this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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From a strict class analysis perspective, yes. As others have said, their social role is to serve as enforcers of capital, just like cops. They may not have the level of power and reach that cops have and are quite a bit more constrained from doing the serious and egregious things cops do, like murdering people of color with impunity - cops obviously do this, but with grocery store security, that isn't a systemic issue like it is with cops. So the magnitude of their class treachery is not anywhere near the scale that it is at for cops. But scale aside, the role they play is still one of using force to defend capital and uphold the capitalist order. And that definitionally makes the people from the working class who fill that role class traitors.
There is another caveat though, another one that sets them apart from cops and provides some wiggle room that doesn't exist for cops. A person can get the job of grocery store security guy, but not actually do the job. The ones who don't actually do what they signed up for, and knowingly avoid doing what their job description would have them do, these are "the good ones." I would contend that there are no good cops because any cop that does not fulfill their duty simply doesn't last as a cop. With cops, as with fascist gangs (same picture I know), if you don't demonstrate your loyalty to the system and your complete adherence to the blue code of silence, you are immediately ejected (or even killed).
as a classic example - he reported other cops for excessive force, it was ruled that he was lying and he was kicked off the force. All that happened long before he... became famous. You don't get to be a cop if you don't do cop shit. Not the case with grocery store security, though.
The store security people who actually do their job and play the role they're supposed to play are traitors, as established. But the ones who are there just to get a paycheck and who purposefully look the other way when someone at the self-checkout is bagging 5 items for every 1 they scan, these ones are fine. They're not class traitors because they're actually being a traitor with respect to the job/role of capital enforcer. It really is a double negative sort of thing. 1 minus -1 = 2. There is no grocery store security culture like there is cop culture that prevents this from happening sometimes. Some chud security guys might like to pretend there is, but in actual practice, it's just not there. So grocery security people have a lot more room to just not do what they were hired to do and in that way, it is possible for someone to get that job and not be a traitor. Unlike cops.
This is why ATTDAB (all tow truck drivers are bastards). The "good ones" tow nobody and lose their jobs
Tow truck drivers are literally just road pirates. Fuck those assholes.
"I feel like you parked illegally, so I'm going to steal your car and you need to pay me $500 to get it back."
But I didn't park illegally. I was allowed to park there.
"Take it up with the owner! Not my problem!"
"Also I fucked up your car when I towed it, but I'm not obligated to pay for that."
(Yeah... sure sure. You'll be "obligated" to pay for all the property damage I'm about to do (in minecraft))
Last time the tow truck assholes stole my car I asked the guy at the desk if he believed in God because he was going to hell. The poor lady who was also there to get her car back got a kick out of that at least.