every economy is capitalistic, in that the goal is to produce capital, who owns that capital is where the differentiation lies, in a purely socialist society the government would own it, in a free market society those that produced it would own it and trade it with whomever they saw fit. free being defined as the absence of coercion. a poor person is by definition someone without capital. so if when looking at reasons why that person isn&#x27;t getting capital through trade or by creating it, one needs to look at the coercive forces preventing them from obtaining it and seeing how in poor countries and even in western countries the most coercive force is the government one could draw the conclusion that the government is causing poverty by preventing people from creating and trading capital in ways that they themselves see fit. to gain any kinda of capital through trade in a free market society one has to convince people that what they have is worth trading, thus any profits are earned through both parties own volition. it&#x27;s this voluntary relationship that is at the heart of the free market and progress, when you have entities such as the government or institutions that use the coercive nature of the government that&#x27;s when this system breaks down.