I can't believe I'm arguing that it's immoral to steal on HN, but here we are...
Yes, you might decide that breaking your moral code to feed yourself or your family is an acceptable tradeoff, but it's a tradeoff nonetheless. It's a conscious choice. A lot of people in history made a decision to go hungry instead.
Children might see the world in Marxist generics where some ambiguous, but for some reason always "wealthy" people stole all the fruit trees and poisoned the water. Adults usually deal with specifics. Who are all these mysterious people are? Do you think the food just fell from the sky before the industrial age? What do you think happened to the people who stole before the industrial age, hungry or not?
If you don't think income and wealth inequality is real, I'm not sure what anyone here is going to do to help you understand this better.
The fact remains that we could feed everyone on the planet... if we chose to. Capitalism just doesn't incentivize us to do so.
You talk about how stealing bread to survive would be "breaking your moral code", but I think it's absurd that we've gotten to this point. How is a society moral if it allows people to starve? I won't say two wrongs make a right, but when society actively allows people to die of hunger, I think those tut-tutting about moral codes need some side-eyes and eye-rolls directed their way.
And we are all culpable to a certain extent, as members of that society. Perhaps those of us who donate our money or time to help those in need are a bit less culpable (along with people who are just scraping by and don't have the money or time to spare). But if we've benefited from that system (as I have), we share some of the blame (as I do). And go further and consider people who actively vote for politicians and policies that remove social safety nets and make it harder for people on the margins to feed themselves. All the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" the US who seem to think that no one deserves any help for anything. It's disgusting.
Yes, you might decide that breaking your moral code to feed yourself or your family is an acceptable tradeoff, but it's a tradeoff nonetheless. It's a conscious choice. A lot of people in history made a decision to go hungry instead.
Children might see the world in Marxist generics where some ambiguous, but for some reason always "wealthy" people stole all the fruit trees and poisoned the water. Adults usually deal with specifics. Who are all these mysterious people are? Do you think the food just fell from the sky before the industrial age? What do you think happened to the people who stole before the industrial age, hungry or not?