4 ms·

Why profit sharing is essential for building middle-class incomes and wealth [pdf]

10 points by hhs 5y ago

imtringued 5y ago
In my opinion work sharing would be a much better approach. There is no need to share incomes if nobody builds up monetary savings beyond other people's desire to be in debt. Let's assume -5% real interest on cash (5% inflation at 0% interest for example). Nobody can build up monetary savings, unless there is a debtor promising a higher real interest rate like 0% or even 3%. The debtor invests on your behalf. If nobody is investing on your behalf then you will obviously have to do it yourself. If there are no investments that need to be financed then you will have to consume the surplus. If there is no consumption that you want to finance then you work less. Working less when you demand less is very important. 3 people have 3 chores. If one person, no matter why, does the chores of 3 people he will be considered a 10x worker then the other two have nothing to do are called lazy bums. If everyone did their part there wouldn't be any name calling but everyone doing their part is a competition. Everyone will need the drive to do all 3 chores just so they get to do the one chore they should be doing. The lazy answer is to just get a bigger house so that there are 5 chores. The smarter answer is to let everyone do their single chore. Yes, that would mean CEOs who have no idea what to do with their money should work less and spread their work over more people so that more people get to earn money. There is popular catchy phrase "the rich get richer" and it is quite easy to understand why. Work is allocated not by how much work you demand but by how efficiently you can do the work. This creates a strong bias toward letting fewer and fewer people with existing skills do all the work with the help of automation and other productivity increasing technology. Being rich allows you to do more work more efficiently which causes work to be prioritized in a backwards way where the rich, aka those who do not need to work, get to do more, while the poor, who need to do a lot of work, get to do less. In theory the easiest way to eradicate poverty would be to allocate earning opportunities to those who need them the most. The poor would be the ones getting assigned $100k+ jobs and they would cease to be poor instantly. Of course, there is another problem. They would need resources to acquire the necessary skills to do these jobs. However, the allocation of earning opportunities would also allow banks to prioritize lending to poor people at fair conditions because the bank knows that they will most likely get a well paying job in the process. In practice this would require massive cultural changes and some state intervention in the labor market. It's probably too difficult for the 21th century. Maybe people figure it out by the 22th century. I guess that means profit sharing will do for now.
Proven 5y ago
It's not essential at all. I, for example, make a decent living by selling my labor. And not only is it not essential, in reality it destroys prosperity. Perhaps the authors missed the fact (or are beyond greedy) that over 30% of GDP is redistributed and as that percentage grows, Western countries turn into third world shitholes.

10 points by hhs 5y ago

In my opinion work sharing would be a much better approach. There is no need to share incomes if nobody builds up monetary savings beyond other people's desire to be in debt. Let's assume -5% real interest on cash (5% inflation at 0% interest for example). Nobody can build up monetary savings, unless there is a debtor promising a higher real interest rate like 0% or even 3%. The debtor invests on your behalf. If nobody is investing on your behalf then you will obviously have to do it yourself. If there are no investments that need to be financed then you will have to consume the surplus. If there is no consumption that you want to finance then you work less. Working less when you demand less is very important. 3 people have 3 chores. If one person, no matter why, does the chores of 3 people he will be considered a 10x worker then the other two have nothing to do are called lazy bums. If everyone did their part there wouldn't be any name calling but everyone doing their part is a competition. Everyone will need the drive to do all 3 chores just so they get to do the one chore they should be doing. The lazy answer is to just get a bigger house so that there are 5 chores. The smarter answer is to let everyone do their single chore. Yes, that would mean CEOs who have no idea what to do with their money should work less and spread their work over more people so that more people get to earn money. There is popular catchy phrase "the rich get richer" and it is quite easy to understand why. Work is allocated not by how much work you demand but by how efficiently you can do the work. This creates a strong bias toward letting fewer and fewer people with existing skills do all the work with the help of automation and other productivity increasing technology. Being rich allows you to do more work more efficiently which causes work to be prioritized in a backwards way where the rich, aka those who do not need to work, get to do more, while the poor, who need to do a lot of work, get to do less. In theory the easiest way to eradicate poverty would be to allocate earning opportunities to those who need them the most. The poor would be the ones getting assigned $100k+ jobs and they would cease to be poor instantly. Of course, there is another problem. They would need resources to acquire the necessary skills to do these jobs. However, the allocation of earning opportunities would also allow banks to prioritize lending to poor people at fair conditions because the bank knows that they will most likely get a well paying job in the process. In practice this would require massive cultural changes and some state intervention in the labor market. It's probably too difficult for the 21th century. Maybe people figure it out by the 22th century. I guess that means profit sharing will do for now.

Proven 5y ago

It's not essential at all. I, for example, make a decent living by selling my labor. And not only is it not essential, in reality it destroys prosperity. Perhaps the authors missed the fact (or are beyond greedy) that over 30% of GDP is redistributed and as that percentage grows, Western countries turn into third world shitholes.