Nothing compares to the feeling of elation, of burdens being lifted, and constraints escaped...
...that I feel when I walk out of a store with their products in my pockets.
In a world where everything already belongs to someone else...
...where I'm expected to sell away my life at work in order to get the money to pay for the minimum I need to survive.
Where I am surrounded by forces beyond my control or comprehension...
...that obviously are not concerned about my needs or welfare.
It is a way to carve our a little piece of the world for myself...
...to act back upon a world that acts so much upon me.
It is an entirely different sensation than the one I feel when I buy something.
When I pay for something I am making a trade.
I am offering the money that I bought with my labor, my time, and my creativity...
...for a product or service that the corporation wouldn't share with me under any other circumstances.
In a sense, we have a relationship based on violence.
We negotiate an exchange, not according to our respect or concern for each other...
...but according to the forces that we can bring to bear on each other.
Everything changes when I shoplift.
I am no longer negotiating with faceless, inhuman entities that have no concern for my welfare.
Instead, I am taking what I need without giving anything up.
I no longer feel like I am being forced into an exchange...
...and I no longer feel as if I have no control over how the world around me dictates my life.
I no longer have to worry about whether the pleasure I received from the book I purchased...
...was equal to the two hours of labor it cost me to be able to afford it.
These and a thousand other ways shoplifting makes me feel liberated and empowered.
"You dropped something."
"Thanks."
"Thank you."
The shoplifter wins her prize by taking risks.
Not by exchanging a piece of her life for it.
Life for her is not something that must be sold away for seven or eight dollars an hour...
...in return for survival.
It is something that is hers because she takes it for herself...
...because she lays claim to it.
Shoplifting is a refusal of the exchange economy.
It is a denial that a monetary value can be ascribed to everything.
"Hi."
"Was she good?"
"Very good."
"Hi, sweetheart."
"And we had a lot of fun. Didn't we?"