Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're literally at the point of starvation, maybe true - though famines often happen when people simply can't get access to food, even if they have the resources to buy it. So, bringing food to a starving area is unlikely to be bad for business. However, the more important point is that you can surely make money off of people by becoming their only source of food/money - i.e. they would starve without you, so th…
> the more important point is that you can surely make money off of people by becoming their only source of food/money If you the only source, there is a reason for that, usually because you are shooting people who try to leave. I'll cite a counter for you. The US was the first country in the world to eliminate the specter of famine (around 1800). Free labor was the distinguishing ingredient, not slave labor. (The sl…
The practice back in those days were to advertise inflated wages for a job in remote areas. People then traveled there, only to find out that food and living costs, all under the control of the company, were also inflated to the point where even a full working day would results in debt when subtracting food and living costs. People who tried to flee was prevented from doing so under the argument that they tried to escape acquired debt. The fines for smuggling food was also extreme, since food costs was the primary way that the companies held control over their debt slaves.
This practice was so vile that many countries created laws directly targeting it, including changes to inheritance so that debt would not follow from parent to child.