How much should employers give their employees and how much should they keep for themselves?

[kentuck]

After all, it is they that put up the capital for the initial investment. It is they that take the risk, is it not?

Once they have their initial investment back, how much should they keep of the profits created by their employees? 50%? 90? Whatever they can get away with?

Should there be a formula where employees share in the productivity? Wouldn't that be a more fair and reasonable form of capitalism?

At present, it seems to be operating solely on greed. Businesses will pay their employees the least amount they can get away with and keep every penny they can for themselves. Is this not the present model?

The workers in this country are manipulated, used, and disposed of like no other industrialized country in the world. There is no shame. Greed is good.

Do you think the capitalist system needs to be changed?

[Cid_B]

1. Whatever they like...

Too much kept and the business withers and talent flees... Just a question of where the line is for each business owner...

[RKP5637]

3. I've worked in companies where that was the plan, take the corp. for all you

can and then dump the corp. and keep the cash.

[RKP5637]

2. Yes. Exactly to what, how and when, I'm not sure of right now, but the system is

absolutely/definitely broken and it 'must' be changed. Basically IMO we now have the gutter crooks in the system.

[Xithras]

4. Whatever everyone agrees to.

That's the point of unions. The employers and employees sit down together and hammer out percentages that are fair and equitable to both. The actual percentages will vary depending on the industry and type of work the employees are doing, so we don't need to have the government or society enforcing any particular percentages. What we DO need is an assurance that the rights of the employees to negotiate that percentage with their employers will be protected, and clear penalties for employers who will not negotiate in good faith.

We also need a government that sees unions as an asset, and not an enemy.

[RKP5637]

7. Pretty much the model used in Germany that seems to work so well it seems. n/t

[theophilus]

5. If the available labor pool was very small it would all work itself out. As it is, they

have a huge pool of "slave labor". They do not have to entice workers. And if workers all had national health care they could move from job to job and the competition would also solve most of the problems. We don't have that. Many are tied to jobs because they have health care through the job, etc.

Edited to add some stuff.

[Denninmi]

6. Well, I can tell you this much.

A big part of the problem is the fact that employers have the ability to literally lie about their expenses when doing their tax returns.

I've seen this in person. Part of my job is to prepare tax returns. Its outrageous what many business owners try to claim as deductible expenses. To his credit, my employer won't let them get away with it -- if they want to cheat, he tells them he won't be able to prepare their returns. And he works with many cheaters who got caught, trying to settle their IRS issues.

Trust me, page after page after page of personal purchases made on a company credit card are NOT legitimate business expenses.

The average employee who gets a W2 doesn't have the ability to claim ridiculous tax deductions against their income. Why should these people?

If there were less greed, less cheating, and less corruption, their would be a more fair distribution of wealth.

[dkf]

8. If workers share in productivity they also share in downtimes.

So cuts in pay may become the norm. That is the tradeoff.

[kentuck]

10. That would be fair.

Is it practiced?

[dkf]

14. People on commission live this way...

It's not always easy.

[TexasProgresive]

19. When downtime comes the RIF you. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

9. The only way you'll ever really know the answer

will be to try running your own company.

[kentuck]

12. If I did run my own company...

I would not insist on 400 times the salary of the average employee...

[rug]

11. The question is not how much they should give employees but how much employers should take from them

The answer is zero.

[Selatius]

13. A labor co-op or a credit union are examples where this issue is resolved.

In those examples, the employer is the employee. The workers are the owners, and to be more specific with credit unions, the depositors are the owners.

I favor a couple changes to American business law.

The US should adopt a co-determination law much like Germany has. Such a law would essentially reorganize the board of directors of every major US enterprise so that half the seats are elected by the workers themselves, with the other half being elected by the shareholders. Half the management positions would also be positions chosen by the workers as well. In Germany, I believe this law applies to every privately owned enterprise with more than 1,000 workers, so imagine Wal-Mart having to actually renegotiate its pay policies once workers get a foothold in the board of directors.

The US government should also be in the business of encouraging the establishment of labor co-ops as a competitor to privately-owned enterprise. It should establish a bank with the explicit purpose of helping people finance, start-up, advise, or reorganize existing or new enterprises so that they are employee-owned. In time, if the co-op sector becomes sufficiently large, workers nationwide would have a true choice between enjoying the fruits of their own labor or selling their labor to somebody else for whatever compensation they can get from the purchaser of their labor.

In the realm of politics, however, that's a different story. I'd recommend a campaign finance law mandating public financing of all federal campaigns, and there is more there as well, but that's a different topic altogether.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. That's a very reasonable and well thought-out proposal

Far more productive to this whole discourse than the dozens of threads arguing about whether we ought to have capitalism or socialism where people just repeat tired mantras like "Socialism has failed everywhere it's tried" and "Capitalism is a cancer that can't be regulated".

[Selatius]

28. I like to call it a backdoor way to socialism.

The co-determination law sort of brings capitalism to heel as a short-term solution to growing income inequality, while the establishment of the co-op sector could very well become the vehicle that replaces privately-owned enterprise as the dominating force in the economy in the long-run. To be sure, there will likely always be some level of privately-run enterprise, and that's fine, but the key is that it no longer dominates the economy, and thus one could claim the economy has been largely socialized. The irony is it uses competition to beat capitalism by giving workers a choice, and that's basically what the Public Option was originally conceived to be with respect to health insurance.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

26. Yes! ++

co-ops are a fantastic model for employee-controlled business that functions well and fairly.

I like the co-determination law like germany too.

[OneGrassRoot]

29. You're singing my song...

:)

I'm a huge fan of employee-owned co-ops.

Just FYI: 2012 is International Year of the Cooperative. Raising awareness in the States about different types of co-ops will be a big focus.

http://www.2012.coop/

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. Whatever they can. However, don't expect society to subsidize it.

If you're WalMart, don't externalize your manpower costs by cutting healthcare.
If you're Apple, don't have your stuff built by chinese slave labor, and then sell it with massive markup and expect US trademark and patent law to protect that monopoly.
If you're British Petroleum, don't expect taxpayers to clean up the mess you make.
If you're GE, don't expect to keep $14 billion in profit tax free.
And to all of you. It hasn't escaped our notice that if we decide to cut the work week to 32 hours, or to raise the overtime rate to 2x, we'll cure our own unemployment and income inequality by constraining the supply of our own labor.

[customerserviceguy]

16. Most entrepreneurs

don't simply stop at their initial investment. If they found that they have a winning formula for success, they often seek to expand elsewhere. This creates jobs, and if the businessperson is right, and they do have something that the public wants, they provide that public with a decent value for goods and services.

Many really smart businesspeople will find a way to let their employees share in the rise in productivity. One of my favorite brewers in the Northwest is Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon. After someone's been with them for awhile, they are offered an ownership interest in the company, and it shows in the quality of their brews. I'm glad they finally managed to distribute their incredible quality ales on this coast.

[yurbud]

18. it's not as much how they divide profits but decision-making:

What good is profit-sharing if your job is still outsourced, or to goose short term profits, the suits decide to make a shittier product, which will hurt the company in the long run, but the execs will already have cashed in and moved on by then?

[Puzzledtraveller]

20. and there's

seasonal work too which seems to be common practice now. I'm a casework and many of my clients have this kind of employment, off and on, off and on, and so on, they do not get a stake in the company, little to no benefits then disposed of when no longer needed. Some get full time positions, many don't. But they have families, they take what they can get, I have a lot of admiration for them.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. As much as they want to, before the guillotine gets dusted off and brought back

Employers can take it all and try to enslave their workers. America could become one giant company store as the upper classes bring back feudalism and noble bloodlines, with all property, 100% belonging to the upper crust. But the people can be pushed just so far before society falls apart and the hungry and exploited get really, really angry.

[1776Forever]

22. There is such a thing as a "living wage" that should be followed. Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Company

follows it and still do after they sold it to British-Dutch multinational food giant Unilever:

http://www.benjerry.com/activism/peace-and-justice/livable-wage/

Livable Wage

Ben & Jerry’s commitment to economic justice starts with our employees. That’s why we are committed to paying all of our full-time manufacturing workers a livable wage – enough to allow for a quality of life that includes decent housing, health care, transportation, food, recreation, savings, and miscellaneous expenses.

Every year, we recalculate the livable wage to make sure it’s keeping up with the actual cost of living in Vermont. In recent years, Ben & Jerry’s livable wage has been nearly twice the national minimum wage, landing at $13.94 in 2009.

........

I would like to see this around the World!

[jpak]

23. That is what collective bargaining is all about - and why the douchebaggers hate it

yup

[GeorgeGist]

24. Time to pull the plug.

Capitalism is brain dead.

[blindpig]

25. If there are profits then there is theft.

Capitalism needs to be abolished, exterminated, deep sixed, ended.

[Bake]

27. The problem (well, one of them) is entrenched management

That is, management that is not the OWNER of the business. Management that screws both its employees and its shareholders, while appointing boards of directors that rubber stamp their edicts and approves their ridiculous compensation.

IF you are a minority shareholder of a company, you have no power, except the power to sell your stock.

If you are an employee, you need a UNION!!

Bake