.
Everyone (my neighbours , the shop owner, the police) , report me when they see me shoplifting but they don´t report me when they see me collecting food from the bin.
I say that there is a general feeling: taking cheese from the shelf is stealing. Taking it from the bin, once the shop is closed, is not that much stealing.
Can be there different degrees in stealing? and therefore Can be there different degrees in ownership?
My stuff is mine because others recognise me as owner. The more people that recognise me , the “miner” is it? And, if I abandon what´s mine, others could forget about me and I could lose my things.
Can be maintenance of the property a requirement for its ownership?
Thanks 🙂
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 23, 2019 1:32 AM
To: ‘Fatima Ramone’ <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: cheese
Dear Fatima:
You are a thief in both cases, equally.
In my view, in the first case, you stole from the grocery.
In the second case, you stole from the sanitation company, the garbage removal firm. The grocer had a deal with the garbage company. The former “gave” the garbage to the latter. The latter was now the owner of the grocer’s garbage, when you stole the old cheese.
Best regards,
Walter
3:06 am on April 17, 2020
