Theft as social justice

Is robbing the Louvre a good idea? Left-wing influencer Hasan Piker and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino did a much-discussed video interview with The New York Times on the ethics of theft, and came out four-square in favor of stealing things, including artwork from the Louvre. They consider larceny an appropriate response to the inherent corruption and injustice of the American capitalist system. The merits of this position aside, it's not clear why it justifies stealing paintings or sculptures from a museum owned and operated by the government of France. When asked about the propriety of hitting up the Louvre, Tolentino heartily endorsed it, and Piker explained: "Yeah, I think it's cool. We gotta get back to cool crimes like that. Bank robberies. Stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature." Oh, yes, who wouldn't love to see someone make off with the Venus de Milo and chop it up into pieces and sell them on the black market? What Piker and Tolentino are doing, at bottom, is romanticizing violence for its own sake, wrapping nihilism in the rhetoric of social justice. It is radical chic for 21st century opinion-makers, and one can only rue that Tom Wolfe isn't still with us to lampoon it. It is certainly true that American folk culture has a fascination with outlaws, and heists are great fodder for books and movies. But "Ocean's 11" is not real life. The jewel heist at the Louvre last year was carried out by common thieves, while the crown jewels they took have yet to be returned. This theft didn't strike a blow against the French monarchy, because there is no such thing, but it did deny ordinary people — roughly 10 million visit the museum every year — the opportunity to see things of beauty and historical significance. In other words, the heist was victory over the public interest, and our social-justice warriors pronounce themselves delighted. As for bank robberies, they are not at all as portrayed by Hollywood. If Piker really thinks it's cool for some desperate guy with poor impulse control to hand a note to a bank teller demanding money, then usually get caught and sent to prison, he needs to get out more. That this category of crime has drastically declined over the past few decades is a boon — including to people employed as tellers and security guards — and wishing to return to the days when it was more common is perverse. It's like saying what this country needs is more grand theft auto. Those groups in the U.S. that have acted on an impulse for revolutionary violence rather than simply talk about it on podcasts — including by robbing banks -- created pointless suffering and destruction. The Symbionese Liberation Army's robbery of a San Francisco branch of the Hibernia Bank in 1974 must meet Piker's definition of "cool." It was certainly cinematic, since it involved the kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst. The politics of the crime, meanwhile, were impeccably correct; Hearst said afterwards that it "forced the Corporate State to help finance the revolution." Two bystanders were shot, and then weeks later, members of the SLA were tracked down and died in a ferocious gunfight with police. And for what? In 1981, members of the Black Liberation Army and former members of the Weather Underground robbed a Brinks armored car in New York. Surely, this is another event that meets Piker's test of an alluring, politically righteous crime. The radicals killed a Brinks guard and two Nyack police officers — heedless murders dressed up in a toxic ideology still fashionable on the left. If a violent social revolution were truly to break out, it'd presumably target the affluent Piker and Tolentino, whose homes, cars, and other possessions would be tempting to anyone stealing things in the name of social progress. At that point, one assumes, they'd find crime less fun, but it's perfectly acceptable as long as it's someone else getting robbed.