[ryandrake]

Unfortunately the Cruelty Industry is huge and there is a lot of money to be made putting the screws to the most financially vulnerable people.

Banks, the lending industry (including credit card companies, mortgage and student loans), debt collectors, repo men, payday loan stores and check cashers, not to mention the entire legal system, ugh... To me it's sick that they can upend someone's life just because they didn't pay a bunch of bills. Society collectively has the wealth to treat the less fortunate with grace and dignity, with compassion and forgiveness, but it's more profitable to find fault, then squeeze everything out of them and leave them by the side of the road.

A lot of people fold their arms and smugly say "Well, they made bad choices and deserve it all." Whatever lets you sleep at night, I guess.

[frmersdog]

It is really a problem that so many people in America make a living - what they consider a decent, respectable, fulfilling living - in positions where it's their job to make someone else's life worse. I don't think we've fully considered the deleterious social effects this has. It's not just rent-seeking, with all the perverse incentives that entails. It's rent-seeking on widespread suffering, with all the perverse incentives that THAT entails.

[immibis]

there is no "we" - no overarching moral force that makes these decisions. Banks ruin people's lives for money just because they can. Those people could retaliate on banks, but they choose not to because they were taught morality, which puts them at a disadvantage.

[BehindBlueEyes]

i'm not convinced the people whose lives are ruined by banks are in a position to retaliate.

we is in theory the government chosen by the people to give direction to society and enforce it. In practice, i think the political systems in place fail to serve that purpose unfortunately (regulations too easily manipulated by lobbying/propaganda, fake choices to vote on, largely self serving to maintain a hierarchy of exploiters vs exploitees)