What the capitalists did was pay all the workers right after they did the work, even though the phones wouldn’t actually be sold for some time after that. Capitalists bring capital. Money. It takes money to get things started.
I completely agree that the rewards are all disproportionate. The people who put up the capital shouldn’t get all the rewards. But it’s just dumb to claim that they play no role at all. If that’s true, walk out of your house and make a phone you designed yourself out of sticks you find on the ground.
The only thing you can remove from the process and still get the same result is capital…
And while I get that capital does “play a role”, at least insofar as incentive predicated on people’s ability to function in the capitalistic society we currently inhabit goes, to imply that somehow without it people would be left to trying to “design a phone out of sticks on the ground” is extremely disingenuous.
A much higher financial incentive because they’d actually be the ones profiting from the sale of the phones. There are organizational structures other than corporations.
I was once asked to join a startup, and after a few chats I was ready to talk turkey. Then they sprung it on me that since there was no revenue yet, no one was making a wage. But my equity in the company would be correspondingly high.
I couldn’t do it. I had bills to pay. I was stunned that they thought I could do this, and I slowly realized that everyone else there was an ex-Googler and basically rich already.
So you see, I’ve been in the exact position you suggest your workers will jump at, and it does. not. work. People need to pay rent this month and can’t wait through a months long production chain and months long sales cycle all of which is full of risk. They need to get paid, for sure, not maybe, and now.
I’m not in here touting the glory of capitalism as if it’s a wonderful system. But I’m also not spouting pure fantasy bullshit about alternatives we can just switch to easy-peasy, because that’s a bunch of half-baked idealistic crap.
What the capitalists did was pay all the workers right after they did the work, even though the phones wouldn’t actually be sold for some time after that. Capitalists bring capital. Money. It takes money to get things started.
I completely agree that the rewards are all disproportionate. The people who put up the capital shouldn’t get all the rewards. But it’s just dumb to claim that they play no role at all. If that’s true, walk out of your house and make a phone you designed yourself out of sticks you find on the ground.
Where did that capital come from?
The same place the fed and skilled laborers came from: the proceeds of previous enterprises.
The only thing you can remove from the process and still get the same result is capital…
And while I get that capital does “play a role”, at least insofar as incentive predicated on people’s ability to function in the capitalistic society we currently inhabit goes, to imply that somehow without it people would be left to trying to “design a phone out of sticks on the ground” is extremely disingenuous.
It only “takes money to get things started” because our economy is organized that way.
How else are you going to get 200 people together to assemble phones for a week?
A much higher financial incentive because they’d actually be the ones profiting from the sale of the phones. There are organizational structures other than corporations.
I was once asked to join a startup, and after a few chats I was ready to talk turkey. Then they sprung it on me that since there was no revenue yet, no one was making a wage. But my equity in the company would be correspondingly high.
I couldn’t do it. I had bills to pay. I was stunned that they thought I could do this, and I slowly realized that everyone else there was an ex-Googler and basically rich already.
So you see, I’ve been in the exact position you suggest your workers will jump at, and it does. not. work. People need to pay rent this month and can’t wait through a months long production chain and months long sales cycle all of which is full of risk. They need to get paid, for sure, not maybe, and now.
I’m not in here touting the glory of capitalism as if it’s a wonderful system. But I’m also not spouting pure fantasy bullshit about alternatives we can just switch to easy-peasy, because that’s a bunch of half-baked idealistic crap.
Yeah I mean I know it doesn’t work under this economic system, but that’s kind of the point I was making