alt Hacker NewsI used to volunteer, for many years, at a local food bank until 2 years ago.
And no, nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe. These people go there because they chose to not participate in contributing to society the basic minimum. They do not work, they still receive money from the state, they have shelter (if they want, which many times they don't because they need to follow rules they prefer not to follow), they have food - that's exactly what your example provides them: food - they have medical care, they even have drugs freely provided by the state (methadone).
All of this is done by capitalism. All of this abundance, that even allows to provide immense benefits to those that choose not to contribute to society, comes from the extreme productivity enabled to capitalism. To the point where the state is these countries, can take 82% of what every worker earns [1] (this is the real example of France, BTW) to give to those that don't work and to invest in public projects that at best are severely mismanaged, and at worst not needed at all.
All this ridiculously high productivity and forced profit sharing, is made available by the free market.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf
> I used to volunteer, for many years, at a local food bank
So did I.
> And no, nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe. These people go there because they chose to not participate in contributing to society the basic minimum.
Your disdain for poor people and uninformed take frankly make me question your honesty regarding working at a food bank. Clearly you were never friends or cared to learn the stories of the people in need.
> that's exactly what your example provides them: food
You mean you never had to turn someone down because you ran out for the day? I’m smelling more bullshit by the sentence. Were you working at a food bank in the rich neighbourhood of a rich city of a rich country?
> they even have drugs freely provided by the state (methadone).
Ah, there we go. Associating poor people with being drug addicts. I was wondering when that was coming.
You have all the exact same talking points of the people who were born lucky and never really struggled, who want to defund social programs but offer no alternatives. Zero empathy.
Yes, there are people who game the system. If you think people choose to live in poverty to do so, I don’t believe you’ve ever been in contact with those communities, you’re judging them from a safe distance.