ABSTRACT
Use of materials and services for personal ends, individual or group, is, of course, officially forbidden, for in both plant theory and popular usage this is theft. That in some sense is theft, may, in the context of preserving the group and solving present problems, lose much or all of its odious overtones. Always there are genuine transitional nuances, with debatable margins, between covert internal theft and tacit inducement or reward. Immemorially the esteemed personality who also performs unique services can move closer to "theft" than others without censure. Theft may also be enforced in the group and occur systematically over a long period. In crossing the middle ground between understood theft of materials and their controlled use as inducements and rewards, one must always fight the sheep-or-goat concept of truth. The theft intelligencer compensates for this defect. Evidently leaks of information at the technician's hospital transformed the plan of salary supplementation into a problem of theft.
