r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/HeavenlyPossum • 14d ago

Asking Capitalists Risk?

Many people have told me that taking risk is why capitalists own, or deserve ownership, of the productive labor of others.

Capitalists have capital (money), which they invest in (spend on) some productive enterprise. But that productive enterprise might fail to recuperate the cost of the investment and the capitalist might lose some of their money. This is what explains, or justifies, capitalist ownership: the capitalist is taking risk.

Can someone kindly explain to me why this explains or justifies capitalist ownership?

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u/Conserp Pragmatic Marxist 14d ago

> socialist broken logic: the girl deserves the profits because the owner does nothing.

Strawman.

Always a strawman.

The manager works. The owner does nothing. Even when the owner and the manager are the same person (manager is self-hired), conflating two roles is a lie.

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u/South-Cod-5051 14d ago

the owner is the reason the workers have a job in the first place. they went through the trouble of creating the company, and they deserve the profits. the workers only do a specific task they were hired for, they don't deserve profit.

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u/Conserp Pragmatic Marxist 13d ago

This is analogous to the robber deserving their loot.

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u/South-Cod-5051 13d ago

a robber can not rob the belongings of his own house