It's quite simple, really: if you don't get caught, no one will know that you've done anything wrong. If you're really lucky, or really good, no one will ever even realize that a crime has been committed, and then (if you take a subjective, postmodernist view of reality) it's almost as if nothing ever happened at all. Except, presumably, for some net benefit to yourself.

Consider: people are only punished by society if they get caught doing something "wrong". There is the possibility that they will punish themselves with a guilty conscience, but people most often have some means of justifying their actions ("I needed the money more than he did" or "He was a fucking Commie!"). If society doesn't catch you, you haven't committed a crime -- the beauty of being innocent until proven guilty.

Not that I'm advocating any of this, of course -- it's just a sociological observation.

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