The dialectic of stealing

Dialectic again in the Platonic sense on display in The Sophist and The Statesman.

While a dialectic of the means of stealing may warrant its own treatise, this post confines itself to the motivation behind theft.

Since theft is defined by a loss of property, that is a given. However, there is room for asking what happens to the stolen property. If it changes owners, we're talking about seizure, and it may reasonably be assumed to have been motivated by a desire to own the acquired good.

But it is also possible that the stolen good is destroyed in the process. If that is the case, the motivation is to weaken the victim, but this warrants closer inspection, because there are two quite different motivations for wanting to do so. Of course, the motivation might be hostility, that is wanting to see as little of the victim as possible, and then we're talking about undermining. But it is also possible that the intent is to change the relations with the victim in a meaningful way. However, if one makes someone weaker, that means that one wants him to turn somewhere for support, and hence we're talking about reining in*.

But whether we're talking about seizure, undermining or reining in, the response of the victim will always be anger.

* a further distinction could be made depending on whether the victim knows who the thief is and bows down before him, which would be reining in proper, or doesn't know it and unwittingly falls for the scheme, which would be tying up, but the rationale for either would be the same.