Why’s that?
Comment on By letting the capitalistic class write the laws we let them dictate the morality of the country.
guyrocket@kbin.social 11 months ago
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.
irmoz@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
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 soft. Until it happens consistently it’s not intentional.
Sestren@lemmy.world 11 months ago
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.
KombatWombat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
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.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
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 $100.
IronKrill@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
There is a reason murder and manslaughter are punished differently. Intent matters when judging people. If you accidentally break an item in a store, that should be treated differently and someone runningnin there and purposefully smashing the same item.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
My reading from the original post is that it’s about the intentional not paying of the correct salary, not something accidental, in which case my point stands that it’s the same harm caused, with intent, hence should be the same penalty.
Croquette@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
If he shaft you for a 100$ 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.
deweydecibel@lemmy.world 11 months ago
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 your possession.
And the reason the punishment isn’t the same is because if we jail 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.
explodicle@local106.com 11 months ago
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.