Apr 27, 2026
"Would you steal from Whole Foods?"
New York Times Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman asked that question of her podcast guests Jia Tolentino and Hasan Piker, and both said they would — in fact, Tolentino, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker (1), admitted to stealing from the Amazon-owned company "on several occasions."
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The three were discussing the concept of "microlooting," in which people steal small amounts from big corporations like Whole Foods as a form of social protest (2).
That wasn't the only type of theft they were OK with. When asked if they would pirate music from an indie band, controversial influencer Piker (3) responded, "I'm pro-piracy all the way, like, across the board."
Responses to the podcast came swiftly; Thomas Chatterton Williams of the Atlantic wrote that the term microlooting disguised "petty theft in political pretensions (4)." Andrea Jones, who lives in public housing in New York, offered her opinions on Tolentino's statement to the New York Post (5).
"Because of her, they'll raise the price and I have to pay more. She is hurting me, she is not helping me," she said.
But while Piker and Tolentino didn't condemn microlooters, they also noted it wasn't the best form of protest. Even while admitting to stealing small items from Whole Foods, Tolentino said, "It's neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action."
Microlooting doesn't accomplish what it sets out to
Piker says one of the reasons he doesn't feel strongly about microlooting from a moral standpoint is that such theft is already "factored into the bottom line of these mega-corporations regardless."
Whole Foods' owner, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), might be more prepared for theft than the average company because of its focus on automation. In 2022, Amazon opened its first totally cashierless grocery stores (6), although the last of those stores closed in early 2026 (7). Now, Amazon is testing "micro-fulfillment centers" in Whole Foods stores, letting people order products while shopping in the store through an automated system (8).
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While theft is an issue for retailers both large and small, microlooting isn't likely to be a successful form of political action because small, disorganized thefts aren't going to show up as much for a massive company like Amazon, much less inspire significant action in response.
As Piker noted in response to Tolentino’s story of stealing small items from Whole Foods, “The lemons that you stole are factored into the bottom line of these mega-corporations regardless. And they still end up having increased profit margins.”
Tolentino notes that working at Whole Foods and forming a union (9) would be a much more effective way to get back at big corporations than shoplifting.
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Stealing for 'need or purpose'
If microlooting isn't an effective form of protest, then how might it be morally justified?
"It's well within our collective consciousness, that stealing for need or purpose — it's something that we understand and feel quite friendly toward," Tolentino said.
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"If someone needs the food, they should absolutely steal it," says Piker. Prices of certain grocery items have been climbing even more than they previously were since the start of the Iran war, making it harder for people to make ends meet.
But they both drew the line at so-called "dining and dashing" in restaurants, which refers to eating and then dashing out before paying the check, as this would hurt the waitstaff.
"Never. Never! Tip 35%," Tolentino said.
Does microlooting break the social contract?
Another argument both in favor of and against microlooting has to do with the idea of a social contract.
"The social contract, an idea developed by philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, refers to the tacit agreement whereby individuals or organisations give up some freedoms in order to benefit from the greater rewards of social order," wrote Emma Borg, professor of philosophy at the University of Reading in the U.K. (10), in a blog post.
She wrote that an example is how we implicitly agree not to hit others so we can live without fear of being hit ourselves.
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The Atlantic's Williams wrote that microlooting is a "flagrant disregard of the social contract (11)." Piker and Tolentino argue that the social contract was already broken by the corporations people are stealing from.
"It's a cliche at this point, but wage theft is the most consequential amount of theft that takes place in the United States of America," says Piker. He noted that wage theft is a form of structural violence, which can be harder for people to spot than individual forms of violence like shoplifting.
Companies commit wage theft when they withhold wages or benefits from their workers — for example, by withholding tips, not logging overtime pay, not paying minimum wage or making illegal paycheck deductions. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor recovered more than $259 million in back wages for workers (12).
Borg says that, even if it isn't immoral to steal from a business, it still isn't likely to get the results people want. "A much better approach would be to work together to clarify what businesses must do to fulfil the obligations of their social licence," she wrote. That means, she added, using our power as workers, shareholders and consumers to push big corporations to act more ethically.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
The New Yorker (1); The New York Times (2); Newsweek (3); The Atlantic (4),(11); New York Post (5); Business Insider (6); Food Ingredients First (7); About Amazon (8); Labor Notes (9); University of Reading (10); U.S. Department of Labor (12)
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Kit Pulliam is a DC-based financial journalist with over five years of experience writing, editing, and fact-checking financial content. They've covered a wide variety of financial topics, including banking, taxes, budgeting, investing, politics, the economy, and government policy.
