[tremon]

The company exists to make money for the shareholders

Actually, that should be circumstantial. The primary reason for a business to exist is because it provides value to its customers. If the value provided (and monetized) is more than the business' operating costs, it gets to continue to exist.

Shareholders are an artifact of unnatural growth, not a fundamental property of business.

[saiya-jin]

those are some strong assumptions. people don't start companies to serve others, and if by any chance they won't lose money but actually earn something that would be nice.

maybe that's the world you would like to see, and maybe one day we will have it, but it's not the world we currently live in.

why is it so hard for some to accept that money is, overall, by far the strongest motivation force out there? Remove it, and >95% of population will not show up for their crappy work next day. it might not be the best motivator overall and has some drawbacks, but it works so far surprisingly well and we came to this situation by long evolution.

[Angostura]

> why is it so hard for some to accept that money is, overall, by far the strongest motivation force out there?

Because the evidence is circumstantial at best. Money, is of course important. But the strongest motivator? Not for many people.

[saiya-jin]

ok, then do that test of removing salary, indefinitely. since it's not the strongest motivator, maybe secondary one, most would still come, right? now how many would show up next day?

[arcticfox]

I agree that taking extremes is a useful tool, but this isn't the best example.

What if you took away 100% of people's time off? No weekends, no evenings? Nobody is coming back to that either.

[tremon]

Basic income is a great way to test that, yes.