In virtually every nation and society, theft is considered to be a crime, and the punishment for thieves and robbers can range to something very mild, such as a reprimand or to actual prison time, depending upon the severity, the justice system, and the incorrigibility of the thief. It does seem strange though, if thievery is so frown upon, that characters such as Robin Hood, known for his stealing from the rich in order to give to the poor; or Jean Valjean from Les Miserables, who stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew, was then arrested and thereupon sentenced to nineteen years of hard labor, only to in the end, to demonstrate the nobility of his character to such a high extent, that Inspector Javert, his nemesis, fatally recognizes that Jean Valjean is a more noble man than he, mainly because Javert had become an obedient pawn to the letter of the law, thereby unable to overcome such; of which these two archetypes , though thieves, are well respected as men of high character.
We presently live in a world, very neatly divided between the haves, and the have-nots, and whereas there are certain countries that have developed a middle class, as well as upward mobility, the dividing line between the privileged and propertied class, and the disparity between the very rich, and the impoverished, is to a very large extent, no different than what it was at the time of Robin Hood or of Jean Valjean. In no uncertain terms, the rich, powerful, and connected run the show, which is the very prevailing reason why there are so many with so little, and so few with so much.
This signifies that laws that make robbery and thievery a crime, in all circumstances, and in all conditions, fundamentally must be wrong, for the poor are entitled to a fair return for their labor and for their effort, and to not have such, in this modern day and age, when there never has been so much material richness, is unacceptable. So too, thievery or general unrest is going to be the result of having pockets or even huge swaths of the population that are ill educated, ill housed, treated unjustly, and given little or no opportunity to fairly develop their inherent talents.
The poor of this world have rights, of which, they are entitled to a fair opportunity for decent housing, decent education and decent healthcare, and if these things are lacking, the end result, more often than not, will be crime or civil unrest, of which America, a land with endless reams of laws upon laws, criminalizes just about everything. The whole reason why the rich in the past as well as in the present, set themselves apart from the masses, is because they know that they have done the masses wrong, and because the rich live so well, they don't want to risk their good health and their good treasure, being raided, justly or not, from those that have little or nothing.
In point of fact, if the government will not fairly and appropriately tax the rich, in order to help and to assist the poor, and many governments do not; then the poor have the inherent right to tax the rich in their own way, for surely they have little to lose, except for the heavy chains that have been unfairly foisted upon them.