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Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

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Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#61

Post by latency-guy2 »

int_19h wrote: post #36
anon373839 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not with the baggage that words like "exploiting" and "extracting" carry. Capitalism is rooted in the idea of comparative advantage and gains from trade: I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. Of course, that's the lofty, textbook ideal. Plenty of capital owners actually do want to extract and exploit. To me, that's not the intent of capitalism, but rather a…

> I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. A fair deal is when both are better off by the same amount, which is not a typical situation with wage labor in capitalism. And a deal that isn't fair is an exploitative one. Capitalism doesn't really have an "intent". It's just an economic system with unbounded private ownership of capital, hence the name. However, there are ce…

> A fair deal is when both are better off by the same amount

Nonsense. You can't guarantee this anywhere. E.g. employees in training get paid $15/hr, the employer gets no benefit while they are in training, and the employee gets all the benefit at the cost of their own time.

Software in particular, develop a product or produce a binary once, you can run it an infinite number of times. No software developer is paid $infinity, and will never be paid $infinity.

Go ahead, price in the cost of experiment research that which produces nothing after 5 years. Failed projects? Products gets superseded by brand new inventions?

> Capitalism doesn't really have an "intent". It's just an economic system with unbounded private ownership of capital, hence the name. However, there are certain things that inherently follow from that notion, to wit: because the ability to extract economic rent is proportional to the amount of capital owned, all else being equal, past a certain amount of rent extracted there is a positive feedback loop. Or, simply put, large businesses - and their ultimate form, monopolies - are the natural outcome of capitalism. And since larger businesses have a higher imbalance of power wrt both their employees and their customers, it results in deals (for both products and labor) that are less and less fair - and thus more and more exploitative. Thus, capitalism is also inherently exploitative.

Drivel. No thank you.

You don't have a definition of "fair".

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#62

Post by Gud »

gizmo wrote: post #44
Gud wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? It seems to me that whatever risk the owning class has can be easily controlled by diversifying. And what liabilities do they have?

You can be dragged into lawsuits that never end. You have to mediate employee drama. You are responsible for paychecks which is stressful when the business is deteriorating. Owning a $100 million business is not at all like having $100 million in the stock market.

I specifically mentioned diversifying as a means to limit risk.

My post is not targeted to the people who have started a lifestyle business or someone who has built a $100M enterprise from the ground up.

Much of the worlds wealth is concentrated through inheritance and the effect of compounding interest.

A person of normal intelligence with a large inheritance can easily live off other peoples work by a diverse portfolio, accumulated by previous generations. Large wealth inheritance creates obvious power imbalances in any economic system, unless every participant(or most, anyway) in the system has themselves large amounts of inherited economic wealth.

My (skilled) labour is valued somewhere at $50-$250/h. Yet, the offspring of the ultra rich("the owning class") receive x10-x100 of what i receive without lifting a finger.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#63

Post by credit_guy »

abofh wrote: post #31

Yes. Employing others to produce more than you pay them is fundamentally how business works. Doing so successfully is indeed linked to wealth. Further research into the wetness of water needed, but I'm sure these crack researchers can handle it.

> Employing others to produce more than you pay them is fundamentally how business works.

I detect some snark. Whenever you pay someone to get something, and you do it on your free will, not being coerced, you perceive that you get is worth more than what you pay. Otherwise, why would you do it, in a free society.

This is universal. It happens when you buy a car, when you dine at a restaurant, when you book an airplane ticket, and yes, when you pay someone for their labor. I do pay a cleaning lady, and she comes once every two weeks and cleans my apartment. Is this exploitation? My guess is that you'll say that yes, I'm exploiting her. And also that water is wet.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#64

Post by int_19h »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #61
int_19h wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. A fair deal is when both are better off by the same amount, which is not a typical situation with wage labor in capitalism. And a deal that isn't fair is an exploitative one. Capitalism doesn't really have an "intent". It's just an economic system with unbounded private ownership of capital, hence the name. However, there are ce…

> A fair deal is when both are better off by the same amount Nonsense. You can't guarantee this anywhere. E.g. employees in training get paid $15/hr, the employer gets no benefit while they are in training, and the employee gets all the benefit at the cost of their own time. Software in particular, develop a product or produce a binary once, you can run it an infinite number of times. No software developer is paid $i…

We all have a definition of "fair", partly cultural and partly biological. It may not be easy to distill down to words, but we certainly know it when it see it.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#65

Post by Wool2662 »

akira2501 wrote: post #57
Wool2662 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what insurance is for. And if it gets really bad, there is the corporate veil for that. Just declare bankruptcy and start over. Not like you are losing the money you extracted from the company.

> That's what insurance is for. Is insurance that offers unlimited coverage free? No? That's a liability, then. You will have to pay this insurance whether you are profitable or not. That's a risk, you see? > there is the corporate veil for that. Very few business actually structure themselves in such a way to receive this benefit. It's not automatic either, you'll still need lawyers to make this argument for you in…

So what you are saying is you need sufficient money to do whatever you want in the guise of "business" without having to fear any consequences whatsoever?

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#66

Post by Wool2662 »

credit_guy wrote: post #63
abofh wrote: post #31

Yes. Employing others to produce more than you pay them is fundamentally how business works. Doing so successfully is indeed linked to wealth. Further research into the wetness of water needed, but I'm sure these crack researchers can handle it.

> Employing others to produce more than you pay them is fundamentally how business works. I detect some snark. Whenever you pay someone to get something, and you do it on your free will, not being coerced, you perceive that you get is worth more than what you pay. Otherwise, why would you do it, in a free society. This is universal. It happens when you buy a car, when you dine at a restaurant, when you book an airpla…

Free society... People buy a car because they have to work. They have to work because they don't want to starve. Following your logic keeping slaves is not exploitative. You pay them in not being whipped and maybe even food. They are free to decline your offer and die at any time.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#67

Post by credit_guy »

Wool2662 wrote: post #66
credit_guy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employing others to produce more than you pay them is fundamentally how business works. I detect some snark. Whenever you pay someone to get something, and you do it on your free will, not being coerced, you perceive that you get is worth more than what you pay. Otherwise, why would you do it, in a free society. This is universal. It happens when you buy a car, when you dine at a restaurant, when you book an airpla…

Free society... People buy a car because they have to work. They have to work because they don't want to starve. Following your logic keeping slaves is not exploitative. You pay them in not being whipped and maybe even food. They are free to decline your offer and die at any time.

For what it’s worth, my cleaning lady is in no danger of starvation. She has a vacation home, and I don’t.
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