Scrumping

Tuesday 1st February
Can I take what isn’t mine? As kids we lived near orchards and at the end of summer the trees were laden with apples. The idea behind ‘scrumping’ is, of course, theft.
Kids scrumping apples from orchards is the benign end of theft. It’s not the crime itself but the way it’s seen – our society is outraged at some crimes and not others. We aren’t consistent in the way we regard crime but quite apart from moralising about theft, we can look at it simply in terms of ‘getting away with it’, weighing the pros and cons - to steal or not to steal. We like a bargain and stealing is better than a bargain, it’s free. You can’t pass up opportunity ... so, cycling past an orchard, all those apples just lying around waiting to rot.
It could be apples or stealing food from the animals - it’s too easy. The animal is there, docile, imprison-able, biologically impelled to produce useful products for humans - they’re an investment opportunity because they always produce what people want.
Humanity, down the centuries, benefit at the animals’ expense. Stealing from animals is legal and profitable. Why on earth wouldn’t we use animals?