Every year there's billions of dollars a year in wage theft. The economic cost of just minimum wage violations is about the same as the economic cost of shoplifting, and that's only one type of wage theft.

Surely as an advocate of strong law enforcement, you want wage theft to be criminalized (it's often a civil law, not criminal), with equally stiff penalties, yes? That would be kinda neat - your boss steals $50 of your pay and the police are right there to toss that thief in jail for a month. You boss wouldn't dare illegally split your tips with other staff then!

As an observation, stopping wage theft against people earning minimum wage might even mean they can afford to buy things instead of stealing them.

> A. What are you going to do? Let them shoplift whenever they like?

The world is not all-or-nothing.

For one, the store can hire its own guards instead of using a tax-subsidized police force.

For another, you know that stores plan for and can afford some shrinkage, right? Many stores added self-checkout and mobile checkout despite knowing that shoplifting rates for them are higher than having a cashier.

Should we follow your proposal and use more police to enforce protection against shoplifting, surely many store owners will gladly fire more cashiers.

> Stores also close when shoplifting gets too extreme

Which is rare. "Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up" https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifti... which also points out that Walgreens backtracked on its claims that it closed five San Francisco stores in 2021 due to organized shoplifting.

It also gives some reasons for why a company might make false claims in the first place.

> with strong external community programs to help people avoid feeling the need to shoplift,

Which programs were you thinking of? If it involves significantly higher taxes on the wealth, including a global wealth tax, resulting in a livable social safety net, then that will likely help reduce shoplifting by a lot.

But some people regard that as too high of a cost.

I don't want to be at the point where we have to decide if Jean Valjean should deserve five years of prison for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family.