Abolish "mandatory" work.
Now you can keep working if you want to. It was easy.
Now you can keep working if you want to. It was easy.
EDIT: Ok, so I fired the comment and thought about it more afterwards. What I said is true in most cases. If a store wants to take you to court, they definitely can. Question is, would they? In most cities (Germany), they lock the containers to prevent 'stealing' in the first place. What really puts me off - and aligns with the original discussion - is, that this system is definitely not set up for people to not work. Even so, that they say, eating other peoples trash is not okay. You HAVE to work.
White-collar crimes constitute 3% of federal prosecutions. Additionally, prosecutions have been on the decline for the past several years. Add "the fear of going to jail" to your list of illusions.
Physically you can. Legally not.
The issue you are identifying here might be physics and reality rather than a political problem. ironically food does grow on trees, but it is still "mandatory" to work to prepare it if you want to eat it. You can't escape that.
The latter isn't waste on the whole - somebody is getting a service in return. Then there's a separate question of what the worker is getting (for work that is meaningful to them and for work that isn't); that's one of the topics of the original post.
Edit: I see I'm getting down-voted. Same thread, different comment I say a bit more about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29934623