@yogthos It's not capitalism, it's regulation. In most countries shops or restaurants are forbidden from giving away food for free by both food safety and tax laws. In most, people receiving it would also need to pay income tax.
@kravietz the root problem is obviously capitalism. If profit wasn't the core motive then food wouldn't be produced to be wasted in the first place.
And the food safety argument makes no sense since that food would've obviously been safe to sell to people.
> food wouldn't be produced to be wasted
How do you predict *precisely* how many portions of food you sell tomorrow?
You can't. So either you produce too much (surplus) or too little (Marxian economy). Surplus ("waste") was one of the main points of Marxian criticism of capitalism - so socialism said it will do it better and ended up with totally crap "economy of shortage" (János Kornai).
> the food safety argument makes no sense
Yes, tell that to taxman and lawmakers.
You didn't understand - restaurants have no profit from food past expiration date. They *could* give it away for free and many want to.
They are *legally* prohibited from doing so by the law, not by capitalism.
No, you're the one who doesn't seem to understand. The food in this particular day is being thrown out the same day it's been made. There is no expiration concern there.
Furthermore, it's perfectly possible to provide a framework for handling food that hasn't been sold in a sane fashion.
@kravietz you don't have to waste the food you did produce though, that's the point. If your goal isn't to make a profit then you can do all kinds of things to reduce waste.
>Yes, tell that to taxman and lawmakers.
Seems to me that this is precisely something the citizens should be able to affect in a democracy while they have no way to affect private businesses.