I think we are seeing this now in the US economy. Corporate profits are strong and have been for several years. I don't think that the average American worker feels like they are getting their fair share of these profits. At least I don't. It doesn't have to be this way does it?
unemployment is below 5% and anyone who can show up to work reliably can have one. not so in just about every other country on the planet. this is the best country on the planet, bar none, for both freedom and opportunities. i don't feel entitled to a corporation's profits that i did nothing to earn. and to your point, 40% of the country gets more back in subsidies and benefits than they pay in taxes, with the bulk coming from the top 1%. and you are seeing the benefits from those corporate profits, in the form of a higher standard of living, such as cheaper computers, cheaper internet access, cheap cars, etc, etc, etc,or you could invest in them. without those incentives, why would a corporation take a risk to build a product, for the good of mankind?
The corporation wouldn't be able to have these profits and the CEO wouldn't get his $200 million salary without the workers ,who you think did nothing to deserve to feel entitled to a larger share of these profits. It is a plutocracy pure and simple.
ah, this is going nowhere. each person's contribution to the firm, and society, are decided by the free market in the form of a wage. there are inefficiencies, some are overpaid, and some are underpaid, but over time, they get worked out by the supply and demand for labor and skills in the market. union workers are artificially overpaid, as are CEOs, and those excess wages are coming in. others are underpaid, and a competitor will hire them. activist hedge funds are helping reign in the excess in CEO pay. i'm not sure how much you pay CEOs whose good decisions can impact (or destroy) hundreds of millions or billions of shareholder wealth. if a CEO makes a company and it's owners a billion dollars based on his decisions and management, how much should he get paid. the only fair way to decide is to see what others are willing to pay for that billion. if another company thinks it will turn their losing money operation to hundreds of millions, i'd guess they'd think it was worth it to pay him 10s of millions.
I think the inefficiencies have swung too far to benefit the corporation over the worker. "In corporate capitalism, the labor of employees is regarded as one commodity among others, and driving its cost down is among the highest priorities of all managers. Thus, employers seek to avoid paying overtime pay, to avoid paying unemployment compensation, to avoid paying employees the full value of their labor, and to keep benefits as minimal as the labor market will bear. Employers have also sought to abrogate employee privacy, and to disrupt union organization. Working as an employee also entails a hidden "opportunity cost", in that workers build no equity in the business that they work for. Of course, in many cases, employees also seek to exploit employers, and engage in numerous practices that minimize their productivity; however, in the US, the balance of power greatly favors the employer. A major tactic in current class warfare is the exporting of jobs to third world nations (in the US corporations are actually subsidized for doing so)." This is why real wages in the US have been stagnant since 2001, while corporate profits have been steadily growing. Our government is controlled by these corporations now, as is the mass media. These groups have been operating to promote the interests of the wealthy elite. It doesn't have to be this way, it just is. Americans rarely have any opportunity to vote for candidates who truly represent their own economic best interest over those of the corporations. Someone who ran on this platform wouldn't get enough financing to compete, and would be labeled as unelectable and subject to character assasination. Fighting character assasination cost a lot of money. Also the average American is politically ignorant and apathetic.
If your living on a economy that is rewarding entrepreneurs more and more and not rewarding employees does it make any sense to say for you to do nothing and say 'how unfair please someone do something about it'. All the sudden I'm reminded of the typewriter industry complaining 'someone do something about these computers their destroying our hardworking families'. Bottom line is, get out ass out of the couch learn your tax code and how to take advantage of it, kiosaky explains this point very well on his books. you should read them.
Corporate profits have been strong because consumers have been using their house as an ATM and they have had lower expenses thanks to outsourcing. What will happen once the consumer is tapped out, now that their house is depreciating.
Dafugginman, you make a good statement of the standard thinking (the "company line"), but I think DudeofLife is quite correct because -- American corporate management has a short-run view because of the necessity to manage to the stock price, and that short-run view drives the outsourcing that is eventually gonna get my contract programming job (I think of it as a backup job when I get a few winning trades). And when the factories are all overseas, and the white collar middle class jobs are all outsourced, just who the hell is gonna be left to buy the products that the American companies produce overseas??
How many corporations lobby the US govt to look the other way while they import the poorest, most desperate mexicans and central americans to build houses and work on factory farms, all while the taxpayer gets to foot the bill when the workers injure themselves, get to teach their children how to read (in spanish), and provide healthcare, welfare, and social security to their extended families they bring along.
"Our government is controlled by these corporations now, as is the mass media." I opine it is quite the opposite. As corporations become larger under the guise of scale of economy (this is what they preach but in actuality it is the govt setting the rules, to make several large cos in the same business, it looks like competition but it is a matter of churning each others customers) it is easier for the govt to control several large corps rather than hundreds of smaller ones. This is acheived through cumbersome regulations which, imo, are all designed by insurance companies and the trial lawyers and peddled to Congress. One example: How can our govt find the "one" cow with mad cow disease? Never would have been possible with hundreds of farms. Or find the lettuce or onions with e-coli. In the meantime, where's the individual farmer? Are you going to tell me the large dairy operations are controlling the govt? This may be an asinine example but there are dozens of similiar situations just the same.