A goes and buys flour for 100$ from farmer B. Then A goes and pay independent baker C 100$ to make bread from the flour. Then A goes and pay independent retailer D 100$ to sell the bread for $500.
Each cycle A makes $200 in profit, nobody loses out as everyone agreed to the terms.
This is enough margin for A to pay an independent manager $100 each time he repeats the process, ultimately netting A $100 without A doing anything. Is A taking advantage of everyone here? No, of course not, everyone still agreed to all the terms, A was just aware of a business opportunity the others were not, risked his own money paying for goods and labor he wasn't sure he could sell and now everyone is richer as a result.
This is how businesses works. Of course in practice sometimes businesses does scummy things, but that is why we have laws which are meant to ensure that all businesses are net positive for society. If a business is not net positive then we send the police to them and shut them down. That doesn't work when businesses have politicians in their pockets, but it works in parts of the world where workers have more political influence.
In reality most people are not sole traders and the market does not operate under conditions of perfect competition. Over-simplification is not helpful; I could describe a similar virtuous circle based on entirely different economic arrangements, and it would be just as facile.
There's a word for this in economics. The 'normal profit' is the 'wages' of the entrepreneur and risk-taker -> the return on the money invested or put at risk, and the time and effort of the entrepreneur to build the business. Nothing immoral about that.
Each cycle A makes $200 in profit, nobody loses out as everyone agreed to the terms.
This is enough margin for A to pay an independent manager $100 each time he repeats the process, ultimately netting A $100 without A doing anything. Is A taking advantage of everyone here? No, of course not, everyone still agreed to all the terms, A was just aware of a business opportunity the others were not, risked his own money paying for goods and labor he wasn't sure he could sell and now everyone is richer as a result.
This is how businesses works. Of course in practice sometimes businesses does scummy things, but that is why we have laws which are meant to ensure that all businesses are net positive for society. If a business is not net positive then we send the police to them and shut them down. That doesn't work when businesses have politicians in their pockets, but it works in parts of the world where workers have more political influence.