I’m Not Like These Brats Stealing Lemons From Whole Foods

By Jean Valjean

Illustration by Gustave Brion, from Maison de Victor Hugo.

Most people hate haute-radical talks about the ethics of stealing — like the recent one from the New York Times — because they’re a sub-kindergarten-level of “debate”. I hate them for a different reason: I know that at some point, my name is going to come up. And sure enough, ten minutes in, that New Yorker writer — who must be the most dunkable public figure since Shawn Bradley — mentioned me. It happens every fucking time — I’m the ur-example of justifiable theft, to be cited forever by trust fund kids who want to steal daydrift pants from Lululemon.

But here’s the thing: I am nothing like those bratty, cosplaying rich kids. For starters: I’m fictional. That’s actually why my situation is ethically justifiable — I’m less of a character and more of a thought experiment. But if I had lived, I lived during a time that is so dramatically different from present-day America that the story might as well be sci-fi. Rationalizing theft because of my tale is like rationalizing animal abuse because Fred Flintstone used a bird as a record player.

Les Miserable starts in 1815. Any history buffs reading will know that in 1815, France had just lost a fucking world war! We had to pay reparations three times our annual budget, which is why we shifted to a prostitution-and-pulled-teeth-based economy. That came after decades of suffering through the seven plagues of pre-industrial economies: droughts, floods, freezes, hail, fungus, boll-weevils, and shit-for-brains leaders who are worse than the other six things combined. Hugo began writing Les Mis in 1845, right in the teeth of “the Hungry ‘40s”, a continent-wide economic collapse caused by potato blight. And I know that America has been brought to its knees by a kinda-substantial rise in the price of eggs (What’s that? It’s already over? Interesting.), but consider that paying a tad more for eggs is not the same as spending three decades subsisting on fleas, rocks, and one single garbanzo bean at Christmas.

I stole bread to feed my widowed sister and her seven kids. If my sister lived in the US in 2026, she would get social security survivor benefits. Her family would be covered by CHIPS and Medicaid, programs created and expanded by “neoliberal” presidents that Piker treats as the moral equivalent of Pennywise the clown. She’d be eligible for food stamps, the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other forms of assistance. And I’d surely be able to find a job in America’s famously-high-employment economy, since I’m strong, capable, and always played by someone with roguish good looks like Hugh Jackman or Dominic West.

Do you remember what I did after the whole bread-and-prison kerfuffle? I started a business (and also considered letting my future son-in-law bleed to death in the street, but let’s talk about the factory). The book goes into detail about the prosperity my factory created: People got jobs, and I used the profits to supplement workers’ wages and fund health care — it all sounds pretty neoliberal! But you know what I didn’t do? Let people steal. Because if I couldn’t sell my goods for profit, the whole operation would have gone tits-up. And then my workers would have had to go back to traditional French occupations, such as prostitute, mime, prostitute, syphilis-riddled painter, painter-prostitute, and opium-addicted philosopher who is also a prostitute.

Did you know that I’m based on real guy? It’s true: I’m based on Eugène Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a prominent member of society. Vidocq, like me, was an entrepreneur who employed low-status members of society. He also — wait for it — founded a private police force! In fact, Vidocq is sometimes called “the father of the French national police force” — the real me did not support lawlessness! I don’t know if Vidocq would have thrown that little fucker Gavroche face-down on the cobblestones and cuffed him — Gavroche, too, is fictional, so we can only speculate — but we know that Vidocq was on the other side of the revolt in the book! Real people are complex! Alas, I am not, because I’m Vidocq filtered through Victor Hugo and exist merely to embody the concept of an ethical person forced to break the law.

So, sure: If you find yourself in post-Napoleonic France, and your sister’s husband squirts off seven rounds and then croaks, feel free to hit the nearest Au Bon Pain — which in France is called “Barney’s Bread Barn” — and steal what you need. But if you’re not in that situation, don’t pretend that you are. Modern countries have exactly the type of safety net that’s missing in Les Mis, and it’s weird that the descendants of those highly-successful movements sometimes pretend like nothing has changed. But it did change — you won, you fuckin’ losers! You’re rich, healthy, and well-insured; the only women selling their hair in 2026 are cam models making millions on OnlyFans (and they get to keep the hair on their head). So, next time you have this conversation, leave me out of it, or better yet: Just don’t have this conversation at all.

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