All fine and good, but there is still a lot of risk involved when you spend your money to build a company. Of course when you only look at the successful ones, due to survivorship bias, it gets easy to dismiss or not even notice that. How many new companies survive the first 5 years? 50 %. That is how high the risk is for just the first 5 years.
It is literally irrelevant in this case, it’s still an investment with an expected positive return for the capitalist and the workers are the ones who produce all the value, and yet are paid pennies. The capitalist just steals a large portion of their work from them, protected by the dictatorship of capital. Marx actually thought about risks taken by businesses while developing the labor theory of value, it is discussed in Capital.
The only capitalists risking anything are the petite bourgeois (because it’s usually not feasible for them to diversify sufficiently), and even then the worst that can happen to them is a bankruptcy, which means they will have to do real work like the rest of us.
I’m sure there are some decent small business owners who care about their workers somewhat. (if they really cared about their workers they would make their venture a co-op, but they actually care about profits more than they care about people).
But the fundamental problem with capitalism is that even such small businesses are less profitable, thus don’t have as much money to bribe politicians or use anticompetitive practices, and thus will eventually be outcompeted and replaced by a soulless exploitative corporation that only exists to increase shareholder value. This is literally the point of vol. 3 of Capital.
Things like layoffs and at-will employment guarantee that the risk is on the individual and not the company. You need to get over that rose tinted idea of what capitalism is. It hasn’t existed in 100 years if it ever did.
nothing you said is anything new to the workers that actually risk their lives during work. risk management is literally an elementary ethics course.
what happens when you die? who will cover for your missing labor when you’re gone?
All fine and good, but there is still a lot of risk involved when you spend your money to build a company. Of course when you only look at the successful ones, due to survivorship bias, it gets easy to dismiss or not even notice that. How many new companies survive the first 5 years? 50 %. That is how high the risk is for just the first 5 years.
It is literally irrelevant in this case, it’s still an investment with an expected positive return for the capitalist and the workers are the ones who produce all the value, and yet are paid pennies. The capitalist just steals a large portion of their work from them, protected by the dictatorship of capital. Marx actually thought about risks taken by businesses while developing the labor theory of value, it is discussed in Capital.
The only capitalists risking anything are the petite bourgeois (because it’s usually not feasible for them to diversify sufficiently), and even then the worst that can happen to them is a bankruptcy, which means they will have to do real work like the rest of us.
The “only” risk is to lose everything you have when you believe in your company and try to save it - and the people working for you.
It is simply not such a black and white world where we only have poor workers and Apple, Amazon etc. on the other side.
I’m sure there are some decent small business owners who care about their workers somewhat. (if they really cared about their workers they would make their venture a co-op, but they actually care about profits more than they care about people).
But the fundamental problem with capitalism is that even such small businesses are less profitable, thus don’t have as much money to bribe politicians or use anticompetitive practices, and thus will eventually be outcompeted and replaced by a soulless exploitative corporation that only exists to increase shareholder value. This is literally the point of vol. 3 of Capital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
They specifically referred to that middle ground between “poor workers and Apple, Amazon etc.”
Things like layoffs and at-will employment guarantee that the risk is on the individual and not the company. You need to get over that rose tinted idea of what capitalism is. It hasn’t existed in 100 years if it ever did.
There are other countries outside the USA that have less inhumane laws. But the issues are still the same. So no, that is not it.
What is the risk of failing as a capitalist? Just being an employee.
People fail all the time, agreed. Many people are not good at business and need to learn that others should not work harder for their inadequacy.
nothing you said is anything new to the workers that actually risk their lives during work. risk management is literally an elementary ethics course. what happens when you die? who will cover for your missing labor when you’re gone?
to risk is to live.