How much risk is the average employee taking on, compared with the investors who are supplying capital so the business can operate and scale? This idea that it's only the employees who create value is simply bunk. By all means go and start your own company if you think labor is the only part of the equation, and scale it without taking on investment or paying out to investors.
>How much risk is the average employee taking on, compared with the investors who are supplying capital so the business can operate and scale?
I'd say it's a pretty big risk to become unemployed, especially where the welfare system can be unstable, and you have dependents to support. The investor, at worst, will have to take a "labour" job. The worker, at worst, will be food and shelter insecure.
>By all means go and start your own company if you think labor is the only part of the equation
That's not really a valid response to a criticism of the system which necessarily operates with the division of capital and labour. Obviously you need money; that's not what is in dispute here.
Capital and labour are integral parts of the equation, but the social function of an owner of capital who commands an army of labourers and sells the goods for profit is arguably not. Production can happen (and has happened) outside that social relationship.
You can work at a company for years and then job hop with no subsequent risk, whereas the founders and investors will get shafted if they don't continue to lead the company in the right direction. Shareholders and investors absolutely need to be rewarded for this.
The person I was responding to was acting as if there is NOT a division of capital and labor. I agree with you that we need both. You can't treat only capital well, and you can't treat only labor well. And the person I was responding to seems to have been suggesting that we treat only labor well. Production at our modern scale needs owners and investors and shareholders. That doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't improve things for the worker, though.
