This picture recently appeared on Reddit. It depicts people leaving a baseball game doing a "good deed" and giving the free samples of cereal they had been given to a homeless bloke outside the stadium. I doubt the photographer intended it, but it could surely have to be in the running of some sort of prize. I have never seen anything so succinctly capture what is wrong with capitalism.
That is not to say that's what most Redditors thought. Most responses seemed to be along the lines of "aww, isn't that nice" or, predictably, attempts at humour. There were a few that expressed some unease with the picture, even if they were not able to put their finger on why they felt so uneasy about it.
However, rarely is it demonstrated so clearly that production in our society is not to satisfy need. Whatever company this is has gone to the trouble of producing food and giving it away to people who obviously don't need it, in the hope that it will encourage them to buy more. Meanwhile, this guy needs... well, there's no need to spell it out.
Should people stop and do more? This is an argument that flared up on Reddit, but it's beside the point. The point is that we have become so alienated from others under capitalism that it is quite acceptable to not do something. What people are doing is simply an expression of the system, in all its illogical glory.
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