Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[Renton]

So we exploit the desperate and needy to make a profit. That's a major part of capitalism.

What, how did you glean that message from my post?

There is no exploitation. Everyone in the system acts voluntarily and in self-interest and attempts to improve his situation. Everyone who works a job is "desperate and needy" for that job, by your definition, because they are accustomed to a lifestyle that wouldn't be possible unless they worked at that job. The difference for the ultra-poor is that the stakes are life and death for them. It isn't merely a choice between a better lifestyle and a worse one, like it is for a middle class person deciding whether to get a second job or take on overtime hours. Making it as easy as possible for the truly poor to get a job is the best thing that can be done for them. Sweatshop owners do more to alleviate poverty than all NGOs put together.

If we all had enough to feed, clothe, shelter and educate our family this wouldn't be an issue.

There is no "enough." There is only the making of the best of the situation given the circumstances. Every person at every level of income strives for a higher standard of living. There will always be more needs than there are fulfillments of those needs. If there was an infinite amount of everything, there would be no need for economics.

I understand what you're saying and don't have an answer on how to do it better. But that doesn't mean the exploitation you refer to should just be considered acceptable. Just because I can't find a better way doesn't mean the current way is right. You must at least acknowledge it leaves a bad taste in your mouth that sone are so rich they have 5 Ferraris and others can't afford to feed their kids.

The rich people are not the problem. In a free market, people are rich because they made a lot of money for a lot of people. Many of the people with five ferraris made that money by pulling thousands out of poverty in the third world. Income inequality is only a problem when the wealth concentrates as a result of political power. Heavily taxing the rich punishes the risk taking behavior that leads to economic growth, because the taxes do not take into account the unseen people that went bankrupt from their ideas instead of getting rich from them. Heavily taxing corporations is an even bigger disaster because is a direct drain on the resources that would be otherwise used in expansion or investment into risky new projects that spur innovation and job creation.

I guess we'd get less growth. If we were in a position where we simply didn't have the resources to feed everyone then you'd have to accept that growth should be the priority. But as we already can, we could accept a slower rate of growth for the sake of better distribution.

If we distributed all of the resources to feed everyone, they would just multiply and produce more needy people. Incentives affect behavior. The most distributive countries are the ones with the highest unemployment and national debt. Economic freedom and the growth that results is the only consistently demonstrated cure for world poverty.