[foxyv]

> employees aren't liable for the company's losses and debts

Never been laid off during a recession or had your pay frozen and bonuses cancelled during a hard time? Employees risk a lot more than most stock holders by working for a company. On average, stock holders are way more diversified.

[deepsun]

> Employees risk a lot more than most stock holders by working for a company.

Uhm no?

You apparently never been a business owner. Employees get their wages, and even can legally enforce them. If a business go down, owners eat the losses and envy their employees.

I've been on both sides. Being a business owner is much riskier.

[fennecfoxy]

But wages are often also only a fraction of what they should be, especially for those working outside of the tech industry. But I suppose that's a separate issue.

Is the risk high enough to justify the ever-growing disparity between owners/C levels/investors/etc and the employees that get the work done?

What with all of the bail-outs through history, running an especially large company seems pretty much riskless. And hell, if you look at the history of technology, say games and game consoles (because I like retro games) the number of times a hugely successful product/project that netted 100s of millions of dollars was "not allowed" by the CEO etc but was hidden until it was too late (see Xbox etc) is super high. In addition to the number of decisions made by higher ups where the business swallowed a loss (particularly easy in larger businesses) is also high.

Imagine if Bill Gates and Steve Balmer hadn't been convinced/swayed to make the Xbox. How much profit has MS made from that? A fucking shitload, and have the guys that pushed it, or for that matter anybody in a similar situation (of which there are many) ever seen any of that success? No.

And we can't say "well the CEXs have the final say because they take on all the risk" they do, technically, but in reality when C levels screw up oftentimes it's just taken as a loss and things move on.

[foxyv]

If you only take into account small businesses with single owners you are entirely correct. Mostly because large corporations are squeezing them to death with various forms of rent seeking. However, if your corporation is in a position to casually misplace half a million dollars, I don't think you are in that category.

[martin8412]

Pay frozen? Absolutely not. The company would be undergoing bankruptcy by the end of day if not all employees agreed to it.

[vdqtp3]

Pay frozen != no pay

Pay frozen == no pay raises

[sleepybrett]

LOL back in the late 90s and early aughts I had many friends in games. There were many times when payments didn't come in in time and employees were working for repayment promises.

[geodel]

> Employees risk a lot more than most stock holders by working for a company.

hmm, they can perhaps reduce the risk by not working for a company. They can just be stock holders or launch their own company, that way whatever may happen they will never get fired.

[foxyv]

In order to become a stock holder or launch a company, you need to have capital. Capital is hard to acquire when wages are being actively suppressed by a cabal of employers. It is also hard to hold on to capital when your health care system is intentionally designed to strip away generational wealth from workers. Then to add a cherry on top, you lock the higher wage jobs behind an additional investment that can only be funded by non-dischargeable loans. Then you have the rent seekers, both literal and figurative. Landlords, insurance companies, toll roads, etc...

[johnny99k]

so you mean riskier?

[foxyv]

No, more like a fairy tale.

[birdyrooster]

> They can just be stock holders or launch their own company

[93po]

This isn't a risk the employee takes on as a result of doing business. It's a result of the company choosing to do this while also still making profits. So it's not really a risk, it's just mistreatment.

[throwaway98797]

losing your job is not the same as losing capital

[foxyv]

No, it is wayyyy worse. Although there is a lot of capital investment in a job. You are also investing the most valuable thing you own.

[bigstrat2003]

> Although there is a lot of capital investment in a job.

No there isn't. You haven't put up any capital when you join a job, and you aren't (generally) required to invest any as you go along. Your time is not capital.

[foxyv]

Auto Loans, Student Loans, training, certification, internships, moving costs, and other small costs like special clothing are all investments made by employees to be paid for before or during hiring. In addition, many businesses require employees to buy tools and special equipment like boots and safety vests.

[mao_tse_tung]

Correct, is way worse. Proletarians don't have any capital to lose. Capitalists do. So if they lose their capital, they can just be like the rest of us. If we (proletarians) lose our job, we risk poverty and death.

[anonymouskimmer]

> So if they lose their capital, they can just be like the rest of us.

Nah, if they had enough capital to live off of before then, they are far more likely than us to fail upward into a management job.