socialism v/s capitalism (trigger warning)

A friend, appreciating the thought process, posted this message on a group recently….

A guy looked at my Corvette the other day and said,
“I wonder how many people could have been fed for the money that sports car cost?

I replied I’m not sure;
it fed a lot of families in Bowling Green, Kentucky who built it,
it fed the people who make the tires,
it fed the people who made the components that went into it,
it fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for the wires,
it fed people in at Caterpillar who make the trucks that haul the copper ore.
It fed the trucking people who hauled it from the plant to the dealer
and fed the people working at the dealership and their families.

BUT,… I have to admit, I guess I really don’t know how many people it fed
That is the difference between capitalism and the welfare mentality.

When you buy something, you put money in people’s pockets and give them
dignity for their skills. When you give someone something for nothing, you
rob them of their dignity and self-worth.

Capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value.
Socialism is having the government take your money against your will and
give it to someone else for doing nothing.

As usual it got me thinking, is this really true.

To me, this system sounds a little broken…

how did the person earn all the money to be able to buy a corvette and help so many people in the process? A hunch says he was a businessmen or maybe an artist. So the way he earned his money was either by producing something for 20 bucks and selling it for 200 bucks (correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that what business is about, earning a profit by bridging the supply-demand gap)… or, if he was an artist, he was part of a system that prices art at an exorbitant figure so that the Nouveau riche can pretend to be connoisseurs in a hurry and the person who truly appreciates the art has to make do with cheap copies (like say illegal downloads of movies for those who cannot afford the time and money for a theatre ticket)… essentially by all accounts obscene money was actually made by piling on profits to the cost of a cheap product and creating an artificial demand (thereby also adding advertising and other costs to the price)… there are many more aspects of this analysis and I could quote the DeBeers story as well in this discussion however for our purpose let’s just say money to buy the Corvette came from selling toothpaste that cost 2 rupees to manufacture and was sold at 20 rupees for a 100gm tube…

Now does the whole argument seem correct anymore? Yes socialism is not perfect. Capitalism on the other hand is also not perfect.

First you create poverty by pricing daily use products so much more higher than cost price (and adding taxes to that price) that the common man ends up shelling out all his earnings on the bare necessities of life. You justify the pricing as catering to a demand. You make obscene profits out of this venture and then you go and buy an over priced car to reward yourself for your hard work telling yourself that you deserve this Corvette and that the money is going to feed the artisans who worked on this piece of art car… see the whole confusion of this system as well… possibly you are the problem, not the solution…

What we need is a global movement to reduce greed… make a little less profit keep a few more people out of poverty. With no poverty there would be no need for charity and everyone would be able to live with dignity. Essentially be a little less greedy if you really want to make the world a better place, don’t try to help people by giving more, help them by taking less.

Just my humble analysis. Some people might think otherwise, what do you think?