If you don't have anything then nobody will steal from you

When I went to school in the 1970s I used to take a briefcase and very often I would have a PE bag. I could leave them in a corridor in the morning and pick them up at any time during the day. Today pupils all have lockers. We are a security conscious society and there seems to be an ever increasing need for greater security.

We are also a wealthier society. In the early 70s nobody had a video and it was common to have just one television and maybe one car per household. go back a few more years and cars were really quite rare. Now we have many televisions in a house. There is more than one car in many households.

If we become wealthier then we have more to lose. We become more security conscious and spend more money to protect ourselves. There must be a link between increasing wealth and an increased need for security. I would suggest that there is an irony here because the need for greater security makes us feel less secure. You don't need to worry about thieves if you have nothing to steal. My mother used to joke that if any thieves broke in she would share it with them if they found anything. Perhaps if we thought about reducing the class divide we could all feel more secure.

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