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If a founder starts a company, a company that builds a very helpful product and service, hires employees and pays them creating jobs and ways for them to work o

by adampk 4y ago

If a founder starts a company, a company that builds a very helpful product and service, hires employees and pays them creating jobs and ways for them to work on interesting problems, I am not trying to defend the other side of your point, I just honestly don't see where the "exploitation" comes into play?

metadat 4y ago
At it's core, capitalism is about maximally exploiting labor. Some companies treat their employees better (Costco) or worse (Walmart), but at the end of the day it's all a byproduct of the structure and behaviors rewarded in capitalism. The "winners" exploit the hardest, otherwise potential profits are being left on the table and it opens an opportunity for another company (who is willing to go the extra mile to exploit harder) to enter and offer lower prices. Subsequently, the working middle class and poor people (the largest segments of USA population) have their own harsh realities to deal with, and don't have the luxury of choosing more humane yet expensive alternatives when they are purchasing goods and services.
- mindvirus 4y ago
  Obviously poverty is a major issue, and as a society we can and should be doing a lot more to address structural inequality. However, is there a time or place in history when/where would be better to be poor than today in a modern day first-world capitalist country? To be clear, I'm not arguing that we're anywhere near an ideal or perfect state for this, but what are the alternatives that you see?
- e40 4y ago
  And who here thinks the way Amazon warehouse employees are treated is a good thing? Drivers, too. Peeing in bottles. 14 hr shifts. Buffer companies between Amazon and the customer, so they can easily skirt labor laws, etc.
- parasubvert 4y ago
  This falsely assumes that labor is the source of all value. It's not.
  - metadat 4y ago
    I'm open to being wrong, but can you elaborate on what sorts of real value can be created through means other than labor? In my experience, not much happens in life unless someone puts in the elbow grease.
beaconstudios 4y ago
To take a minimal case for an example - if I hire two people, pay them $20,000 each to produce widgets and then sell those widgets for $100,000 a year respectively, and keep the remaining $60,000, would you consider that exploitation considering that I contribute nothing to the continued economic activity? This is the form of exploitation I was referring to. For a contrasting example, I prefer cooperatives where the people involved in the business control it democratically (which can still include directors and managers).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- adampk 4y ago
  Again, I am not trying to to defend the counter but am I missing something or is there quit a large logical gap in your hypothetical? I assume if I am doing the hiring, then I will also be responsible for the additional hiring/firing, selecting the right talent, choosing the right way to compete against existing product/services? Is that not continued activity as I grow my start-up into a category-defining enterprise? How to allocate that profit, into R&D, more people, sales, etc, aka growing a company? Then after doing that for 10 years that company is now worth billions of dollars and I own it. I don't see where in this chain I have done the exploiting?
  - beaconstudios 4y ago
    So what you're describing is the work of a director - work that should be paid but that I intentionally excluded from my example because a lot of people just think by default that directors should "own" the company because that's the status quo. I still think that directors should be well compensated commensurate with their capability and role. I just think that they shouldn't be able to exclusively control and take the profits generated by the work of everybody involved. Corporations are autocratic or oligarchic in that way - this leads to the select few that society seems worthy of profit control having more power in our society. This is because the owners can keep workers' wages as low as the market will sustain while inflating their own total compensation to absurd proportions, as we've seen. With a cooperative structure everybody involved has a stake in controlling the company, so executives have to take everybody's needs including the workers, into account, instead of just looking out for themselves and investors. As for where the exploitation comes in - it probably comes down to different perspectives on the word. To me, it's exploitation if one person is profiting off the labour of another. Of course in a company the shareholders are often also working, but if a company grows to a billion dollars from a million its not because the directors are working 100x harder.

by adampk 4y ago

metadat 4y ago

At it's core, capitalism is about maximally exploiting labor. Some companies treat their employees better (Costco) or worse (Walmart), but at the end of the day it's all a byproduct of the structure and behaviors rewarded in capitalism. The "winners" exploit the hardest, otherwise potential profits are being left on the table and it opens an opportunity for another company (who is willing to go the extra mile to exploit harder) to enter and offer lower prices. Subsequently, the working middle class and poor people (the largest segments of USA population) have their own harsh realities to deal with, and don't have the luxury of choosing more humane yet expensive alternatives when they are purchasing goods and services.

mindvirus 4y ago
Obviously poverty is a major issue, and as a society we can and should be doing a lot more to address structural inequality. However, is there a time or place in history when/where would be better to be poor than today in a modern day first-world capitalist country? To be clear, I'm not arguing that we're anywhere near an ideal or perfect state for this, but what are the alternatives that you see?
e40 4y ago
And who here thinks the way Amazon warehouse employees are treated is a good thing? Drivers, too. Peeing in bottles. 14 hr shifts. Buffer companies between Amazon and the customer, so they can easily skirt labor laws, etc.
parasubvert 4y ago
This falsely assumes that labor is the source of all value. It's not.
- metadat 4y ago
  I'm open to being wrong, but can you elaborate on what sorts of real value can be created through means other than labor? In my experience, not much happens in life unless someone puts in the elbow grease.

beaconstudios 4y ago

To take a minimal case for an example - if I hire two people, pay them $20,000 each to produce widgets and then sell those widgets for $100,000 a year respectively, and keep the remaining $60,000, would you consider that exploitation considering that I contribute nothing to the continued economic activity? This is the form of exploitation I was referring to. For a contrasting example, I prefer cooperatives where the people involved in the business control it democratically (which can still include directors and managers).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
adampk 4y ago
Again, I am not trying to to defend the counter but am I missing something or is there quit a large logical gap in your hypothetical? I assume if I am doing the hiring, then I will also be responsible for the additional hiring/firing, selecting the right talent, choosing the right way to compete against existing product/services? Is that not continued activity as I grow my start-up into a category-defining enterprise? How to allocate that profit, into R&D, more people, sales, etc, aka growing a company? Then after doing that for 10 years that company is now worth billions of dollars and I own it. I don't see where in this chain I have done the exploiting?
- beaconstudios 4y ago
  So what you're describing is the work of a director - work that should be paid but that I intentionally excluded from my example because a lot of people just think by default that directors should "own" the company because that's the status quo. I still think that directors should be well compensated commensurate with their capability and role. I just think that they shouldn't be able to exclusively control and take the profits generated by the work of everybody involved. Corporations are autocratic or oligarchic in that way - this leads to the select few that society seems worthy of profit control having more power in our society. This is because the owners can keep workers' wages as low as the market will sustain while inflating their own total compensation to absurd proportions, as we've seen. With a cooperative structure everybody involved has a stake in controlling the company, so executives have to take everybody's needs including the workers, into account, instead of just looking out for themselves and investors. As for where the exploitation comes in - it probably comes down to different perspectives on the word. To me, it's exploitation if one person is profiting off the labour of another. Of course in a company the shareholders are often also working, but if a company grows to a billion dollars from a million its not because the directors are working 100x harder.