A business owner takes a risk. They supply the capital to run the company.
the owner loses his whole investment and possibly his home.
Business owners don’t “supply” capital. Business owners own capital.
Anyone who has access to capital is far less vulnerable generally than workers, who have no capital.
Workers live under continuous precarity.
What is the net worth of the owner of your company? What is the motive for being a business owner? Do you really think you are less likely to become homeless than him or her?
The whole the “business owners take all risk” is just some tired neoliberal apologia that is intended to mislead.
They supply the capital. That is why they are the owner.
WOrkers have capital. Who do you think money, car, homes, etc are?!?!? I am a worker and I have a fair amount of capital saved up.
The company I work for is about 28 billion. My share is about 1 million. The company I own is worth about 28 million. I started with the capital from my day job and grew it and in the beginning, I was taking on a lot of risk.
The owner/shareholders are the ones who take all the risk. The worker has zero risk. If times get bad, they can go get another job. The company I work at could go bankrupt tomorrow and I would be fine.
That’s not capital, that’s just things. Capital is material wealth that gives you bargaining power on a larger scale. You don’t have that bargaining power just because you “own” a car or a house. In most cases, the bank essentially owns those things, and lease them to you for the interest rate it charges.
The worker has zero risk. If times get bad, they can go get another job.
If you think that’s true, you haven’t been paying attention to the job market at all.
The company I work at could go bankrupt tomorrow and I would be fine.
And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the shareholders and owners will be fine as well. They’ll have insurance, or backup plans. Or they’ll foist all the debt onto the workers. The only time they’d truly feel it, is if they’d make monumentally stupid financial decisions.
Owning is not supplying. Owning is holding. Supplying is transferring possession to another party. When you hold ownership of a business, you maintain control of the business, as it operates, and you collect profit from its operation. You never deplete the supply of the business you own as a natural consequence of its operation.
Capital is assets that have productive value, such as businesses or rented properties. Cars and homes that are used by their owners are not capital, and neither is cash deposited in a bank. Most capital is owned by a very small cohort of society.
Business owners own capital. Workers own essentially none.
You have very deep confusion about extremely basic concepts, a condition that is not being helped by your snarkiness and hostility
The article you referenced explains (emphasis added)…
While money itself may be construed as capital, capital is more often associated with cash that is being put to work for productive or investment purposes.
I think my time is better spent now supplying my capital to a local drinking establishment.
The act of investment is purchasing (or exchanging) capital using cash or other assets.
A business may acquire funding from investment, but in such a case the investor is trading cash for equity, bonds, or some other investment asset representing the present or future value of the company, or generated by the company. The investor is not supplying capital, but rather purchasing capital (or trading capital).
The idea that the investor is supplying capital to the company is only a metaphor.
Someone may lose money from an investment, but most capital is owned by immensely wealthy individuals, whose situation is vastly removed from that of ordinary workers, who actually do face the risk of losing their only home or their only car.
Even small businesses are owned by individuals who have chosen to become business owners in order to profit from others’ work. Any risk they assume is through an attempt to enrich themselves from gains not shared with workers. By not sharing their gains with those who are working to create them, business owners, large or small, are not helping workers, but rather preventing workers from advancing.
If you chose to use your house as collateral in order for the opportunity to enrich yourself, then no one owes you any gratitude. You are not a hero. You acted in your own interests, not for helping others.
If workers provided labor, and you only paid them wages, then you profited from their labor, and prevented them from advancing by realizing the full value of their labor.
The only reason your house was at risk was because the bank hoards capital, using lending as a device to augment its own wealth.
If capital were shared by everyone, then all the problems you describe would not occur. No one would lose houses or cars, no one would be a tens of millions of times richer than anyone else, and everyone would be paid fully for their labor, without distinction of owner versus worker.
Business owners don’t “supply” capital. Business owners own capital.
Anyone who has access to capital is far less vulnerable generally than workers, who have no capital.
Workers live under continuous precarity.
What is the net worth of the owner of your company? What is the motive for being a business owner? Do you really think you are less likely to become homeless than him or her?
The whole the “business owners take all risk” is just some tired neoliberal apologia that is intended to mislead.
They supply the capital. That is why they are the owner.
WOrkers have capital. Who do you think money, car, homes, etc are?!?!? I am a worker and I have a fair amount of capital saved up.
The company I work for is about 28 billion. My share is about 1 million. The company I own is worth about 28 million. I started with the capital from my day job and grew it and in the beginning, I was taking on a lot of risk.
The owner/shareholders are the ones who take all the risk. The worker has zero risk. If times get bad, they can go get another job. The company I work at could go bankrupt tomorrow and I would be fine.
That’s not capital, that’s just things. Capital is material wealth that gives you bargaining power on a larger scale. You don’t have that bargaining power just because you “own” a car or a house. In most cases, the bank essentially owns those things, and lease them to you for the interest rate it charges.
If you think that’s true, you haven’t been paying attention to the job market at all.
And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the shareholders and owners will be fine as well. They’ll have insurance, or backup plans. Or they’ll foist all the debt onto the workers. The only time they’d truly feel it, is if they’d make monumentally stupid financial decisions.
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Owning is not supplying. Owning is holding. Supplying is transferring possession to another party. When you hold ownership of a business, you maintain control of the business, as it operates, and you collect profit from its operation. You never deplete the supply of the business you own as a natural consequence of its operation.
Capital is assets that have productive value, such as businesses or rented properties. Cars and homes that are used by their owners are not capital, and neither is cash deposited in a bank. Most capital is owned by a very small cohort of society.
Business owners own capital. Workers own essentially none.
You have very deep confusion about extremely basic concepts, a condition that is not being helped by your snarkiness and hostility
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Ok. Capital is just cars and cash.
The article you referenced explains (emphasis added)…
I think my time is better spent now supplying my capital to a local drinking establishment.
Enjoy ranting.
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The act of investment is purchasing (or exchanging) capital using cash or other assets.
A business may acquire funding from investment, but in such a case the investor is trading cash for equity, bonds, or some other investment asset representing the present or future value of the company, or generated by the company. The investor is not supplying capital, but rather purchasing capital (or trading capital).
The idea that the investor is supplying capital to the company is only a metaphor.
Someone may lose money from an investment, but most capital is owned by immensely wealthy individuals, whose situation is vastly removed from that of ordinary workers, who actually do face the risk of losing their only home or their only car.
Even small businesses are owned by individuals who have chosen to become business owners in order to profit from others’ work. Any risk they assume is through an attempt to enrich themselves from gains not shared with workers. By not sharing their gains with those who are working to create them, business owners, large or small, are not helping workers, but rather preventing workers from advancing.
Removed by mod
If you chose to use your house as collateral in order for the opportunity to enrich yourself, then no one owes you any gratitude. You are not a hero. You acted in your own interests, not for helping others.
If workers provided labor, and you only paid them wages, then you profited from their labor, and prevented them from advancing by realizing the full value of their labor.
The only reason your house was at risk was because the bank hoards capital, using lending as a device to augment its own wealth.
If capital were shared by everyone, then all the problems you describe would not occur. No one would lose houses or cars, no one would be a tens of millions of times richer than anyone else, and everyone would be paid fully for their labor, without distinction of owner versus worker.