No, they use it to buy lands, resources, mercenaries to get more land and to keep the status quo. I suppose if you are a mercenary you will be fine (as long as your head is not split in 2)
It is exactly the same right now, with the difference that the crumbles of the pie are enough to feed the people. (Housing, health and education is another story)
Software Engineers are being paid for labor, as are the "starving poor" from the original analogy. However, the wealthiest citizens of the world have been amassing wealth at a comical rate for the past few decades, while the poorest citizens have not, suggesting that "Once the evil rich pigs have lots of bread, more than even they can eat", they in the aggregate do not start using it to purchase labor from the starving poor, they tend to hoard it.