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I disagree with Patrick McKenzie. I think are disagreement is probably at a philosophical level that I don't want to go into, so instead I'll share a personal story:
I teach a data science practicum course for economic majors where financial institutions "hire" our students. One of the projects our students were contracted for was literally optimizing the advertisement of credit card rewards programs to attract low income consumers who would not default on the loans but would carry a high interest balance. Another project was optimizing the fee schedule to extract the most money as possible from overdue payments on these cards from low income consumers.
I've sat at the table with the men and women who run these programs. I've asked them how they justify it to themselves. They fully acknowledged that some people were ruining their lives, but they did not have any moral qualms and said "everything we do is legal and fully regulated". So I think the folk that run these programs are every bit as evil as the worst communist propaganda would have you believe.
(I refused to work with these companies, but other professors chose to work with them.)
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