When I was younger I’d shoplift prolifically. I don’t shoplift anymore, mostly because I don’t want to risk arrest for something as stupid and superfluous as shoplifting.

That said, while I’ve worked in retail, I’ve let people get away with shoplifting. If it’s too obvious though and they’re shoplifting so obviously and poorly that if I felt that if I’d let them get away with it’d cost me my job, I’d have to do something.

In my opinion shoplifting is a trivial thing to worry about. A lot of people depend on shoplifting or other theft in order to sustain themselves, which means it’s a symptom of the broader issue of poverty wages and unemployment. If in a discussion someone were to bring up shoplifting somehow I’d bend the argument there or simply the easy twist towards the argument about originary accumulation and how property itself rests on theft.