Error
  • JUser::_load: Unable to load user with id: 78
Are Businesses Exploiting Their Workers? PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 25 March 2008 07:05
"Capitalists" (which seems to have become a dirty word - if your grandmother owns any mutual funds she is rightly called a capitalist) are accused of exploiting workers in the sense that firm owners/shareholders receive the bulk of the value that its employees create leaving employees with very little of the fruits of their own labor.

One way to assess the validity of this claim is to measure the value of each employee to the output of the firm, and to see whether their wages (actually total compensation, including working conditions) are in line with this value (standard economic theory suggests that these should be roughly equal absent various labor market imperfections). A broad way to understand whether this exploitation is happening is to compare the after-tax profits of all U.S. corporations with the compensation received by all employees of these corporations. Looking at recently released government data you will find that:
  • after tax corporate profits in 2007 were $1.4 trillion;
  • compensation of all employees of U.S. corporations was $8.0 trillion, roughly 57 percent of the $14 trillion in U.S. GDP.

According to this aggregate data, workers received roughly 85 percent of corporate funds available for distribution. While this share is down from 90 percent two decades ago, the large majority of corporate income ends up in the hands of workers, not the exploiting capitalist class. This is not meant to say that we approve of the corporate form of organization as the optimal, or that all firms behave appropriately, rather that in a competitive marketplace where firms must compete for workers, absent special privileges granted to specific firms or industries, it is highly improbable that workers are systematically mistreated by the companies that they work for, at least in regard to compensation.

Bookmark this article:

Deli.cio.us    Digg    reddit    Facebook    StumbleUpon    Newsvine
< Prev   Next >
 

Other articles by :

Comments (2)
Retraction of smap comment
2 Monday, 30 March 2009 10:54
Brad Schraer
I would like to retract any comments about Smap Manufacturing,This was written out of anger and should not have ever been said,infact Mr Stuart Paves was the best employer I have ever had.I am sorry Mr Paves for any inconvience I have caused you.
SMAP MANUFACTURING EXPLOITING THE LATINO WORKFORCE!
1 Tuesday, 24 February 2009 08:24
Stuart Paves
Stuart Paves the owner of Smap manufacturing at 15240 Dixi Highway,Harvey Illinois 60462 exploits his american latino and africian american workers.At this manufacturing it seems to be all upper management who are the racist.One day I seen the plant manager going up to a latino mother and daughter working side by side and haveing trouble with Smaps outdated and antique equipment and heard the plant manager call the daughter a whore,he was quickly backhanded and for good reason.Several times I have seen Annette Patierno the owners sidekick and lover go into the plant area after a bad night at the Bar and take it out on the latino workers with degradeing remarks and foul language because she thinks they dont understand english,and she could not be further from the truth.When the mayor of harvey tries to help people seeking employment get a job at smap they are quickly dismissed because of the raceism that runs ramped there.This company also make car products in the same tanks as personal hair care products and with out the proper cleaning teniques leaves residules and taints other products that range from infant to ken paves products.The owner allowed a latino father to operate a forklift with out training and certification that resulted in the mans death and only paid the wife with a young son 2weeks pay in their time of need for their loss,now how sad is that!The only thing Stuart the owner of the company was worried about was the companys he was produceing product for,he did not whant them to find out.Just look up forklift death in Harvey.This is a sad time when companies like Smap manufacturing are allowed to operate in the fashion,companies like this should be exposed and boycotted and companies chooseing to use them should be held accountable as well!

Add your comment

Your name:
Subject:
Comment:
  The word for verification. Lowercase letters only with no spaces.
Word verification:
yvComment v.1.18.3