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It's entirely power imbalance, and that can be addressed by policy. Fundamentally, Capital needs Labor as much as Labor needs Capital. There's no economic reaso
by lotyrin 9y ago
It's entirely power imbalance, and that can be addressed by policy. Fundamentally, Capital needs Labor as much as Labor needs Capital. There's no economic reason a capitalist contributing nothing should not expect to starve, but a laborer who contributes nothing should expect to, it's just the current market climate and political policy that these are the case such that the imbalance of power perpetuates itself.
It seems you could have the opposite case from today, with Labor concentrated into large unions which lobby for and win things like overly (but not disastrously) high Basic Income or slightly too relaxed intellectual property law, strong-arming a capital class made of small mom-and-pop firms and individual retiree-investors, avoiding providing the returns that would be seen in a more efficient and balanced market.
- Pyxl101 9y agoA capitalist and a laborer who both contribute nothing should expect nothing as a return. A capitalist who contributes capital should expect investment returns, and a laborer who contributes labor should expect the agreed-upon compensation. Beyond that, the details of who should expect how much come down to supply and demand, of both labor and capital.
- lotyrin 9y agoA capitalist who invests indiscriminately (e.g. broadly) today, has a positive expected outcome of this, and that's not a given out of the fundamental theory. The work a capitalist does, their contribution, isn't just writing checks, it's writing the right checks.
- jezclaremurugan 9y agoIt just happens that a capitalist writing a large number of checks happen to write a couple of right ones. And often we need them to write some wrong ones too.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]