What is the difference between earning money and stealing money?

Question

This may seem like a simple question, but consider this:

A bank robber is not getting money for nothing, they must sacrifce a lot. They first must make a plan, collect the resources to carry out the plan. Then they must sacrifice their safety, freedom, and morals in order to complete the plan.

On the other hand, many people would say that a business owner makes money ethically. However, they take from the environment, pay people with as little as they can, and reap the profits from their exploits.

Can you draw a clear line between the two?

to janis and farien, so if someone blackmails another party into giving them money, then they earned the money?

Answer 1

Your completely and utterly correct in your thinking, 100% correct and to hell with the morels and others beliefs, you are.

We are placed on this earth without equality and with the absence of guarantees. We have to survive, and the rules and laws that govern us are falsely imposed and are thus fictitious.

There are no rules to this place, world or universe but to survive by what ever means.

Sadly, you are correct, 100% so.

For every action in the universe there are equal and opposite reactions, avoid those by strategically planning and concise implementation, and you will not have to be there when the reaction takes place.

That’s just physics. Though it’s the fundamental rule of the universe, get it wrong, and you will be in the wrong place at the wrong time! That’s why there are so many dull individuals living without liberty. Saying that, there are losers and winners in ever walk of life, they too would reluctantly disagree with this statement, stating life is not fare. Oh but life is everything you have the balls to make it my friend.

Edx

Answer 2

You can go back as far as historical evidence will allow and find that stealing is wrong and has always been punished whenever possible. If a bank robber can execute such a flawless plan then he is smart enough to get an honest job and earn the money without the consequences of committing an illegal act. The business owner creates jobs. That in turn creates a need for housing, stores, gas stations, schools, etc. All of that creates more jobs. The Bible says it's wrong, every country has laws against it.

Answer 3

One is acting within the bounds of the laws, and the other is not. You could argue that laws, in any society, are meant to maintain the status quo - i.e. keep the dominating classes dominant, and keep the subsurvient classes subsurvient. Or to to paraphrase the Marquis de Sade: Laws were put in place to prevent the weak from taking back by force what the strong have taken through guile.

There's an interesting and comical essay by Karl Marx (I unfortunately don't remember the title, but I'm sure you could find it with a little research) in which he argues that if people were to somehow become perfectly honest from one day to the next, that would be a catastrophe for capitalist society. Think about it: Policemen, judges, lawyers, security personnel, and all other people whose purpose it is to limit transgressions would suddenly be out of a job. All those whose duties invole keeping accounts to make sure nobody is robbing anybody else would also be out of a job. Those who make prison bars, alarm systems, bankers who ensure transactions are according to the rules, etc..., all out of a job. Most political debate would be unecessary because they all involve disputes that suppose some amount of bad faith, etc... Marx claims the results would be an economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.

Another philosopher who examined the question was Michel Foucault. His "Discipline and Punish" is an exploration of how different society view the role of the discipliarian (the police officer, the prison guard, the judge, etc...) and his counterart (the criminal, the transgressor, the witch, etc...) and how they profess to uphold the social order against all these threats to it. It's quite an interesting read, and reevaluates a lot of assumptions on social roles and status.

For my part, I agree with you that legal and moral are not synonymous. Prostitution is illegal in a lot of places. But whose the victim? By sending that world underground, are we not encouraging more violence to creep in it? On the other hand, a company executive can deny employees their severance pay on bankruptcy, to protect the investors, but neglect to forego his own, much higher severance. It is legal, but it appears to me to be appalingly immoral.
Generally speaking, the exploiter (to use your own term) that operates outside the law, however, is generally not as clever as the one that operates within the law. Gains for the criminal are smaller, more difficult to obtain, and carry the risk of punishment and alienation from society. It is generally easier to thread within the system, which is why most people do.
But whether it is necessarily moral is another question entirelly.

Answer 4

When you earn money, you TRADE your labor (or product of labor, or resources) for the other person's money (or labor, or product, or resources) at a mutually agreed upon rate. When you steal you TAKE the other person's resources and give NOTHING back. There is no mutually agreed on exchange, and whatever efforts, risks, and costs you incurred are of NO VALUE to your victim. Worse, once you're caught, the victim has to pay taxes to feed, cloth, and house you in prison because he's too compassionate to just put a 50 cent bullet through your head, and even then it will cost the society something to bury you.

If the business owner takes so much from the environment he exhausts the resource, he's out of business. If he pays too little, no one will work for him, and he's out of business. He has to COOPERATE with the environment and everyone involved in the business to stay in business.

The key distinction is the CONSENT of the other people involved.

Answer 5

In concept, the government can provide particular centers, that benefit all of society. Being area of that society means which you have signed a settlement that helps the government to take a number of your cash with the intention to pay for those centers. in certainty, however, maximum of that money is used in basic terms to income the firms that very own the government, and to combat pointless wars, that, back, benefit enormous business enterprise and harm actually all and sundry else. jogs my memory of that old word, "No taxation with out representation"

Answer 6

Are you seriously wondering if stealing money is a bad thing? What are you going to say when someone steals something from you?
Are you going to say something like "psh, they deserve it"? They worked hard for it, why not? So according to you, they deserve or have the right to keep that money that you earned? Are you going to say "don't steal"? Well then why not?

Business owner takes from the environment?
You gotta be kidding me. It's more like earning or recieving from the environment.
You obviously don't know how the system works in that area.

Answer 7

The difference is Justice.

A trade is defined as an exchange of goods and or services by mutual consent and to mutual benefit.

The use of force (coercion) in any transaction on any level obliterates the definition of justice and ejects it from rational consideration.

Answer 8

When someone 'earns' money, both parties are willingly involved in the transaction. When someone steals, the victim is not a participant by choice.

Answer 9

The clear difference is that the businessman exchanges goods and services for money. The bank robber exchanges nothing.

Answer 10

I think the difference is the thoughts or feelings you have when you go to bed at night.

What are the demons that worry you constantly?

Thats the difference between earning and stealing

In your story above though the businessman is also stealing, we just dont call him a robber.

So there isnt a difference in the above two but if it were a normal working class guy compared to a bank robber then my initial answer applies.