Day 80: Excess

This evening after dinner I went for a walk with Fianna in our area.  As we passed a restaurant near Place de la Concorde I told Fianna how a few weeks ago I happened to go that restaurant with a colleague. I happen to know that this colleague is very well paid and yet as we were walking away from the restaurant after our meal he showed me that he had managed to steal one of the cordless lamps that they put on the terrace tables as the sun goes down.  I must say I was shocked and disappointed in my colleague.  Some of you might say of course I was right to feel as I did, its immoral to steal, others might mock me as having a bourgeois sense of morality.  Actually I find stealing a complicated issue.  One of my guiding life principles is not to do to others what I do not want done to me.  Since I would rather people not take stuff from me without my permission I try to avoid doing that to others.  But if I have too much of something (duplicate books, too many clothes, extra furniture)  I would actually be happy for people to take (or steal) them from me.  So does that mean that stealing a 1 Million€ from someone who has 2 Million€ is OK?  After all, 1 million € is more than most people will ever have in their lifetime so stealing 1 out of 2 is just relieving them of useless surplus.

In many films we cheer the friendly, charming criminal as long as he or she is stealing from "bad" people or doing it in a clever way. That would seem to indicate that stealing is not an immoral act in itself it entirely depends on the method, the personality of the perpetrator and the character of the target.

At what point does stealing just become practical redistribution?