Oddbean new post about | logout
 There is no value in labor as such. Value of a labor input is derived from the value of labor's output as priced on the open market. Do you think an entrepreneur who buys a property, sets up a business, buys all the capital to build a production line, starts paying employees before a single unit comes off that production line, let alone gets sold on the market--you're implying that's not a "contribution." He has taken on the vast majority of the risk, which is what earns him the right to take home the majority of the profit--and yet all this happens while paying his employees a fair (because agreed-upon) wage. Without the profit incentive, there is no investment, there is no development, there is no innovation--there are no entrepreneurs.  
 Hook, line, and sinker.
If you think that “majority of profits” is the only way innovation happens or has happened, you do not understand psychology or human history.
Most innovation comes from “how to make my life easier “ or “how to make this task at hand easier”.
Profits is actually a new concept in the timeline of our species. Not to mention, I own a company, that generates no profit and pays the workers multiples more in what their peers get paid in our market. It works, I’m not asking…I’m telling.
Todays company’s are mostly zombie companies with high evaluations do to the sea of shit fiat that we swim in. Most companies in history start small with very little over head, growing slowly and not really risking much but time/labor. However, most also make back their initial investment rather quickly or why would you take on more overhead if you have made no return.
The true risk takers are the individuals who work for a company and they have no say in the operating decisions; meaning, a ceo can make a bad call and they have no job…which is no fault of their own.
Yet, CEOs, executives, big stock holders make more in one day than the workers make in a lifetime.
Keep regurgitating that capitalist mantra. It’s proven it is unsustainable. Would you like to move to why it is not sustainable?