QUORA: ‘Isn't Capitalism evil simply due to the fact that a business can decide to make an area a food desert simply due to theft?’

Here is a Quora question related to stories we are seeing regularly in the news, the rampant, unrestricted looting of stores in some cities across the nation. Here is the full question:

Isn't Capitalism evil simply due to the fact that a business can decide to make an area a food desert simply due to theft? For example, black neighborhoods in America that become food deserts after corporations like Wal-Mart decide to abandon them.

I posted this answer:

Capitalism is about individual freedom. So the right of business people to decide where to open their stores, or when to close them, is certainly protected under Capitalism, just as the right of the consumer to decide whether or not to shop in a particular store is protected.

Hence, if Walmart decides to close a store because theft has gotten so bad in a particular neighborhood that it is no longer safe or profitable to keep it open, it is Walmart’s moral—and, under Capitalism, legal—right to do so. If all other supermarkets in the area close, it is their right as well. This does not make Capitalism evil. It shows that Capitalism is just. 

America is a free society, not a slave society. Residents have no more right to have a neighborhood food store nearby than a food store has a right to the residents’ business. No one is anyone’s legal or moral servant.

The only servant in America is the government—to the people . . . all of them equally. The real villains for these so-called “food deserts” are the political authorities who are unwilling to control the rampant theft. It is the government’s foremost responsibility to protect the rights and safety of the individual; ALL individuals, including businessmen.* It is the political authorities who are to blame when businesses close due to the politicians’ failure to keep a neighborhood safe for their stores, their employees, and their customers. When Walmart closes up and “leaves,” Walmart is not abandoning the neighborhood, black or otherwise. It is the government that abandoned Walmart.

* [The Declaration of Independence, the philosophic blueprint for America and its Constitution, states that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”]

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’

QUORA *: ‘Is capitalism basically saying that you have to work and pay for the right to basic life necessities? How is that freedom?’

QUORA: ‘Why should capitalists be allowed to continually reap the benefits of others' labor?’

Quora: ‘Is capitalism based on the exploitation of others?’

QUORA : Do the pro-capitalists here honestly think that the system is fair? How are people at the bottom of the food chain, realistically speaking, expected to break the poverty cycle without government intervention?

QUORA : ‘Capitalism only works when it rewards the winners and punishes the losers. What should a modern society do with the losers?’

Capitalism by George Reisman

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein  

What is Capitalism? by Ayn Rand