A bank clerk allergic to money devises an ingenious personal revenge against Italy's web of ingrained corporate thievery in Petri's satire on capitalism and the use of property to define personality. Total (Flavio Bucci) obsessively persecutes a wealthy butcher (Ugo Tognazzi) he sees as a symbol of petty capitalism; rather than take his money, however, he steals the butcher's things: first a hat, a knife, then finally his wife. The unamused businessman at first attempts to bribe Total off, but when he discovers that money will not work he turns to other, more devious and dangerous ways to end such persecution. Petri impressively lightens the pessimistic mood with some unexpected moments of comedy and shocks, balancing a world view both Brechtian and Marxist to cynically reveal that in capitalist Italy, crime rarely pays - unless you're already wealthy, in which case it pays well, and always.