How are these corporations organized? The same relationship: owners/employers (in this case the major shareholders, board of directors, and executives) hire workers/employees. The workers generate profits. What happens to those profits? Where do they go? They go to, essentially, the "owners" -- the board of directors, who decide what to do with the money. Since the board directors are chosen by major shareholders, they usually do the bidding of the major shareholders -- and we see that demonstrated today with stock buybacks and dividends, which accounts for 90+% of profit distribution (please see the links I provided earlier, or google it yourself, as this should be a stunning statement). — Xtrix
means of production — StreetlightX
But, the small businesses, are the incubators for creating the bigger ones which then become almost like public goods by being so ingrained in the lives of everyone. — schopenhauer1
You must be thinking about the era of entrepreneurship -- which has been replaced now by VC and other sources of funding. The incubator outlook is long gone.But, the small businesses, are the incubators for creating the bigger ones which then become almost like public goods by being so ingrained in the lives of everyone. — schopenhauer1
You misunderstand. We're not talking about just any independent sources of capital here.Independent sources of capital were always a part of it. — schopenhauer1
You are preaching to the choir.People need the capital infusion and rarely have their own to grow the business unless already wealthy which is where an unfair advantage does enter into it. — schopenhauer1
The company was a success from the beginning, but just five weeks after its incorporation the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers threatened to put it out of business because Ford was not a licensed manufacturer. He had been denied a license by this group, which aimed at reserving for its members the profits of what was fast becoming a major industry. The basis of their power was control of a patent granted in 1895 to George Baldwin Selden, a patent lawyer of Rochester, New York. The association claimed that the patent applied to all gasoline-powered automobiles. Along with many rural Midwesterners of his generation, Ford hated industrial combinations and Eastern financial power. Moreover, Ford thought the Selden patent preposterous. All invention was a matter of evolution, he said, yet Selden claimed genesis. He was glad to fight, even though the fight pitted the puny Ford Motor Company against an industry worth millions of dollars. The gathering of evidence and actual court hearings took six years. Ford lost the original case in 1909; he appealed and won in 1911. His victory had wide implications for the industry, and the fight made Ford a popular hero.
“I will build a motor car for the great multitude,” Ford proclaimed in announcing the birth of the Model T in October 1908. In the 19 years of the Model T’s existence, he sold 15,500,000 of the cars in the United States, almost 1,000,000 more in Canada, and 250,000 in Great Britain, a production total amounting to half the auto output of the world. The motor age arrived owing mostly to Ford’s vision of the car as the ordinary man’s utility rather than as the rich man’s luxury. Once only the rich had travelled freely around the country; now millions could go wherever they pleased. The Model T was the chief instrument of one of the greatest and most rapid changes in the lives of the common people in history, and it effected this change in less than two decades. Farmers were no longer isolated on remote farms. The horse disappeared so rapidly that the transfer of acreage from hay to other crops caused an agricultural revolution. The automobile became the main prop of the American economy and a stimulant to urbanization—cities spread outward, creating suburbs and housing developments—and to the building of the finest highway system in the world. — https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12347/a-ceo-deserves-his-rewards-if-workers-can-survive-off-his-salary/latest/comment
In 1909, when the Wright Company was incorporated with a capitalization of $1,000,000, the Wright brothers received $100,000, 40 percent of the stock, and a 10 percent royalty on every plane sold. The company developed extensive financial interests in aviation during those early years but, counter to the recommendations of its financiers, did not establish a tight monopoly.
By 1911, pilots were flying in competitive races over long distances between European cities, and this provided enormous incentives for companies to produce faster and more reliable aircraft. In 1911–12 the Wright Company earned more than $1,000,000, mostly in exhibition fees and prizes rather than in sales. French aircraft emerged as the most advanced and for a time were superior to those of competing countries. All planes built in this early period were similar in construction—wings and fuselage frames were made of wood (usually spruce or fir) and covered with a coated fabric. — https://www.britannica.com/technology/aerospace-industry/History
The Boeing Company was started in 1916, when American lumber industrialist William E. Boeing founded Aero Products Company in Seattle, Washington. Shortly before doing so, he and Conrad Westervelt created the "B&W" seaplane.[14][15] In 1917, the organization was renamed Boeing Airplane Company, with William Boeing forming Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation in 1928.[14] In 1929, the company was renamed United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, followed by the acquisition of several aircraft makers such as Avion, Chance Vought, Sikorsky Aviation, Stearman Aircraft, Pratt & Whitney, and Hamilton Metalplane.[2]
In 1931, the group merged its four smaller airlines into United Airlines. In 1934, the manufacture of aircraft was required to be separate from air transportation.[16] Therefore, Boeing Airplane Company became one of three major groups to arise from dissolution of United Aircraft and Transport; the other two entities were United Aircraft (later United Technologies) and United Airlines.[2][16] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing
Marx was a good writer, but a hypocrite of the highest order. Wherever his doctrines have been employed there has been nothing but moral and systematic failure on a grand scale. — NOS4A2
If I was to play the devils advocate, I could argue that a dictator or a leader of a criminal syndicate (or anyone like them) has just as much right to their ill gotten gains as the CEO you are talking about. Just like a CEO the leader of a dictatorship or criminal enterprise has to make sure those underneath them are take care of as well deal with anything or anyone who threatens; and sometimes with violence if necessary which is something that CEOs themselves almost never have to deal with.This thread started from a tangent on an earlier one between me and StreetlightX. That part of the thread is here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10310/solutions-for-overpopulation/latest/comment
So this thread is continuing that discussion.. The last couple of posts went something like this:
CEOs/business owners provide incomes, healthcare, and even vacations for their employees. They can move to a new CEO/business owner's domain (business) if they want. What is wrong with this arrangement? Things to consider:
1) The business owner (if a smaller business) gambled his own time, resources, and money (or debt) to generate the capital to start his/her business.
2) The workers are getting market-value salaries that sustain their survival and entertainment, rents/mortgages, food, clothes, HVAC, water, healthcare, car payments, disposable income for goods/services of all kinds.
3) The basis for technology is businesses interacting with other businesses to gather the goods/services to create products that sell and sustain their workers.
What is wrong with this arrangement? To see this in more detail, please read these posts:
schopenhauer1: The CEO of a small tech company gets paid $2 million. The head developer gets paid $300,000. A mid-level developer and R&D personnel $150,000. The tech support gets paid $60-75,000. The sales people range from $70-$200,000. The people in the manufacturing get a range from $45-$85,000 depending on their position. Customer service and related personnel get $50,000. They all get increases every year 5% for inflation. Everyone likes their little hierarchy. In larger companies, the numbers may be more and more room for ladder-climbing. Third world nations that are chiefly exporting and living subsistence want this little hierarchy too. You are trying to take that away with themes of "no property". Rather, the CEO gambled, and put in that effort 30 years ago and deserves the reward of profit-maker and figure head. The developers and mid level people are getting paid enough to live comfortably and do those things mentioned earlier (BBQs, TVs, etc.).. The third world see this and want it exported to their country. So these people would ask you what is your problem? Is it the big guys? The international corporations? The ones that pay the "real bucks" and you can climb much further up the hierarchy? Why would they hate "that"? Hey, you might even get healthcare too! (Bestowed from government or business/fiefdom).
The workers think, "Why should we own the capital.. The owner put that initial gamble and work into the company. It is his profits. He is gracious enough to pay me enough to live. I get to go on vacation soon!".
The only response you will give is some cliched notion of starving Africans who are not a part of this system right? But that is itself a different problem than taking away property. You are confusing development issues and issues surrounding fundamentals of property... But I'll be charitable and assume you are NOT going down that cliched road of third world vs. first world in this justification for no property (in the first world). So if that's the case, what is the need for taking away the capital from those who gambled to create the growth of business (and bestowment of jobs) created from that initial capital? So we will go back to global, mega corporations right? Because they are employing low wage workers in third world companies? So we go back to that... So really it is back to large corporations.. and so you fall into simply "liberal" who wants get rid of multnational corporations that exploit third world countries. That is right in line with "liberal" versions of standard capitalism. Get in line.
What would you say to the people in that small business scenario who are content (enough) with their pay, vacations, and healthcare? To them, the hierarchy sustains. The capitalist class CEO has provided for them. — schopenhauer1
Do you think it is more likely that the kings and priests who are being used/ under appreciated/ exploited or do you think it is more likely peasants, labors, and/or "untouchables" who are being treated in such a way. Again I could be wrong about such parallels existing between the India and Western caste/class systems, but if you do agree that they do exist I think you can see the fallacies that arise when those on the top of a caste system try to argue that they are the one's being "exploited". — dclements
So my whole argument here is a sort of devil's advocate. I started another thread perhaps truer to my own philosophy.. that the fact that we don't understand the technology we use is a sort of alienation on various fronts that allows for exploitation of the keepers of the knowledge.. I am sort of mocking the system whereby people must crawl to another fiefdom of technology-hoarders to dispense little pockets of productive activities for the workers, so that they can consume and make other technology-hoarders (uh, producers), money and so on.. — schopenhauer1
In many ways it is worse that what I argued and you said, the system has always been a bit lopsided toward the rich but it is getting more so each year. Corporations no longer pay the lion share of the taxes through profits (instead it comes from wages), and it seems like the power people have through voting and/or other means hardly makes a difference anymore. i don't have the time right now, but in the next day or so I will research and look through some of my old stuff to find various links and YouTube videos might shed a little more light on this issue then I can by myself. — dclements
How about the medium to small businesses? Would you be good with doing away with private ownership of capital heights (the really big corporate guys) and but keeping it for smaller industries (which still make up a significant amount of the economy)? Why or why not? — schopenhauer1
So I am in alignment with what you are saying, but I guess I am looking at it from a different angle than traditional left politics. So I notice that you mention wealth and taxes and profits. Well, much of these are held up in stocks and such.. so spreading around the wealth would mean a lot of times, spreading around the stocks, which just means more people holding stocks in corporations, etc. However, I am trying to get at it not just as an inequality of wealth (the traditional model), but an inequality of information. So this definitely is more in line with Marx' idea of controlling means of production, but it emphasizes not just some sort of public "ownership" but public knowledge of how things work. In other words, we are alienated from the technologies that make our stuff, and we are rendered helpless consumers because of this. We are literally doled out only the portion of knowledge necessary to keep the corporate/business owner interests going. We can read up on stuff sure, but we will never actually have any technological efficacy because we lack access to the actual technology. We can maybe make do with hobby projects like using a Raspberry Pi or something like that, but this is not the same.. It is a simulation of that technology and makes little impact on how people live in the world. I am not sure if this is making sense. — schopenhauer1
.) than their lack of not knowing what is going on in the world. I guess one could argue that there is a large gap between those that struggle to survive because they have less time and energy to invest in knowing what is going on around them and the fact that those with money and power have the ability to do things like push out propaganda that suits their needs, donate/bribe politicians, and buy media outlets to control access to what the masses are able to know; however all of this has been going on since around the beginning of the industrial age so I believe it is more of an underlining or ongoing problem that something "new". — dclements
I could be wrong but that really isn't about access to information but more about one's access to resources and/or people that manage such a thing. If one has enough money (or knows the right people) one could start a company or corporation that designs transmissions without hardly any knowledge on how a transmission works.So, I'm not talking about access to political information or even general knowledge on how technology works. But literally be able to make and produce items. Can you design and produce a transmission, for example? Nope, that would rely on the expertise of other people who know far more and are probably paid quite handsomely for it.. You would need to be involved in a whole litany of supply chain networks that you have no access to. It is to be distributed and doled out to the consumer and to their workers by the gods of car distribution (aka boards and owners of car companies). — schopenhauer1
I don't know if you agree with all of this but I think my argument is a pretty sound one where it is more about how one knows how do things like run a business/corporation, logistics/operations, and either have lots of money and/or have access to it through banks or people to fund them then it has anything to do with one's ability to know how something works and invent a product in the first place. After all the world is full of corporations who rely on products that where invented by other people or companies, but in the end they merely created a similar product and were more successful in selling and making a profit from it. Since one's ability to invent things isn't really a ticket to becoming wealthy, I can't see it being a reason to argue as it being the major sticking point that you are suggesting it to be. — dclements
I think I more or less agree with everything you said in this post. :grin:I could have quoted any of this, but this part summarized it well. Yeah, I think you make a good point. You have to have money to make money. This on top of sourcing connections.. You have to know the the people that start the manufacturing process. You need to know the people to source the capital resources to create the end product. This takes money and supply connections. That's how the capital overlords become the overlords in the first place. Usually they do indeed have a prototype or an idea, but that is usually for a first product line that quickly gets improved or scratched and remade with more expert input.. Now the overlord has the time to get the financing, sourcing, and accounting the materials. Then they simply become about big picture ideas: marketing strategies, acquisitions, stockholder information, etc.
I still think there is a point to be made that we are often the passive recipients of technology. Either way, I think there is tremendous amount of inertia to change this system you and I have written about. — schopenhauer1
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