this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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The profit should equal exactly the minimum wage, no more and no less. In fact it should not even be called "profit", just the wage of the administration. Doesn't matter if a profession is "skilled" or "unskilled", people should be paid to live not to value their skills above others. No reason an MD should be paid more or less than a janitor and we wouldn't be able to live without either of them. The pandemic showed clear as day how much work is "essential" and badly paid compared to "inessential" and "skilled".
It's not even like employers themselves are particularly skilled anyways. Now if you believe that some people inherently deserve a worse life due to their profession, you can just say it.
Dont forget with raising that minimum wage to meet profit, we are also going to take the means of production.
Ok, I've read all this. And it's ridiculous, no one will open a business if they make $0. Raise the minimum to something livable like $20 and let them make a few million, probably with hard caps over something like $10+ million profit. They won capitalism, congrats, the rest goes back into the company/taxes. It shouldn't meet exactly the productivity, just better than what we have now.
This idea is fine if you literally just want to survive, but your perfect world would have nothing of joy in it.
In the current system you're right, but only because to make $0 you yourself won't be able to survive.
To suggest that profit motive must exist to want to start a business though is not valid. Think of all the big name "inventors" of the past couple centuries: yes they were being paid enough to live, but what motivated their invention and discovery was genuine passion for knowledge and invention. I'd start a business that made $0 if I was producing a product I thought was cool and meaningful. In fact, not being tied to a profit motive would let me experiment with more unusual ideas for goods and services.
If you pay people enough to survive and entertain themselves, it doesn't magically turn everyone into a braindead consumer (ironically, that's what the current system does). If you pay people enough to not have to worry about survival, they can be creative and explore the landscape of ideas, leading to novel discovery and inventions.