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by adamredwoods 2136 days ago
In my opinion, I would maybe rephrase this as exploitation. "Business success" (define as you see fit), accompanies exploitation. "Screwing" people, could fall under exploitation, but feels more malicious, whereas exploitation can take many forms and is commonly accepted. It can be exploiting a rules loop hole, exploiting worker pay, exploiting current wealth status, exploiting someone's social connections, etc.

Exploitation is not necessarily bad, as most companies to be profitable, need to exploit something. Companies want profit so they are exploiting the price they charge, or exploiting the workers they pay, or a combination of many little exploits.

Imagine a company could pay its workers more, but they don't. I believe this is an exploitation of the workers. People don't see it as "bad" in minor cases, and this practice is commonly accepted. Consider how much Apple is making and how much it is paying its workers, versus a locally owned restaurant.

Imagine a company could charge less for a product and still survive. This again, is a minor exploitation, and commonly accepted.

When the exploitation gets large enough, workers sometimes revolt.

1 comments

That concept of exploitation makes zero sense on a microeconomic or macroeconomic level. If there is any money available to expand that is charging more money than they need to survive. A company could always pay their workers more unless it brought them to precarity - even the actual workers wouldn't want that and they are the direct beneficaries of said excess! That would be like your drug dealer staging an intervention.
I don't understand your argument. I don't think a business would succeed if it was pushed to precarity, so this is not dealing with exploitation. Exploitation needs to present in many aspects to create business success, it supports the definition of profit. The money made exceeds what it took to make the product or service. To profit is to exploit.

I'm not trying to cast the act of exploitation in business in a judgmental way, but rather to show it exists, because it is universally accepted. It's the other side of the same coin. Yes, it's a weird interpretation of Marxian economics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour