>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>
>>Marx didn't condemn an act of stealing newspapers from racks &
>>destroying them for political or non-political purposes, however. As
>>a matter of fact, even prosecutors in this quintessentially
>>capitalist nation committed to the war on crimes have been reluctant
>>to prosecute "thieves," when what's "stolen" was *free* newspapers
>>such as the Brown _Daily Herald_:
>
>Which is a terrible principle, since it means only relations based on
>commodity exchange are respected, while those based on norms of communal
>provision have no status. Such an idea means that only private individuals
>have any property rights that can suffer theft, while communal exchange and
>property has no such status.
Not so simple, Nathan. In this country, nearly all "free" papers are free (& most papers are very inexpensively priced, often below the production costs) because they are financed by advertisements of all sorts, from corporate to personal. "Although most people would say papers sell space to advertising purchasers, the more precise and fundamental description of the activity is that *newspapers sell readers to advertisers*" (emphasis added, Robert G. Picard & Stephen Lacy, "Legal and Economic Aspects in Theft of Newspapers: Using a Model of Newspaper Value," at <http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.tukkk.fi/media/Picard/Publication%2520and%2520Paper%2520Files/Newspaper%2520Theft.pdf+%22theft+of+newspapers%22+racks&hl=en>). Student papers are no exception. Truly, there is no free lunch under capitalism.
Those who are protesting against the "theft" & destruction of copies of the "free" student paper at Brown are unwittingly serving the interests of advertisers (who include but not limited to Horowitz).
>On the other hand, like any crime, it may be justified for the political
>issue it is protesting. Justify the Brown actions on that basis, not on the
>basis that the act - stripped of its politics - was nothing wrong.
Brown students of color correctly acted in protest against the Brown _Daily Herald_ -- a student paper that should be accountable to students -- which sold its soul *and readers* to Horowitz the advertiser for the sake of racist dollars. And they did so without breaking any law (unless Providence and/or Rhode Island has a law against destroying "free" newspapers -- see my postscript below). :-)
Yoshie
Postscript:
***** Despite the significance of the theft issue, prosecutors typically do not bring charges for newspaper thefts of free newspapers, reasoning that one cannot "steal" items of no price (Garneau, 1994, p. 15, Stein, 1995). In 1995, for example, prosecutors refused to prosecute individuals who stole 8,700 copies of Michigan Daily, saying specifically that since "the papers were offered to the public free, they have no value for larceny purposes" (Fitzgerald, 1996, p. 44).
These types of responses have lead to attempts by newspaper publishers to alter laws. To help address the fuzzy issues after a rash of thefts in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Board of Supervisors in 1996 passed an ordinance making removal of stacks of papers a misdemeanor with fines up to $500 (Stein, 1996). Two years earlier, Maryland passed the first state law specifically dealing with theft of free papers with the intent of stopping others from reading them (Garneau, 1994, Chartred, 1994). <http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.tukkk.fi/media/Picard/Publication%2520and%2520Paper%2520Files/Newspaper%2520Theft.pdf+%22theft+of+newspapers%22+racks&hl=en> *****