Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty, right?

Capitalism has had 200+ years to end poverty and hunger. It has failed, miserably.

In the richest country in the world, the U.S., homeless people in Wisconsin regularly freeze to death.

Under capitalism employers steal so much of the unpaid value of the labor performed by their workers that millions of people rely on food stamps to survive. This is despite these employers making record profits.

Capitalism fails to lift wages for the poor. It does such a terrible job that workers are drowning in poverty, and their only hope is for the government to raise the minimum wage because the capitalist system has failed.

Capitalism is rule by the foxes who are paid to guard the henhouse.

Capitalists are so obsessed with gaining competitive advantage over each other that they use their money to buy politicians and get legislation they want. This is usually at the direct disadvantage of the poor and the working classes.

Capitalism is so inefficient that it cannot connect the unemployed with employers who need work done. It cannot connect homeless people with empty homes. The reason is because profit matters, not people. People benefiting is a side effect, unimportant to the goals of the system itself — making money.

In capitalist nations freedom is based on the amount of money you have. The rich get richer and have more freedom. The poor get much poorer.

Thanks to capitalism the middle class in America is virtually wiped out. Russia has experienced a similar fate. It was the world’s second largest industrial economy, a superpower, and a leader of the Space Race under socialism. But under capitalism for 30 years the economy never recovered. There is no middle class. Oligarchs own most of the wealth. Mass emigration and a negative birth rate are the result. The Ukraine is doing even worse. It is practically a failed state.

If you factor in the Ukraine and other Eastern Bloc nations except for Poland, the graph would look even more depressing.

Compare this to the socialist Soviet Union:

Failed capitalist states. Some of these failed due to civil war. But most did not.

Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Afghanistan, the DRC, Guatemala, Honduras, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Western Sahara, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Turkmenistan…

We have the technological ability to feed everyone on the planet. Literally. In fact the U.S. pays farmers not to grow to capacity or the food markets will have so much supply the price would crash. Under a socialist system the government would pay them to grow enough food for everyone. But capitalism doesn’t work like that — profit is what matters. Since it is more profitable to let people go hungry, that is what happens. But this is no immutable law of nature. It is simply the perverse incentive system baked into capitalism.