Why are you presenting those choices as if they're the only ones available? We can choose to have a system where nobody starves to death.
Things holding us back: fascists, capitalists, dictators, monarchs, oligarchs.
Steps in the right direction: socialist policies like social security, universal healthcare, road management, electricity distribution, public transportation, public education, and others. Including welfare, which includes food and other basic necessities.
Oh, and mustn't forget people like you, who like to deem themselves the arbiters of all such choices and demand reality bend to your silly whims. Or rather, you like to misrepresent reality as a narrowminded fantasy, because in it you may not be powerful, but at least you can pretend like you know things.
No, you're creating a false dichotomy by stating what you continue to fall back to (many starve vs fewer starve) to attempt to paint capitalism in a good light. I can't fathom why.
The less evil of two systems is not only vulnerable to misrepresentation, but full on deception. Capitalism is often presented as the only viable alternative to communism, without acknowledging that communism has never existed without authoritarianism/fascism. Without acknowledging that capitalism was a ploy to keep the "royal families" and other such imbeciles as powerful as they were during their respective monarchies, all while pretending the serfs could own stuff too.
Just because you picked one doesn't make it not evil. It just makes you a sucker. And yeah, American are fat, harhar, except we also have almost an equal amount of poor people starve or die homeless in the street.
The reason I'm pointing all this out is because you're part of the fucking problem. Stop pretending capitalism is some gift to the world and face the fucking facts.