> I'm not going to disagree with that, but I will point out that this is why they couldn't afford the ice cream machine in the first place. Consuming the seed corn is a road to eventually having no corn.

The modern capitalistic system has devised many fabulous ways of enabling people to buy ice cream machines and seed corn without being able to afford it individually. Equity and loans are the two most obvious, there are many more.

That is the main reason that American capitalism has thrived. Because you don't have to be rich to buy ice cream machines.