'profit' is what is left over after paying for other peoples labour, if their is no profit an enterprise can not adapt to changing technologies and it will not be able to compete and it will die... along with the jobs providing for peoples opportunity to sell their labour... along with the governments ability to help those that fall by the wayside when taxes are no longer being paid for out of 'profits'
There is quite a difference between running a small/medium company and corporate.
And it is important that in the public discussion and perception, the dynamics of a small/medium company, the benefits to the economy and jobs, which are easier to understand being closer to our private household thinking, being closer to that private owned small company (or shop) around the corner that we know......are NOT applied to big corporate. I can understand that the misleading effect to the public is not always intended (as I think by you now). The issue I have with this "misleading" is that corporate gets far too many credits that it does not deliver to our economy and to the public interest.
Forget for corporate about that small company owner that long time ago had great business ideas and combined techs and vision into a thriving business. He is since long replaced by ananymous managers who are selected on their abilities and drive to maximise the corporate to the benefits of the anonymous and all the time changing owners.
And do mind that most of the innovation in the economy and job growth is generated by relatively new or small/medium companies. Corporate only doing this in areas where scales size from money, physical tools, knowledge base and market access matter.
Corporate has two layers of profit and several effects of being beneficial to other stakeholders
One profit layer is the average annual profit of the company
One profit layer is the average annual profit of the shareholders
(from dividends and share price increase)
Those two kinds of profits are related, but driving a corporate business does NOT happen to maximise the profit of the company and the healthy future of the company to the benefit of all stakeholders.
Driving corporate is by its very nature done to the benefit of the profit of the shareholders at the expense of every other stakeholder...
unless other stakeholders have the power to get more benefits than the minimum.
The first kind of stakeholders getting more out of corporate is the high level management because the owners need these knowledgable henchmen to get the max outof their shares and are prepared to pay big money to them.
Wheras the bottom up salary building is driven by the free market prices of employees having skills to add value to the company's profit and health...
the top down salary building is driven by the free market prices of employees having skills to add value to the corporate's owners shares.
One can argue that this is reality, necessary, good for us all or perverse...
BUT, which is my point: We should never ever apply arguments that defend the benefits for society of small/medium companies to big corporate !
We should never ever confuse the two. Not by burden small companies with negatives from corporate... not by glorifying corporate with positives from small/medium companies.
The way you Old Hippy are wording your argument is adding to that confusion.
And on a side note: Many people, whether direct as individual or through pension funds, have shares in corporate as saving account for when they retire.
Not necessarily because they like how corporate operates, but because you need some avenue to park your savings at a reasonable return (which banks do not give).
How you or society can deal with that is another discussion.
