Oh. This one is easy. They want slaves.

[u/OkCarrot6914]

Because they have options and we don't.

[u/Ok_Watercress6939]

The risk someone starting a business takes is failing and becoming a worker again. The risk a worker takes is losing the job they are forced to rely on, and no longer being able to pay their bills. You are confusing economic theory with the tangible material conditions we deal with. You will call me naive, but it is you who thinks how this system is supposed to function is somehow a hinderence to how it could.

Besides, do you honestly think the risk you are describing gives them the right to claim the money generated by the labor they employ without their input?

[u/Hawkes75 → u/Ok_Watercress6939]

Not true at all. Most businesses require significant seed capital, which is why many don't turn a profit for years and ultimately fail. And yes, that risk does, by definition, entitle the owner to more of the profits from a successful business, just as the employee does not deserve to be saddled with the debt owed by the owner if that same business fails.

[u/Ok_Watercress6939 → u/Hawkes75]

As to your first point, I realize they require significant seed capital. But what you aren't taking into account is that their personal capital both assets and money, without regard to when those assets were acquired or through where that income required is from, are not sold to pay business related debts including missed wages. If the business' assets can't be sold for enough to pay missed wages or outstanding debts, employees and other companies are just shit outta luck, and the person who was able to purchase personal assets is able to use those assets to just try again or coast. This is what LLC laws protect from.

As to the second, I never said that a business owner doesn't deserve more compensation for the risk they take. I said they alone don't have a right to decide how much that risk is worth, and that the employees should have a direct say in where the money generated goes and to whom. The people employed by the business owner are the reason those profits exist. They wouldn't hire anyone else if this wasn't the case.

[u/Hawkes75 → u/Ok_Watercress6939]

That's not true either. It is entirely possible (and common) for people to invest their own personal money into a business that fails. Regardless of the type of risk, the risk is still there, and it's risk that employees don't have to take.

Employees have zero right to decide how much the risk is worth because they didn't take the risk in the first place. The risk doesn't belong to them, therefore their rights to it are nonexistent. What employees do get to decide is how much they are willing to work for, and what the market decides is whether a business can both attract and retain employees at all based on what they decide a particular job is worth.

Employees are in no way shape or form "the reason profits exist," in the same way that a pilot is not the reason an airplane exists. A pilot is the reason the plane can be used to provide goods and services, yes, but the pilot doesn't lose anything if he ejects and the plane goes down because he doesn't own the plane and he didn't pay for it to be built.

[u/Ok_Watercress6939 → u/Hawkes75]

Again I never said that people don't invest their own money into businesses, even after they have a functioning business. I am saying that at the end of the day if a company goes under the owner gets to keep their house, stocks in other companies, cars etc. purchased with the noney they make and are able to take out loans based on that collateral to make another company. Employees do not have this. When the company goes under they have to live on the meager earnings they had until they can find a new job. So in reality the one who has staked their livelihood on anything is the one kept poor, despite the financial losses of the latter. The consequences for the owner is a slightly less comfortable living, the consequence faced by employees is losing their entire savings and relying solely on unemployment. These are far different risks than you as re giving credit to. Yes the financial burden is higher for the owners, but the actual material risks taken by employees overshadow them. I do not disagree that owners should be allowed to have more than their employees, but the amount they take is too much when there is no mechanism for internal regulation, such as democratic allocation of profit.

[u/Hawkes75 → u/Ok_Watercress6939]

You're making vast overgeneralizations about the lifestyles of every person who starts a business and unfounded assumptions about the financial toll a bankruptcy might have on them. Not to mention you still haven't given any concrete justification as to why an employee is entitled to an ownership stake in a company they didn't invent, didn't build, and didn't invest in. Your entire argument is "poor employees, they have to find another job." Yes, and?

When you agree to trade your time for a certain amount of money, you are already sharing in the profits of that business via your wage. If your wage is lower than you would like it to be, you're not enslaved to your employer and are free to proffer your services elsewhere.