For the second Monday in a row, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart used his time as host of The Daily Show to launch an attack against capitalism. While Stewart managed to keep his hand in one piece this time, he wondered to Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond if capitalism requires poor people to function while Desmond urged the country to return to the economic policies of the 1960s.
Stewart began, “I mean, does America require poverty to function in the way that we do? Is it a requirement of our society?”
After Desmond said no, Stewart clarified, “I mean that, is the system we run, do they require, in the capitalist system, people in poverty to function at maximum profit?”
Desmond was not on to be a dissenting voice, “I think a lot of us do benefit from poverty in ways we don’t realize, right?… the labor market, the…
