In the first case, is each person just to be charged 0.50 (because that's the amount of damage they caused) or some larger number (because they irreparably bankrupted the business)? Similarly, in the second case, is the person charged with $500,000 or some lesser amount? Please discuss... — jasonm

Depending on the country, the offender/s may not only be liable for repayment of the money taken, but for any additional damage their illegal action/s caused. In England, in certain circumstances, legal action can be taken for loss of opportunity - for example if the owner/s of the business had a plan to invest the money, they may be able to sue for the profits they are missing out on. Any criminal sentence is likely to take account of the total amount of damage done (within the sentencing limits courts are bound by).

In my view, there is not a correct answer as to what should be done. There is the question of why each of the one million people in the first scenario and the one person in the second scenario stole the money e.g. was it necessary to feed them and/or their family. There is another question of whether the business owner/s were deserving of the money e.g. were they producing something that harms people. Et cetera.

The ethical issue isn't so much to do with the consequence, as with the act of breaching the social convention of property.

The community in which a half million people think it OK to steal a small amount has a much greater ethical issue than the community in which one person steals a half million dollars

:ok:

Ethically, how would the costs then be distributed? — jasonm

Ethics is not about cost; it's about intent.

In the first case, is each person just to be charged 0.50 (because that's the amount of damage they caused) or some larger number (because they irreparably bankrupted the business)? — jasonm

Was it a conspiracy? Did each thief know that the ultimate aim was to bankrupt the company?
The legal indictment can only be for the crime any particular individual committed. If each case was isolated, the charge would be petty theft. If it was orchestrated, it would be conspiracy to commit grand theft, (and if they were all found guilty, the cost of incarcerating all those people would far, far exceed the cost of the crime.)

Similarly, in the second case, is the person charged with $500,000 or some lesser amount? — jasonm

Legally, the amount matters in the degree of grand larceny. This would fall into the second degree category, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

But that's the legal situation. The ethical one has to be judged quite differently. How did that situation come about? If so, why? What had that company done to make so many people want to destroy it?

Is it necessary to point out that what is legal and what is ethical are two quite different things?

Ethically, how would the costs then be distributed? — jasonm

You don't run before you can walk. Once a thief always a thief perhaps? What's he going to steal next? $5, $300? $10,000. My wife? Why stop there?

Stealing a candy bar, as a common example. The person would probably get arrested. It's fascinating to socially analyze because how much manpower and resources are spent by a deputy responding, arresting, transporting (fuel costs), processing, feeding, etc. a person. It's a deterrent because the person now has a permanent criminal record and anyone with a brain knows that will (potentially severely) impact your life and opportunities in said life over something that costs 30 cents to produce

. The costs of litigation to receive .50 cents of damages are obviously frivolous. Though it could be argued the person "created a culture of fear" and impacted the lives of any staff and contributed to destruction of society resulting in anxiety and trauma and what not if it wasn't done surreptitiously.

In the first case, is each person just to be charged 0.50 (because that's the amount of damage they caused) or some larger number (because they irreparably bankrupted the business)? — jasonm

Reminds me of the reason why firing squads when executing a person use multiple persons, sometimes with blanks. No one man can say he was solely responsible. This seems like a very legal question as if there was a coordinated attack on the business by an organization who knew each other with the intent to do precisely that or if it was just random dudes.

Similarly, in the second case, is the person charged with $500,000 or some lesser amount? — jasonm

Well, it would seem so. If I steal a puzzle set from you, wouldn't you want the whole puzzle back if I haven't lost the pieces and not just some or "most of them"?

Ethically, each thief is required to return what was stolen, if it was taken unjustly. So, there is no paradox. Thinking that there is a paradox implies that one subscribes to consequentialism, which is untenable.

Note that stealing, while against the law, might not be unjust.

Contrarian-wise, I might say that we already live in both these communities.

Overall, however, I prefer a community which doesn't care about small "theft". I think we are a social species, in spite of our attempts to make us otherwise.

Property is theft? No! We own it all. And we've yet to figure out how "we" owning things works.

Overall, however, I prefer a community which doesn't care about small "theft" — Moliere

Isn't that what we call "corruption"?

Hrm.

I hope not. I was hoping to point to something bigger.

Thinking more along the lines of it's no longer theft because we're all OK.

Rather than the legal definition of property/theft, which I'm pushing against, I'm saying theft is from some other's needs, rather than some other's property.

You know. Good old Marxist schlock ;)

Rather than the legal definition of property/theft, which I'm pushing against, I'm saying theft is from some other's needs, rather than some other's property. — Moliere

Yes. My first criterion for ethical behaviour is motive. Not what did he take, or how much, but why did he take it? A homeless person taking an apple from a supermarket is not the same as a lawyer taking an apple from a boyscout. And I would apply the same reasoning to that first apple in God's big orchard.

Corruption would be someone in a position to render decisions that affect other people, accepting inducement to render unfair decisions. A judge taking bribes to convict innocent people is unethical on two counts; the person bribing him is unethical on two counts. If the wrongfully convicted man's wife bribes a prison guard to help him escape, he and she are not ethically culpable; and the guard - well it depends on why he accepted the bribe.

A society that's corrupt at the top (where the sums tend to be grand) forces some degree of (petty) corruption on all the people below, as a survival strategy.

2. *One person* steals $0.50 from one million different business, totaling $500,000 profit, but no one single business receives costs anymore than $0.50, making the overall impact minimal. — jasonm

I think the problem comes from your scenarios not being comparatively equal. If we do this instead:

1. A person steals 500,000 from one business that sees the loss as a relative equivalence of 50 cents off of its entire profit.

We now have a more comparative outcome in the fact that the theft overall caused very little damage to the businesses they stole from. This eliminates unnecessary variables and keeps the comparison focused now on the question of whether one type of theft in isolation of all other consequences seems more or less moral than another.

For myself, though I certainly agree that circumstances being what they are justify taking back what's already owed, I tend to think that our property relations cause conflict: in a cold and bizarre way, it's our accounting practices which lead us to war.

One way to put property relations is to say that person's have legal rights within states, and one of those rights is the right to property.

It's this foundation of rights, or at least property rendered as legal rights, that I'd push against. It's not just the circumstances which justify theft, nor is it the circumstances of re-interpreting property as belonging to those below (since they are the genesis of wealth) -- rather, the whole idea of property as a right is what I'd push against.

In the abstract I think it's hard to say something definite. But, as a for instance, squatters taking over unused buildings is a case of theft by property rights. But in this other way of looking at property, it's actually a more efficient redistribution mechanism than the legal one.

I tend to think that our property relations cause conflict: in a cold and bizarre way, it's our accounting practices which lead us to war. — Moliere

I'm not sure that applies to war - excerpt class war, of course. But I think this is a useful way to look at the situation, and I generally agree.
I would, however, want to define 'property' more exactly, because whenever the topic arises, we always get the quibblers who consider a cobbler's last 'capital assets' and demand to move a dozen idle squatters into some poor fisherman's hut. So we need to distinguish real estate and land and water rights (the property which is theft) from the clothes on ones back and the tools of one's trade.

An even bigger ethical problem is presented by money. It's the substance of corruption and the easiest means of injustice. When law is based on property rights - held above human rights, if only because property rights are easy to spell out precisely in law and human rights are hard to define, hard to agree about, hard to set down in black and white and to administer - we have an ethical dislocation. When property is expressed in terms of $ value, which itself is arbitrary and mutable, we have another level of ethical dislocation. If degree of criminality is evaluated in absolute monetary terms - $XX.XX, rather than property taken as % of property owned - we have no ethical standard left on which to base judgment. The legal issue is wholly separate from the moral one.

I'm not sure that applies to war - excerpt class war, of course. But I think this is a useful way to look at the situation, and I generally agree. — Vera Mont

Cool. I don't mean to say this is all there is to the matter, either, so "a useful way to look" is good enough for me.

I would, however, want to define 'property' more exactly, because whenever the topic arises, we always get the quibblers who consider a cobbler's last 'capital assets' and demand to move a dozen idle squatters into some poor fisherman's hut. So we need to distinguish real estate and land and water rights (the property which is theft) from the clothes on ones back and the tools of one's trade. — Vera Mont

I would have said there's a difference between private and personal property at one point, and attempted a definition game of sorts.

Now, I think I am uncertain about such distinctions. I think I want to say that the distinctions aren't as important up front, because that is the legalistic way of looking at property, in a nutshell: there are rules about our material world which are enforced by some social organ.

So we have the OP's scenario of equal damages by value (though not be consequence), but varying the numbers of people who are stealing, and the numbers of people who they are stealing from.

In our present way of looking at property then I think @Banno's got it right -- scenario 1 is worse than scenario 2 because it points to a much more pervasive problem of half a million people stealing, clearly indicating that the "rules" aren't really working, whereas in the second scenario you just have the usual case of a person trying to break the rules.

Consequentially I think 1 is at least worse because it results in one person losing their livelihood, which I'm guessing the scenario is meant to highlight.

The scenario I meant to highlight how value isn't always financial, that squatters steal in accord with the rules, by our rules of property, and the only consequences are utilitarian good -- a greater number of people have comfort than before. But I don't want to justify this ethically. Rather, I want to get under the notion of property as a legal right, somehow. I'm thinking it's the "real" culprit, more or less. In this other notion of property that I'm uncertain how to define, but could point to the practices of anarchists at least as exemplifying it, scenario 1 would take care of the guy who lost his business, and scenario 2 is effectively borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor, just spread out over a million people, and that level of property drift, as far as I can tell, already exists. We don't demand an exchange every time we trade property, after all. (EDIT: though if one person accumulates all the drift, then ala anarchy that'd be a problem -- another difference in these theories of property)

An even bigger ethical problem is presented by money. It's the substance of corruption and the easiest means of injustice. When law is based on property rights - held above human rights, if only because property rights are easy to spell out precisely in law and human rights are hard to define, hard to agree about, hard to set down in black and white and to administer - we have an ethical dislocation. When property is expressed in terms of $ value, which itself is arbitrary and mutable, we have another level of ethical dislocation. If degree of criminality is evaluated in absolute monetary terms - $XX.XX, rather than property taken as % of property owned - we have no ethical standard left on which to base judgment. The legal issue is wholly separate from the moral one. — Vera Mont

This part about it being hard to agree and set down in black and white and administer human rights -- that's a lot of where my suspicions to such approaches comes from. It's an intellectual approach which seems to make arbitrary what really probably shouldn't be arbitrary.

So part of my thinking, here, is to attempt to move outside the framework of "rights", conceptually. And property is a good topic for working through that.

So part of my thinking, here, is to attempt to move outside the framework of "rights", conceptually. And property is a good topic for working through that. — Moliere

I don't think the concept of 'rights' in some form can be removed from a society - of any kind: all social animals have this idea embedded in their organization. But it doesn't need a legalistic form. It's can be taken for granted in all societies that small children are not held accountable for their actions in the same way that adults are, and also that they don't enjoy the same prerogatives that adults do. It can be taken for granted that if one member falls ill, everyone else pitches in to provide for her family; that if a man in injured, his share of the hunt is unaffected. It can be taken for granted that if a grandmother is cold, a chief gives her his blanket - that need supersedes prerogative.

Sum up that notion as something like commensurate ability/responsibility/liability? Small groups of people can manage these concepts quite well among themselves, based on common sense and the common weal.
Native Americans never seem to have had any trouble figuring out who owns their bow and arrows, their beaded cloak, their teepee or their horse. Nobody owns the land, the water, the wildlife, the trees - because those things are not considered ownable: they belong to themselves.

So, I think legalism, with all its pitfalls and injustices, arises from a particular kind of relationship with the world, and with other people. Civilization erects artificial social structures: barriers, strata, hierarchies, functions and distinctions; it allocates goods and resources according to an entirely artificial system of divisions. (And it's madly, fatally dysfunctional)

Heh, well, we certainly disagree on "rights" then. "Rights", like property, arise out of how we interact with one another, and so are subject to change insofar that we interact differently. And I'd lean more towards the notion that nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to social rules: insofar that the social rules do not lead to dissolution of the social organism, then they are permissible in this wider sense I mean, where the social rules cannot be taken for granted. (and, most broadly, extinction is the final stage of evolution, and there have been the death of social organisms before, so even rules which lead to social death are permissible, if harder to pass on)

I think that with small groups it can be easier to understand the "lay of the land", but that they are as diverse as large groups and will also fight over perceived territory within the group and against other groups: that is, property relations are still a source of conflict, even in small groups. Territory is another way of saying "property" -- that is mine, by right, and I will obtain it. (on the other hand, the "bad" anarchy is run purely by the right of might, so non-legal formulations do not necessarily lead to some kind of golden age either -- and it's important to note this! A lot of the reason people believe the state is preferable is to say it's better to consolidate the use of violence to a bureaucracy which adjudicates its proper use which has some kind of democratic control. But that's only true if the state is actually acting in your benefit!)

So, I think legalism, with all its pitfalls and injustices, arises from a particular kind of relationship with the world, and with other people. Civilization erects artificial social structures: barriers, strata, hierarchies, functions and distinctions; it allocates goods and resources according to an entirely artificial system of divisions. (And it's madly, fatally dysfunctional) — Vera Mont

My intellectual heritage, ala Rousseau, would agree with this notion of artificial social structures removing freedom from people who are born free.

But I'm more inclined to see these social structures as a natural part of our living together. If history is a guide, then we are naturally the sorts of creatures which create hierarchies in order to survive against the other hierarchies which also developed -- in a sense hierarchies are more powerful than non-hierarchies, at least at a certain point of economic development, and so they were the "natural" structures which came out of the process of social selection. The non-hierarchical societies could not organize militarily as efficiently, and so were wiped out -- so this just so anthropological story goes, at least.

So rather than point to some kind of pure state of freedom to which we are born in, I'd say that there are material conditions of freedom.

And insofar that those material conditions of freedom are satisfied, then and only then could legal property be morally worthwhile. In the language of rights people would call these positive rights.

But that's the intellectual tradition I'd prefer to break from, because as far as I can tell its social products just aren't working too well -- we can at least agree on that! :D

I think that with small groups it can be easier to understand the "lay of the land", but that they are as diverse as large groups and will also fight over perceived territory within the group and against other groups: that is, property relations are still a source of conflict, even in small groups. — Moliere

There is usually a mechanism for dealing with disputes, so that it doesn't come to a fight that would physically damage valuable members of the group. But land is not an issue where l;and is not individually owned. Hunting territory, OTOH, is disputed with other bands, not among one's own. Wolves and lions contend for leadership, but usually allow the loser to leave - just as exile was an option in ancient Greece. Other animals do fight over mating rights - though rarely to the death. And yes, those are established and acknowledged rights, with no property involved, just the privilege of passing on the best available genes, for the long-term good of the whole colony.

The non-hierarchical societies could not organize militarily as efficiently, and so were wiped out -- so this just so anthropological story goes, at least. — Moliere

That's perfectly true, and the cause of our imminent extinction.

So rather than point to some kind of pure state of freedom to which we are born in, I'd say that there are material conditions of freedom. — Moliere

Now, entirely artificial ones, and even for the most privileged, that freedom is both conditional and limited.

But that's the intellectual tradition I'd prefer to break from, because as far as I can tell its social products just aren't working too well -- we can at least agree on that! — Moliere

Yes, FWIW