BY STEWART SLATER
Virgil started the Aeneid in medias res as a matter of choice. I start this piece in the same way out of necessity, for the altercation was already in progress when I got to the supermarket. What follows may, therefore, not be a strictly accurate record of events.
As best as I could tell, Mr A had met Mr B on the bus whereupon the latter had confessed he had no money for the fare. Mr A appears to have sorted the problem out for him and given him £5 to buy a sandwich. Whether separately or together, they had ended up in the supermarket, Mr A going about his business, doubtless feeling good about his act of generosity. Mr B chose a sandwich and a drink and proceeded to consume them on the premises.
Confused, the cashier asked Mr A if he was going to pay for Mr B’s food to which he pointed out, perfectly reasonably, that he had already given his new acquaintance the funds to do so himself. Mr B denied having any cash and got agitated, asking his benefactor if he was “talking to me”, suggesting, perhaps, a certain familiarity with the works of Mr Robert de Niro. Voices were raised, threats of a type generally suggestive of a big mouth and a small penis were issued, a shove was given and then Mr B ran off into the day, past the security guard who had appeared to see his role in the episode as spectator rather than participant.
I may lead a sheltered life in my leafy corner of South London, the more “Buckety” residents of which swear is actually in Kent, but this was the first time I had witnessed an event of a type which is, I understand, now common in those benighted areas of the country not inhabited by elderly Conservatives. And, as such, it made me wonder why it happened.
Mr B was certainly agitated. Did he have some sort of problem? Was he on something? Or was he just an a***hole? I cannot say. That it was, to me so far, an isolated incident does not, of course, make it an isolated incident and since such episodes appear to occur with increasing frequency, perhaps the specifics are unimportant.
If, instead of seeing it as a one-off petty crime, we think of the episode as a transaction, it had one winner. Mr B ended the day having had free transport, free food and with a fiver in his pocket. The other parties were losers – the supermarket had funded his food, and Mr A his transport and pocket money. His behaviour may have been anti-social, but from the point of view of the dismal science, he was that rarest of beasts, “the rational economic actor”.
But only in the short-term. For our system relies on people not seeking to maximise their economic advantage beyond certain limits. If sufficient numbers of people walk out of the supermarket with a can of Pringles down their trousers rather than in their shopping bag, then it becomes irrational for the company to open its shop in the morning. The problem with shoplifting is that do it too much, and there is no longer a shop to lift from.
The difficulty with such arguments is that, while they are true, they are unconvincing. We know that there is a tipping point at which others will take action, but we do not know exactly where it is, which makes it easy to believe that our individual action will not trigger it. Just Stop Oil may believe that continually throwing liquids at paintings will eventually lead galleries to beef up their security, but since that is costly, and since such places generally wish to optimise their visitors’ experience, they are unlikely to do so when Persephone and Isolde decide that the Canaletto would look better with some more orange on it.
The best way to ensure that society stays on the right side of the tipping point is to reduce the number of members tempted to move towards it. Shop-lifting is not a problem in a society in which no-one wants to shop-lift. But acquiring things is a natural human instinct. Millennia of evolution have taught us to maximise our resources and minimise the cost of acquiring them. If we are to restrain this instinct, society must persuade its members there is something they want more. Humans have developed all sorts of ways of promoting restraint, the main one in the West being to posit an all-seeing judge who offers an eternal reward to the well-behaved. Stealing a sandwich, hoody, restaurant customer’s Rolex may satisfy an immediate need for acquisition but if it comes at the cost of spending the rest of time in Hell, is it really worth it?
More Earthly methods are, however, available.
Lee Kuan Yew, arriving in 1950’s London marvelled at a society so restrained that a news-paper seller could leave a tin on his kiosk when he left it for a “nature break”, confident that in his absence, passers-by would use it to pay for their journals rather than walk off with them. Vowing to create a similar society in Singapore, he more or less achieved his aim (more or less, the country is one of the few to see an outbreak of civil disorder over the toy in a McDonalds Happy Meal).
But whereas 1950’s London was restrained largely as a consequence of the bottom-up beliefs of its population, Singapore became restrained because of the top-down actions of its government which instituted (and was happy to use) a fearsome penal code. Whoever governs the country “must have that iron in him” Lee said and there was little doubt that he did, regularly bemoaning the fact that he could only execute drugs dealers once rather than the 100 times he felt appropriate. There is little crime in Singapore because Singaporeans came to know that crime costs the criminal. Often quite a lot.
Britain today has neither carrot nor stick. Our lack of a unifying belief system means society no longer offers anything beyond the satisfaction of our instinctual impulses. Nor do the authorities show Lee’s zeal in tackling crime, allowing those who commit it to believe they will get away with it. Where the state has stepped back, society has not stepped forward – the guard at the supermarket did not intervene (perhaps under orders from his employers) nor, to be strictly fair, did I.
But if we have no reason to wish to be good, and the government does not force us to be good, why will we be good? As I pondered the events in the supermarket, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, while I had seen my first shoplifting, I had probably not seen my last.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.