Creative people are especially good at ordering their lives so that what they do, when, and with whom will enable them to do their best work. If what they need is spontaneity and disorder, then they make sure they have that, too. Among experienced educators in the family field, there is general agreement that mere rules and prescriptions cannot give this eager audience the competence they desire. Applied inappropriately, the most intelligent advice can have untoward results. What the advice-seeking public requires in addition is the resource to utilize general knowledge effectively in varied circumstances. Moreover, as such adaptability of response develops, the craving for categorical rules frequently, as in other fields of learning, abates; the second baby is less likely to be raised from the book. To be sure, the need for straight information on technical matters cannot be gainsaid. However, specifically with regard to the intimate interpersonal episodes of family life, general information and abstract principles are of minor effect in enhancing competence; demonstration and practice are superior means of changing behavior. The possible sources of confusion about the meaning of competence are less troublesome than a moral issue which the term may evoke. When it comes to the achievement of power in interpersonal relationships, more is gained by dropping than by keeping it. This enables us to dispose of any lingering notion that interpersonal competence implies the mechanical manipulation of others. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The resistance sometimes engendered by referring to power in interpersonal relations can be tracked back to a fear of one person controlling another. Implied in this fear is the assumption that the dominated persons will be exploited or forced to serve ends of which one disapproves. Where dominator and dominated are assumed to seek the same goals, the question of domination is less often raised. The democratic values of freedom and equality imply plurality of values and presume that the values of some shall not be imposed upon others. In government, protection against domination by the stronger is approached through distributing power as widely as possible, and by various checks and balances for maintaining this distribution. It is logically absurd to speak of eliminating power; the threat of domination is countered by equalizing power. Some self-styled realists claim that power is never restrained except by equal and opposite power, and that to expect any self-restraint by the powerful is to think wishfully. Yet, if some self-restraint by fathers and husbands, as well as majorities vis-à-vis minorities, could not be counted upon, the powers of the weaker parties could never develop sufficiently to match the strength of their potential oppressors. Thus, even if power is taken to be the relative strength to dominate or resist, there is every reason to learn how to control the conditions of its growth. Power is the means of access to all other values. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Power may be employed to realize favored or opposed values, to suppress or to foster the development of other persons. The mere fact of possessing power is not evil per se. There is no way of increasing power which guarantees against its misuse, and one cannot realize good ends if one is powerless. So construed, the pursuit of power in interpersonal relations is ethically neutral. In proposing the enhancement of interpersonal competence we are not advocating any one set of institutional values as against any other. The analogy to free public education is fairly exact. Unless citizens are equipped with the knowledge and the skill with which to communicate and judge public policy they cannot participate equally in governing the commonwealth. The purpose of free (and compulsory) public education has always been to make all citizens competent to exercise their voice in making public decisions. In a country where only a small class is literate, self-government is hardly feasible, and so the lifting of education levels generally has become a democratic value. In this same sense, the diffusion of interpersonal competence is a democratic value. It can be employed for good or evil, yet from the standpoint of any one person, it is good to have more of it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

As an anti-democrat, a person would at east want it for oneself, but as a democrat, one would logically want to see everyone at least as competent as oneself. As a program, therefore, the development of interpersonal competence could well be regarded as a proper extension of the value of free public education. The neutral or general value of interpersonal competence, considered as a prerequisite for the achievement of any other values of personality and family life, appeals to neo-Freudians as well as to pragmatists. Dr. Alfred Adler was perhaps the earliest to stress the incessant effort by the person from infancy onward to gain control of one’s World. And Dr. Adler also saw from the outset that the “power-seeker”—the neurotic individual who deliberately maneuvers to dominate others—is a person who, having been unsuccessful in winning their favorable response by normal means, strives to construct a situation in which one can extort involuntary deference. The quest for mastery is a virtually universal motive. Yet no one from, Dr. Erich Fromm, Dr. Karen Horney, Dr. Erik Erikson advocates the domination or manipulation of others, not even of children by parents. All are advocates of some variant of self-realization. And all recognize the dependence of optimal development along self-chosen lines upon one’s social relations with others. At the level of common-sense observation, people are seen to differ markedly in their aptitude or ineptitude for dealing satisfactorily with others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

At the level of theoretical speculation, interpersonal competence as a general phenomenon appears to be based on what certain existentialist philosophers call transcendence. This term summarizes the uniquely human processes of suspended action, memory, revery, foresight, reflection, and imagination, by means of which a person from birth onward escapes progressively from the control of one’s immediately given environment and begins to control it. It is by this freedom from the irresistible instincts and external stimuli, which chain the responses of lower animals, that the human being is enabled to modify one’s surroundings, to plan and create, to have a history and a future. One’s detachment from the present situation provides both the opportunity and the necessity for one to declare one’s own identity and values as an adult. This capacity for transcending the immediately given and thus affecting and reconstructing it invites several levels of explanation, ranging from neurology to prehistory. The explanation most relevant here is the one based on man’s ability to use symbols. Symbolization affords representation at will of that which is not present, and recombination of its elements—whether in language, dreams, art, or play. It is more than possible that inquires into the abstract realms of symbolic processes will produce findings more potent in the development of interpersonal competence than the more proximate behavioral hypotheses. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

The dynamics of petty crime—this study is based on a 9-year, four-phase data collection effort that spanned three states. In phase 1, “active” shoplifters from Texas were asked about the nature and dynamics of their shoplifting behavior. Phase 2 of the data collection effort enlisted the assistance of heroin addicts in Miami to produce a snowball sample of 22 active, drug using shoplifters. In phase 3, we identified 141 shoplifters through a self-report study of criminal behavior among undergraduate students at the University of Miami. Follow-up efforts yielded additional self-report and in-depth interview data specific to their shoplifting activities. The final phase of the data collection saw the researchers accessing 137 known offenders from Kansas who completed a court-monitored diversionary program that was intended for “first-time” shoplifters. This last group of subjects were observed as they progressed through the 8-hour program and approached to be interviewed once it was complete. Collectively, these data afford us access to 320 known shoplifters, 115 of whom submitted to in-depth interviews that are received in this report. The findings paint a complex and varied picture of shoplifting offenders. For starters, shoplifting motives varied within and across offenders. Most stole for financial reasons; however, heightened emotion (stress, excitement), peer pressure, drug/alcohol impairment, and a host of other expressive motivations were also identified. Varied levels of planning, risk assessment, and skill were also observed within and across the shoplifters. These observations stress that shoplifting, like burglary and other forms of crime, is best understood as having a diverse behavioral and cognitive manifestations. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Shoplifting may be the one crime that most people have committed at one time or another in their lives. It is perhaps the most commonly committed crimes. It is widely distributed in the population and appears to cross racial, ethnic, gender, and class lines. Studies have show that one in every 10-15 shoppers shoplifts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that shoplifting accounts for approximately 15 percent of all larcenies. Shoplifting is the most prevalent and most frequent crime among high school seniors over time, with over 30 percent of respondents reporting having taken something from a store without paying on one or more occasions. Shoplifting has been identified as the most common offense for which youth under the age of 15 are referred to juvenile court. Loss is an everyday part of the retail business—it is even budgeted for. However, when sales are low, and shrink is getting higher, it becomes unsustainable for businesses to keep their doors open. Shrinkage described the loss of inventory due to circumstances such as shoplifting, vendor fraud, employee theft, and administrative error. The difference between the recorded inventory and the actual inventory is measure by shrinkage. Recently, retailers have been battling unprecedented losses. Organized retail crime (ORC) is running rampant. A National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) shows that total shrink is 2021 was up 27 percent and is now a $100 billion problem. Some people have been tempted to steal from store, and many have been guilty (at least as children) of “snitching” an item or two from counter tops. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

With merchandise so attractively displayed in department stores and supermarkets, and much of it apparently there for the taking, one may ask why everyone is not a thief. Yes, shoplifting is a relatively unstudied crime. There are few large scale studies yielding systematically collected data. Prior research on this subject tends to focus on small convenience or student populations, criminal justice or store security records, special populations, such as the elderly, juveniles, or psychiatric patients, or involve a few questions about shoplifting as part of a large more general survey. And, while there have been some large scale studies, most of these have been conducted with apprehended shoplifters and have concentrated primarily on demographic data on the subjects. The very fact that shoplifting is so widely distributed in the population enables us to see some things about the origin and motivation for crime that more serious offenses such as burglary and robbery may not. And, explaining why people shoplift may help explain why most of us at some time or another engage in deviant behavior and why some persist in such behavior where other do not. If shoplifting is as prevalent as studies have shown and the losses attributed to shoplifting as great as estimates indicate, this criminal activity has major economic and social consequences and should be more widely and systematically studied. The purpose of this study is to analyze the various motives that underlie shoplifting behavior. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The subjects expressed motivation ranging from pure greed to compulsive behavior over which they felt powerless. Most subjects reported more than one motive for their behavior. All the subjects were asked to explain their primary motivation for shoplifting. They were asked, “Why do you shoplift?” They were allowed to list as many reasons as they believed applied to them, but were asked to be specific about the “main reason you shoplift.” It was difficult to determine the primary motivation driving the shoplifting activity for most of the informants, as they shoplifted for different reasons at different times. Many reported multiple reasons for single shoplifting events. For example, one Sacramento subject stated, “I wanted it. It’s kind of a rush to take things, and I was mad at my mother at the time.” When a subject expressed difficulty listing a primary motivation, the first motivation mentioned was considered primary. In the example above, the primary motive was recorded as “I wanted it.” The subject was then asked if he/she had the money to pay for the item. If he/she said “yes” the motive was classified as “I wanted the item but did not want to pay for it.” If he/she said, “no,” the motive was classified as “I wanted the item but could not afford to pay for it.” A Sacramento student report, “My girlfriend dared me to do it. It was real exciting—I was pumped.” In this case, the motive was recorded as “peer pressure.” This finding of within-individual variation in motivation may be important as most of the literature in criminal decision making suggests a single, stable criminal calculus. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

However, it appears that many of the subjects in this study shoplifted for economic gain on some occasions and to satisfy some psychosocial need on others. Occasionally, the two motive were intertwined in a single offense. “I wanted the item(s) but did not want to pay for it.” Eighty-two subjects listed this motive as primary. These shoplifters admit to having the money to pay for the items they steal, but prefer to steal the items anyway. Over sixty percent (64.6 percent) of males and only 48 percent of females reported this motivation as their primary reason for shoplifting. Many of these subjects also reported on occasion stealing for the thrill or rush, by impulse, or for some other “non-economic” reason. White respondents (43 percent) were more likely than Black respondents (25 percent) or Hispanic (33 percent) to report this motivation. Some examples of their responses included: “I did it because I didn’t want to pay for anything. I’ve got better things to do with my money.” (Sacramento: 18-year-old White male). “I got two kids I gotta rise and I don’t get no help from that sh*t of n ex-husband of mine. They like nice things and it makes me feel good seeing them dressed nice to go to school. It ain’t hard to stake stuff. I just take what I want, anytime I want it. I’ve got 3 televisions and 3 DVD players in my house. I took ‘em all from Wal Mart…I once went a whole year without washing clothes. Just threw them in the basement when they was dirty and ‘went shopping’ for some more.” (Sacramento: 29-year-old Black female.) #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

We will continue with more of that discussion later. There are dangers that center around the coining of phrases to describe some special experience. Words such as “possess,” “control,” “surrender,” “let go”—all containing truth in relation to the ultimate concern, but because of the interpretation of them in the minds of many believers, liable to bring about conditions for the devious offenders to “possess” and “control” those who “surrender” and “let go” to the powers of the material World—if they know not how to discern between the working of the ultimate concern and offenders. Various preconceptions of the way the ultimate cause works also gives offender their opportunity: such as, that when a person is compelled to act, it is a special evidence that the ultimate concern is guiding one; or that if the ultimate concern all things to our “remembrance” we need not use our memories at all. Other thoughts which are liable to bring about the passive conditions which all offenders need for their deceptive workings may also be through assuming that one has no control over anything and everything is up to the ultimate concern. “Christ lives in me,” id est, I do not live now at all. “Christ lives in me,” id est, I have lost my personality, because Christ is now personally in me. “God works in me,” id est, I need not work, only surrender and obey. “God wills instead of me,” id est, I must not use my judgment. “I have the mind of Christ,” so I must not have any mind of my own. “God speaks to me,” so I must not “think” or “reason,” only “obey” what He tells me to do. “I wait on God,” and “I must not act until He moves me.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

“God reveals His will to me by visions,” so I do not need to decide, and use my reason and conscience. “I am crucified with Christ,” therefore “I am dead,” and must “practice” death, which I conceive to be passivity of feeling, thinking, et cetera. To carry out in practice these various conceptions of truth, the believer quenches all personal action of mind, judgment, reason, will and activity in order for the “divine life to flow” through one, whereas God needs the fullest liberation of the faculties of the man, and his active and intelligent cooperation in will, for the working out of all these spiritual truths in experience. Here are some other things that need clarifying. Truth: The blood of Jesus cleanseth. True Interpretation: Cleanses moment by moment. Incorrect Interpretation: Leaves the man sinless. Truth: It is not ye that speaks. True Interpretation: The source is not from the believer. Incorrect Interpretation: The man must not speak nor use his jaws, but be passive. Truth: Ask and ye shall receive. True Interpretation: Ask according to God’s will and you will receive. Incorrect Interpretation: Ask anything, and you will receive. Truth: It is God that worketh in you to will and to do…True Interpretation: The man must “will” and must act. Incorrect Interpretation: God wills for you (or instead of you) and God works instead of you. Truth: Ye need not that any man teach you. True Interpretation: You do not need any man to teach you, but you need Spirit-taught teachers given of God. Incorrect Interpretation: I must not take teaching from any man, but “direct” from God…#RandolphHarris 12 of 18

True: He will guide you into all truth. True Interpretation: The Spirit of God will guide, but I must see how and when. Incorrect Interpretation: He has guided me into all truth. Truth: A people for His own possession. True Interpretation: God’s ownership. Incorrect Interpretation: “Possessed” by God indwelling moving and controlling a passive automaton. Truth: Meet for the Master’s use. True Interpretation: God, in the man’s spirit, using the mind, in the sense of giving light for the believer’s intelligent cooperation. Incorrect Interpretation: “Used” by God as a passive tool, requiring blind submission. What, then, is the condition for safety from the deception of malicious offenders? Knowledge that they exist; recognition that they can deceive the most honest self-actualized; an understanding of the conditions and ground necessary for their working, so as to give them no place, and no opportunity of working; and, lastly, intelligent knowledge of God, and how to cooperate with Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. Revelation is the manifestation of what concerns us ultimately. Revelation is the breakthrough of the unconditioned content of meaning through the form of meaning (der Durchbruch des unbedingten Sinngehaltes durch die Sinnform). Revelation, as faith, has two sides: the subjective and the objective. Subjectively, someone is grasped by the mystery of being. This is the receiving side of revelation, for there is no revelation without someone to receive it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

The subjective reception of revelation is the state of “ecstasy.” Objectively, something occurs through which the mystery grasps the subject. This is the giving side of revelation; it is “miracle.” Ecstasy is not merely emotional feeling, nor is it the cognitive or ethical function. Ecstasy is the state in which reason stands outside itself, that is, transcends itself. The mind is thrown beyond itself by the “ontological shock” or the experience of nonbeing, of the abyss, as happens when the ultimate question is asked: Why is there something? Why not nothing? While the experience of the mysterium tremendum, the abyss, produces the ontological shock, it is the mysterium fascinosum, the ground of being, which overcomes it. A miracle is a “sign-event” which astounds and shakes us, points to the mystery of being, and is received as a miracle in an ecstatic experience. Miracles, though presenting the mystery, do not destroy “the rational structure of reality” any more than ecstasy destroys “the rational structure of the mind.” Miracles cannot be explained by “supranatural interference in natural processes.” The medium of revelation, the object which enters into the miraculous event, can be anything whatsoever—a person, a thing, or an event. For everything participates in the ground of being and meaning, and so is capable of conveying ultimate concern. To live means to experience—through doing, feeling, thinking. Experience takes place in time, so time is the ultimate scarce resource we have. Over the years, the content of experience will determine the quality of life. Therefore one of the most essential decisions any of us can make is about how one’s time is allocated or invested. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

The 2020 COVID crisis had enormous repercussions for the global economic power balance. Effectively it was a farewell to the Western-led World. Though all major national economies were hit, in relative terms, China’s position versus the United States of America, Europe, and Japan became as strong as never before in modern history. Usually it is called a global financial and economic crisis However, it was not really global—at least because China, India, and other large Asian economies, first of all Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as a number of other large emerging economies (LEEs) around the World, retained significant positive growth rates. Created by the United States of America, it was first and foremost an American crisis, and then a Western crisis. The data vividly shows that in 2020 Western powers experienced unusually deep GDP falls—the worst in the whole postwar period and so did small Asian countries highly dependent on Western export markets. On the contrary, China-led large emerging economies of Asia comprised a growing group. The global economy lost $8.5 trillion in output over the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic pushed more than 34 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. The sharp economic contraction, which marks the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression in the 1930s, has lead to an increase in inflation. Recovery remains slow, and there is still a lot to be done to cure various postcrisis economic diseases. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Though the epicenter of the shock lay in the banking and finance sector, the crisis was not purely financial. Behind it stood structural weaknesses of the U.S.A. and European economies and the medical technology, such as unsustainable consumption patterns and the flaws of corporate governance, and lack of medical technology and staff. Also, our economy is consumer based, means people have to spend money to support the government, which is why Americans have such a low level of saving. They are taught to spend every dime they get, and some have no choice. People are left out of the street like trash. It is really a sad state of affairs. To get over it, along with tightening and expanding financial regulations, America and Europe will need painful structural adjustments, especially a severe restraint on public spending and a further trimming of the welfare state. These adjustments will squeeze economic growth and cause high social tensions. In contrast, in the crisis years China and other LEEs proved capable of growing fast, even when Western economics were contracting. At the beginning of the new decade, they are in a good position to preserve strong growth dynamics if not to accelerate. Western societies are frustrated by the poor performance of the developed and mature market economies. In the wake of the crisis, one of the most popular themes in America, Europe, and Japan was the failure of capitalism and the need to strengthen government intervention not only to put the economy back on track, but also in the long term. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

China and other LEE, on the contrary, are accommodating more and more elements of the classical, Angelo-Saxon-style market economy and amplifying market incentives for companies irrespective of their form of ownership. Conventional wisdom says that Chinese state capitalism is different from the Western capitalist system. However, in reality it was exactly marketization and partial Westernization that served as major systemic drivers of China’s economic growth. The second leg of Japanese power—its wealth—is already so well documented it needs little elaboration here. In 1986, Japan became the World’s biggest creditor nation. In 1987 the combined vale of all stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange shot past that of all New York Stock Exchange stocks. The World’s largest banks and securities firms are now Japanese. Japanese buy-ups of prime American real estate, including landmarks like Radio City Music Hall and companies like Columbia Pictures, have ignited anti-Japanese passions in the United States of America. Meanwhile, the United States of America government has become dependent on Japanese investors for nearly a third of the funds needed to finance its deficit, raising fears that a sudden pullout of this support could destroy the economy of the United State of America’s economy. The accumulation of such facts has given rise to predictions that Japan will become an economic Godzilla and dominate the Earth for the next fifty years. Yet Japan’s economic rocket cannot orbit forever. The drive to export goods, and especially capital, will run into progressively stiffer resistance and worsened terms for trade and investment. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

In turn, friction will rise in the richer nations, driving more Japanese investment into the less economically developed countries, where both risks and rewards are potentially high. If large numbers of U.S.A. troops are brought home from Europe, as appears likely the U.S.A. budget deficit could decline, further strengthening the dollars and lowering the yen, which in turn would slow overseas expansion. This would, among other things, drive up Japan’s costs for oil, which is traded in dollars. Japan’s savings rate, already dropping, will decline further as consumer seek more amenity and leisure, and as the fast-growing older population eats into savings put aside during its working years. In turn, both these developments point toward higher interest rates and slower growth over the long term. Worse yet, as every Japanese knows, the Japanese economy is perched atop an immense real estate bubble, waiting to explode at the slightest pinprick. When it does, the impact will send shock waves through the already unstable Tokyo Stock Exchange and radiate instantly to Wall Street, Zurich, and London. Japan, moreover, has a long-neglected backlog of social and political problems. Its discredited political system, corrupt and cumbersome, finds both major parties out of sync with the new realities. (The Liberal Democratic Party depends too heavily on rural voters and needs a stronger urban base. The Socialists are urban, but unable to shake off their obsolete economic and political dogmas.) The decades ahead will find a Japan far less stable than at present, for the era of linear growth is ending. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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