Re: Solution to poverty - Socialism or Capitalism?

At a restaurant you trade money against a good meal. Wealth just got created.
You valued your money less than the meal, and the cook valued the meal less than the money. The sum of the difference of valuation is wealth.

Not all trade is equal. Most of the time there is a power relationship where the strong exploits the weak.

An example is sweatshops. People who need jobs are willing to allow themselves to be exploited because they need money. This was common in 19th/ early 20th century before existence of labor unions

Labor unions were necessary a long time ago but are useless today, as they are only good for enriching themselves and the politicians they support. There are enough employment laws today that will protect workers from these kinds of abuses. Additionally workers are educated enough to be able to stand up to these kinds of abuses.

The pendulum swings back and forth. Corporations were too greedy and tried to exploit people. Labor unions were formed to combat that, and it worked pretty well. But then the labor unions got greedy and tried to take too much from the corporations. Labor unions have been disappearing, and corporations are getting greedy again. Education has little to do with it. You can't stand up to corporations when you have no better options. For example, look at how corporations have slashed benefits over the last couple decades. You can't stand up to a corporation and demand a pension when no other corporations are offering them. And just look at how companies treat their employees now--they're just expendable labor. There's no loyalty anymore.