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It's because the market is an incredibly powerful way to make this effective. However, that's assuming it's a well functioning market and that incentives are actually going towards filling all important needs and we don't fall into some game theoretical dilemma. The latter is where markers need to be directed or supplemented. I'd argue that the free market would be the best way to make sure we get the food the vast majority of consumers want at a good price. However, I'd also agree that the free market will fail at providing safety from famines in a bad year or making farming sustainable in the long run.

That some people are starving despite overproduction of food is a symptom of a larger economic problem in the US. It's not that the wrong goods are being produced but that we distribute them in a way that leaves many people below there minimal needs. Solutions to me are obvious: "Traditional" forms of wellfare like we see in Europe or UBI.

What have we been doing as a society? Asking politicians and corporations to give us what we don't need, to get rid of what we do need, and to not make us pay for it. We got what we ordered.

Why should profit be the motive to write code?

for some people it isn’t, but i think he’s referring to the fact that food is pretty damn far toward the base of maslows hierarchy. many people (myself included) believe that a measure of a society is how far up the triangle you can get before needing to do something you don’t want to do to reach higher (eg work in order to improve your hobby skills)