Why Should My Boss Get All the Profits?

When a business makes a profit, who deserves the excess? Is it fair that the owner gets all the profits? Should the profits be shared equally among workers and owners alike?

Source: Foundation for Economic Education YouTube channel.

Transcript:

Once there was a gold digging prospector. He funded all of his endeavors with his own money and paid to diggers for each hole they dug or mined, whether or not they found anything. One day one of them finally struck gold. And boom! He was rich! His work of working hard in creating jobs were finally being rewarded.

Worker:

Not so fast! Why you get the entire gold nugget. After all, I dug the hole. Shouldn't we be splitting it fifty-fifty?

Employer:

Boy, that is just ridiculous. I paid you to dig that hole there.

Worker:

Capitalist swine! Living off my surplus labor.

Employer:

I should have known you were a gold digger.

Seems silly, right? Unfortunately, it is happening in the world today. Many argue that all workers are entitled to proportional share of their bosses' profits. But that's just not right. Most new business owners go years without ever seeing a profit. And that's if they are lucky to get any money. Most businesses fail after all. Not only do they need a large share of the profits to compensate for all the time and money they have spent on the enterprise. They deserve it for their years and years of unpaid labor.

Worker:

Nonsense! What about after they recoup their costs? There's any excess money they pool in from their workers is theft?

No. Once again, the only reason their workers are able to make any money in this context is because someone else built the business. Not to mention, business owners invest thousands and sometimes millions or billions in other enterprises in order to develop new products and technologies to improve the lives of their consumers and pool in more capital to pay themselves and their workers.

Worker:

Please, those rich jerks can afford to pay.

Sorry, but that usually isn't true either. Most businesses are small businesses, and part of why people start them is because they want to be in full control of the value of their labor. Which is the same that you want, but it is not something you are entitled to unless you start a business yourself. Otherwise, no one would ever start a new business and our economy would stagnate.

Worker:

Aww, that is just economic mambo jumbo. I don't see why I shouldn't get an equal share of profits.

Ok, there's an easier way to settle this. Are you willing to get paid less on years when profits are down and would you go into debt when business you worked for did?

Worker:

No!

That's why!

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