For a contrasting example, I prefer cooperatives where the people involved in the business control it democratically (which can still include directors and managers).
How is providing the two jobs not contributing to the economy?
How do you clear $60,000 on widgets? What about the costs of supplies, insurance, compliance to government regulations, city/state/county/federal taxes, import duties,R&D, documentation, advertising, and so on?
I didn't make an argument about whether it was contributing to the economy or not, but that doesn't matter - slavery contributed to the economy too, but it's also morally wrong.
It's a stripped down hypothetical on purpose, to get to the heart of the question. Non-labour material concerns are left as an exercise for the reader.
> one person profits off the work of another
Trade needs to benefit both parties.
We live in different world. Thank you for your response.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exploita...
> the act of using someone unfairly for your own advantage
But we probably just disagree on the meaning of "unfairly" within that definition.
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?
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.
You believe that when you join an organization you automatically have a say in how it is run.
So yeah, I think you should have a voice in how the company you work for is run.
(This of course does not apply to the very disadvantaged)
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.