People are doing massively parallel theft, betting that they are too many for the police to arrest. So far, it seems to be working. If it continues to work, there are only a few options:
- Businesses accept this as a price of doing business.
- Businesses close because they can't live with this as a price of doing business. Now, if it's high-end stores, that may not be a huge loss to society. But something similar is also happening to drugstores, and people actually need drugstores.
- Businesses beef up their physical security. Maybe something like outside security cameras plus electronic locks on the doors that can only be opened by the people inside.
- Businesses beef up their security by hiring guards. But there probably aren't that many people who are willing to go the rounds with intruders armed with crowbars while unarmed themselves. Sooner or later, that's going to result in looters getting shot. And when it does, that's going to result in widespread outrage, at least among some segments of society.
If you (as a society) won't provide sufficient policing to protect stores, and you won't let the stores protect themselves, then you're either going to have very expensive stores, or you aren't going to have stores. And even the very expensive stores option is facing a feedback loop: They're expensive, so more people feel justified in stealing, so the store becomes even more expensive... That's not sustainable.
So the end result will be no stores. That's a kind of post-capitalism, but I'm pretty sure it's not what most people have in mind by the term.