Rhetorical Analysis: Why I Love Shoplifting from Big Corporations?

Lars Eighner represents the thousands of homeless people that have simply fallen victim of financial struggles, holding strongly onto his respect for others, his community, and himself, despite the difficulties he faces. According to Eighner’s website, he spent time at the University of Austin, Texas studying creative writing, which is clear through his writing techniques and narrative style. However after falling on hard times, Eighner ended up homeless. While homeless in the late 80’s Eighner composed the essay “On Dumpster Diving.” It need not take long for one to find his purpose in writing the essay. Dumpster diving and homelessness are deeply connected to a notion of poor life choices, mental illness, and substance abuse. And while Eighner doesn’t deny that many people he encounters are “winos,” Eighner’s purpose is to represent dumpster diving, in sense, as an art; reclaiming homelessness as “a modern form of self reliance.”

“The Signs of Shopping” by Anne Norton mainly talks about the hidden semiotic meanings behind the concept of shopping. She mentioned how women shopped to obtain a sense of self-identities by spending money to possess property(88). The reading also implies that

If you do shoplift you feel immense humiliation and distrust from friends and family, and your own conscious is hurt if it isn't then there is something wrong with your feelings not to feel bad about stealing from stores. Every time you steal from stores they are set back that much money and might even have to fire someone that could be one of your friends.People in the community lose respect for you.

Shoplifting is a major problem in today’s world. I myself was recently caught shoplifting and now I have to face the consequences for the bad mistake I made. The temptation of not paying for something is very big factor in why people steal. The shoplifter thinks he is getting a product for free and doesn't know what he's really doing to himself and the community. Shoplifting affects yourself, your local neighborhood and the world population.

Up Against Wal-Mart is an article written by Kate Olsen that describes the treatment or mistreatment of Walmart employees. Karen Olsson is a senior editor at Texas Monthly but has also written for big papers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. The article “Up Against Wal-Mart” has also appeared in a non profit magazine Mother Jones. Olsson uses personal testimonies of employees like Jennifer McLaughlin to illustrate the treatment as a Wal-Mart employee. She also uses facts such as lawsuits, the union busting strategies and more. Olsson could be targeting walmart for a plethora of reasons. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer and private employer in the United States. Since Walmart is such a powerful business in the U.S and their

“The World of Wal-Mart: Discounting the American Dream” is certainly a critical look at the infamous multinational corporation, but its focus shifts away from the simple takedown we’re used to and into an anthropological explanation of how Wal-Mart came to be the nexus of the American dream. Nicholas Copeland and Christine Labuski describe Wal-Mart’s rise to ubiquity as a controlled process of normalization, convenient social interest, and an uncompromising vision of neoliberal capitalism. Copeland and Labuski take a critical angle, highlighting the most notorious of the public’s grievances against Wal-Mart and explaining them in terms of their anthropological and sociological consequences. However, little attention is given to a world after Wal-Mart. The final chapter offers the suggestion that the different groups that cite Wal-Mart as their victimizer may team up, but gives no solutions or advice as to where to go from there. The book seems to suffer from the very problems it intends to expose: Wal-Mart has made itself just too big and too symbolic for anyone, including the authors, to even conceive of what can be done to stop or reform them.

What Matt Bromagin really means in the article ¨12 People that were let off way too easily.¨ is that those who are wealthy could potentially shoplift as long as it does not become a habit. This can be proven with Kate Meckler’s case. Meckler is a real estate agent who works for the firm Warburg Realty in New York. She is known to be top 10 grossing agents for the NYC firm. She was involved in the selling of CNBC host Donny Deutchs $21 million East 78th Street townhouse in 2006 according to www.nypost.com. She was also born into a wealthy family. Her dad who was the CEO of www.mediabistro.com and made his fortune from Mecklermedia Corporation, and her

I saw a comercial for Toys R Us on one of the TV's they had ,in the electronics department, and it said that they were hiring people to work at one of thier locations. They used bright colors to attract peoples attention and also a professional spokesperson to read thier message for them. It stated that working there would provide money above minimum wage and would provide good benefits. I think they said that to get peoples attention. It definitely caught my attention because at the time I was looking for a job. The audience was anyone who heard it and needed a job. It was made to inform and persuade people to work there instead of other places.

In the essay “Consumerism Minus Civilization,” the catalyst being described, is the effect of how Black Friday affects the general populous. The author goes on to describe the certain instances of how the holiday sale is actually harming humanity and the consumer market. The ads that are present are not something to be admired or amused by, but instead something to be feared because the affect of the season ruins humanity. The author then references major retail stores such as, “Target” and “Walmart” as some of the worst to breed this competition of Black Friday. With these ideals the author closes by explaining how everyone should take a break go shopping, and go a little later instead of immediately disbanding their homes to then flood

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t right!” shouts the victim in Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery. The same cry is heard in Michael Moore’s film Capitalism: A Love Story. Both narratives describe a system of blind obedience and conformity to a hierarchical social order without any possibility of freedom of speech, free enterprise, fairness, or liberty. Villainous acts are being committed against seemingly innocent victims.

I am glad you chose Black Friday for the topic of your post. Whenever I think of Black Friday, I cringe. I think using a relativist’s perspective is the easiest way to understand why Black Friday is so popular. Relativism asserts that an act can only be defined as deviant if the person witnessing the behavior believes that it is deviant (Adler & Adler, 2016). Deviance, in this example, is dependent on how you view Black Friday. For me, I see Black Friday as a day where all social norms disappear. For instance, common folkways like opening a door for someone, or waiting patiently in line becomes irrelevant. It is considered more normal to trample the person in front of you, and it is not unheard of to read that someone was shot over a “Tickle

In 2009, The National Association of Shoplifting Prevention reported that an estimated 1 in 11 people have committed shoplifting during their lifetime, and that the rates of shoplifting between men and women were fairly close. The Association reported that, “in fact, more than $13 billion worth of goods are stolen from retailers in the United State each year.” Such gross shoplifting, the report

The devastation seen by war begins high expectations of life in the American society. Willy Loman has now faced with repairs and maintenance costs of new possessions like the car and refrigerator. The instability created by ongoing costs spurs the rat race of life cycle of Willy and his sons (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). The environment of capitalism leaves one to believe that the measure of one’s self-worth comes from the ability to buy objects. Cultural conception in society has changed to better suit consumer-based activities rather than actions.

The Christmas season is upon us, and an event that is always relevant to discuss is “Black Friday”. This year, I went pre-Black Friday shopping on the night of Thanksgiving before 10 pm. I went to the Wal-Mart, near my home, and I was alarmed; so many people clustered into the same location of the store hoping to get decent DVDs for $1. I have heard enough horror stories to know that the nickname Black Friday doesn’t always mean good standing for economic numbers. I then went to Target and The Castle Rock Outlet Mall. When I was at Kohls, I had a strange feeling of consumption, as there were humorous Christmas shirts for $4.99. Consumerism doesn’t just affect how we treat other people; it also affects how we feel. I felt that certain locations that differ from socioeconomic standing, effects interaction. At stores where merchandise costs more, there tends to be more friendly engagement; it felt significantly less hostile.

What started as a day when people could easily steal from local Philadelphia stores, then morphed into a holiday shopping frenzy, has now become an environment that allows people go crazy and for it to be considered appropriate by the people around them. Goffman’s theory on social role altering one’s actions and personality can be used to explain this phenomenon. As stores and malls put more effort into handling the possible craziness, or deviance, of shoppers, they get the idea that it is expected upon them to act this way. For example, when a store adds extra security to control the crowds, it’s letting the people in the crowd know that they are expected to need to be controlled. This can also explain the need to buy things that might