I don't understand why risk are reward are treated as though they must all be given to one side or the other. In reality, it takes both the owners and the workers to make a successful business. The contributions of both are valuable, and deserve full compensation. Hence, the rewards of success ought to be split more equitably than they are today in most cases. I'm OK with Jeff Bezos making millions, but does he need billions while his workers make on the order of $50K / year? Couldn't he make do with one billion? or five billion? Corporate charters are controlled by laws, and those laws could mandate that profits and ownership be split among workers and owners according to some equitable formula, which could be tweaked as experience indicates. Hey, workers could even be included among the owners, automatically, as a matter of law. Is that so wrong?
I am a business owner and this is legit. The risk is having to become a worker. But... I am always "on". There is no "vacation" without work. I have had plenty of holidays over the years, and have worked during all of them. The potential for legal action goes up when you own a business. PayPal can lock your funds. Staff hide in the warehouse to check phones all day. They make mistakes and send customers the wrong item. You get yelled at by customers and staff. You have a nervous breakdown or two because sales are down. There's a pandemic and you have to stop trading. There's not knowing how much you'll earn from one day to the next. You have no retirement savings because you have to sell the business to make money (if it sells). If you get bored, you can't just "change jobs". There is more to risk than you're letting on. I am a progressive socialist. I grew up with a communist father who was a farmer, and at a time and place when communism was about worker's rights not despotism. Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that this argument is far more nuanced.
Most businesses fail, and almost none lead to "unlimited reward", whatever that is. If they did lead to unlimited reward, then it would be a reasonable assumption that they also created "unlimited" value for customers willingly buying that product or service in a reasonably free market, and therefore they added "unlimited" value to society. Hence it should be encouraged not derided. Along the way, this "unlimited" value creation machine probably purchased the labor of countless people and the services of countless suppliers and middlemen. Maybe this helps explain why people in modern economies make thirty to forty times what their ancestors did and live twice as long.
As for risky jobs, most jobs today are desk or service jobs or are extremely safe. If someone desires less risk, I suggest they choose these low or zero risk jobs. What was that current unemployment rate again?
"Workers risk their lives". Yeah, that's one of the problem being alive. You risk death and dishonor on a regular basis. Owners get into car accidents too.
"Owners only risk being workers again". Right. Coz there's no difference between a worker with $10K-40K in his saving account and one with zero/a bankruptcy to his/her name...
There are potential objections to the "owners take all the risks" (say, business founders tend to be privileged enough to believe they can take a risk at all. I think it was a German study that showed that the most constant factor across entrepreneurs/business founders was getting an inheritance windfall allowing them to risk those first $50K or whatever) but it's clearly a weakness in Marxist arguments.
And that doesn't mean that the rewards are fairly distributed in our present day system. Just that your counter arguments to the risk point are pretty weak.
I don't understand why risk are reward are treated as though they must all be given to one side or the other. In reality, it takes both the owners and the workers to make a successful business. The contributions of both are valuable, and deserve full compensation. Hence, the rewards of success ought to be split more equitably than they are today in most cases. I'm OK with Jeff Bezos making millions, but does he need billions while his workers make on the order of $50K / year? Couldn't he make do with one billion? or five billion? Corporate charters are controlled by laws, and those laws could mandate that profits and ownership be split among workers and owners according to some equitable formula, which could be tweaked as experience indicates. Hey, workers could even be included among the owners, automatically, as a matter of law. Is that so wrong?
I am a business owner and this is legit. The risk is having to become a worker. But... I am always "on". There is no "vacation" without work. I have had plenty of holidays over the years, and have worked during all of them. The potential for legal action goes up when you own a business. PayPal can lock your funds. Staff hide in the warehouse to check phones all day. They make mistakes and send customers the wrong item. You get yelled at by customers and staff. You have a nervous breakdown or two because sales are down. There's a pandemic and you have to stop trading. There's not knowing how much you'll earn from one day to the next. You have no retirement savings because you have to sell the business to make money (if it sells). If you get bored, you can't just "change jobs". There is more to risk than you're letting on. I am a progressive socialist. I grew up with a communist father who was a farmer, and at a time and place when communism was about worker's rights not despotism. Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that this argument is far more nuanced.
Helpful insights!
Most businesses fail, and almost none lead to "unlimited reward", whatever that is. If they did lead to unlimited reward, then it would be a reasonable assumption that they also created "unlimited" value for customers willingly buying that product or service in a reasonably free market, and therefore they added "unlimited" value to society. Hence it should be encouraged not derided. Along the way, this "unlimited" value creation machine probably purchased the labor of countless people and the services of countless suppliers and middlemen. Maybe this helps explain why people in modern economies make thirty to forty times what their ancestors did and live twice as long.
As for risky jobs, most jobs today are desk or service jobs or are extremely safe. If someone desires less risk, I suggest they choose these low or zero risk jobs. What was that current unemployment rate again?
"Workers risk their lives". Yeah, that's one of the problem being alive. You risk death and dishonor on a regular basis. Owners get into car accidents too.
"Owners only risk being workers again". Right. Coz there's no difference between a worker with $10K-40K in his saving account and one with zero/a bankruptcy to his/her name...
There are potential objections to the "owners take all the risks" (say, business founders tend to be privileged enough to believe they can take a risk at all. I think it was a German study that showed that the most constant factor across entrepreneurs/business founders was getting an inheritance windfall allowing them to risk those first $50K or whatever) but it's clearly a weakness in Marxist arguments.
And that doesn't mean that the rewards are fairly distributed in our present day system. Just that your counter arguments to the risk point are pretty weak.