Often times, rich people are said to be job creators, and it is assumed that we need these rich people to create new jobs.
That is completely untrue. The ultimate source of jobs in not rich people at all. The ultimate source of jobs is work needs, sometimes referred to in a limiting sense as business opportunities.
What entrepreneurs do is to intermediate between work needs and workers. Within a capitalist society, some of this intermediation uses private capital, which an entrepreneur may be able to borrow from private investors and/or bankers. In a socialist society, public capital is used instead.
Of course, not all work needs are ever met, or even conceived. Entrepreneurs seek to develop the work needs whose satisfaction would be most rewarding to them. And, in ways that would be most rewarding to them. In so doing, they may or may not be constrained by social regulations of all kinds, including the ones they curse the most: "government regulations." But they are actually far more constrained by the demands and operations of other capitalists, though imagining themselves as of the same class, they don't as much decry those. Quite often nowadays, it is the investment bankers who are most demanding, and set requirements that the worker pay and product quality be reduced as far as possible and beyond to create higher profits. And if one entrepreneur won't do that, another one will, and that will be the one to get the capital.
But the point is, that the work needs are not created by the entrepreneurs themselves. They are discovered and exploited by entrepreneurs, but not created by them. Other enterpreneurs might discover them just as well, or discover and develop other ones instead. And in all cases, the way work needs are developed into enterprises is always highly particular and contingent on everything else in society.
The ultimate genesis of work needs is too deep to be explored in this essay. But surely an unnecessarily large portion of what goes into creating viable work needs within a capitalist society is consumer income.
In short, it is consumer income which is the job creator, and things which increase consumer income, such as regulations demanding better pay, will result in more and better jobs.
This is exactly what one sees in comparing different countries. In those countries where high pay is mandated, by whatever means, high quality jobs and low unemployment goes right along with it, and not the reverse. In jobs where low pay is acceptable, low quality jobs and high unemployment become the norm. (Government regulations, unions, social customs, etc.) (Examples: Denmark, US, Zimbabwe.) We should be like Denmark, and demand our entrepreneurs create only the best jobs for workers and consumers.
Surely there must be some losers in the "only the best jobs" approach. It is often claimed that there will be more poor and unemployed people, but extensive cross-country and cross-state evidence says otherwise. The losers in this scenario are the billionaires, the source of most private capital, and those whose wealth is defined by how ruthless they are.
But their loss is only in the glint of their obsessions. They might actually live just as well, if not far better while slightly less grandiose, in a society fairer for all.
That is completely untrue. The ultimate source of jobs in not rich people at all. The ultimate source of jobs is work needs, sometimes referred to in a limiting sense as business opportunities.
What entrepreneurs do is to intermediate between work needs and workers. Within a capitalist society, some of this intermediation uses private capital, which an entrepreneur may be able to borrow from private investors and/or bankers. In a socialist society, public capital is used instead.
Of course, not all work needs are ever met, or even conceived. Entrepreneurs seek to develop the work needs whose satisfaction would be most rewarding to them. And, in ways that would be most rewarding to them. In so doing, they may or may not be constrained by social regulations of all kinds, including the ones they curse the most: "government regulations." But they are actually far more constrained by the demands and operations of other capitalists, though imagining themselves as of the same class, they don't as much decry those. Quite often nowadays, it is the investment bankers who are most demanding, and set requirements that the worker pay and product quality be reduced as far as possible and beyond to create higher profits. And if one entrepreneur won't do that, another one will, and that will be the one to get the capital.
But the point is, that the work needs are not created by the entrepreneurs themselves. They are discovered and exploited by entrepreneurs, but not created by them. Other enterpreneurs might discover them just as well, or discover and develop other ones instead. And in all cases, the way work needs are developed into enterprises is always highly particular and contingent on everything else in society.
The ultimate genesis of work needs is too deep to be explored in this essay. But surely an unnecessarily large portion of what goes into creating viable work needs within a capitalist society is consumer income.
In short, it is consumer income which is the job creator, and things which increase consumer income, such as regulations demanding better pay, will result in more and better jobs.
This is exactly what one sees in comparing different countries. In those countries where high pay is mandated, by whatever means, high quality jobs and low unemployment goes right along with it, and not the reverse. In jobs where low pay is acceptable, low quality jobs and high unemployment become the norm. (Government regulations, unions, social customs, etc.) (Examples: Denmark, US, Zimbabwe.) We should be like Denmark, and demand our entrepreneurs create only the best jobs for workers and consumers.
Surely there must be some losers in the "only the best jobs" approach. It is often claimed that there will be more poor and unemployed people, but extensive cross-country and cross-state evidence says otherwise. The losers in this scenario are the billionaires, the source of most private capital, and those whose wealth is defined by how ruthless they are.
But their loss is only in the glint of their obsessions. They might actually live just as well, if not far better while slightly less grandiose, in a society fairer for all.
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