You can force starving people into unfair arrangements where the choice is between getting screwed or dying of hunger. You can use the existence of starving people as a threat to keep your work force in line. Sometimes it's not even the starving people that you're making money off of, but their minerals and land.

There are a lot of ways to profit from suffering. And sometimes it's not even about profit—it can just feel so good to have an Other to oppress.