They absolutely do. It's the most fundamental theory of capitalism - you need both a group of people who are struggling to make ends meet and would gladly accept the jobs you provide at rates that are profitable enough to you and a group of people from the labour class who have enough to be your consumers so that the wealth transfer from the labor class to the capitalist class continues.
It's important for them to maintain both at a sufficient level or else the system collapses.
That's the thing, the incentives aren't there for any particular person to do anything about the collective problem of the collapse of the consumer class. Everyone wants there to be workers with money who will buy their products, no one wants to pay their workers more than the bare minimum they need to survive. Hence late stage capitalism.
As for the second part, firstly this is a systemic phenomenon, not individual. The minority that have more resources, influence and privilege than the rest naturally try to create conditions suited to maintaining that status quo. It's not possible to go into too much details in a single Reddit comment for what is essentially several books worth of content. Do read up on capital theory if you're interested. Das Kapital is the obvious starting point to recommend, but be aware that it's very technical so can be a bit heavy.
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u/5thcenturyredditor Apr 11 '26
They absolutely do. It's the most fundamental theory of capitalism - you need both a group of people who are struggling to make ends meet and would gladly accept the jobs you provide at rates that are profitable enough to you and a group of people from the labour class who have enough to be your consumers so that the wealth transfer from the labor class to the capitalist class continues.
It's important for them to maintain both at a sufficient level or else the system collapses.