[HDThoreaun]

Rural economies being fucked isn't capitalism's fault. If you don't create valuable things you won't get valuable things, that's true in all economic systems. If you want valuable things you should probably move somewhere where they are being created and get a job there. Forcing rural people to move to urban areas and work in factories is a classic communism move because it turns out people are more productive when near each other. Capitalism just gives people the choice of doing that or staying where they are and being poorer.

Allowing poverty to exist really has nothing to do with capitalism the economic system and everything to do with the political climate in society. Capitalism is just free markets and property rights, it doesn't say anything about government redistribution. Getting rid of markets would not help poor people at all.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

You seem to conveniently ignore the externalities that most people who have investigated them agree are a major component in a corporation like Walmart existing at all.

I would agree with most of what you've written if the price of goods at Walmart actually represented their true cost. But instead, Walmart relies on externalities (the most obvious one is their reliance on their staff being able to collect various forms of public assistance, but there are plenty more) in order to maintain their prices.

[runarberg]

Just for the record, the article in which thread spun from is about the socialist question. It is asking whether there is a reason to your mentality. That is, is it worth it to regulate economies and set up social services such that people don’t have to live at the whims of free market capitalism.

Unsurprisingly for an alumni of the Chicago school the author believes this is still an open question, however this article is kind of well written and everything up to the conclusion—that is the historical breakdown of this question—seems to indicate that socialism is good actually, and Laissez-faire capitalism is bad.