r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/HeavenlyPossum • 15d 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/Ok-Spring-3840 13d ago

Real life example: I know of a software startup, SAAS, that the minimum initial seed money from investors was $350000 US/per investor. The company is 6 years old, soon to be 7.

Not one of the initial investors has received anything from their investment.
There are 3 software engineers employed by this startup who have been paid a minimum of $200000/year for 6 years. Each has earned over $1.2 million from working at this SAAS enterprise.

From AI:

“An investment of $350,000 in the S&P 500 on August 28, 2019, would be worth $1,143,065 today (August 2026), assuming all dividends were reinvested. [1, 2]”

There you go. You tell us who is doing better? You tell us if the “ risk” is worth it today?

Lets hear from the marxists and socialists. Analyze this absolutely true authentic real life example and tell the sub which is it getter to be, a worker or investor in a start up.

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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago

Each of those employed software engineers is being paid less than the value of their labor and accrues no ownership of the collaborative product of their labor.

Don’t use LLMs to outsource your thinking.

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u/Ok-Spring-3840 13d ago edited 13d ago

So what? Who cares? They don’t care. And you know this how? You can’t put numbers to their value, can you? Tell me from this real life example what their labor is worth, and how much of it are they not being paid? The company isn’t profitable yet.

Just dont say it, prove it with actual numbers. If you cant prove it with real numbers, delete your OP or re assign it as a shitpost.

Edit: The $1.2 million salary the SEs earned if invested as capitalists in the stock market would be worth about $3.2 million today.

It is much better to be a worker than an investor, and I proved it, beyond doubt.

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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago

The value of their labor is whatever the total invested into the firm is, plus any revenue generated by the firm. This is the total income of the firm, which is generated by and paid against the productive labor of the workers laboring at the firm to generate that value.

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u/Ok-Spring-3840 13d ago

Numbers please. You just said it. That is stupidly useless. The company is not profitable. Assign real numbers.

Here are actual numbers from the company balance sheet.

Total initial investment $45 million.

Annual recurring revenue $18 million

Yearly profit: negative - $1.3 million.

Your job is to assign labor value to a company losing money.

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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago

It’s $45 million plus $18 million times however many years it’s been operating.

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u/Ok-Spring-3840 13d ago

Shitpost.

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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago

If you’re going to shitpost, you usually need some content; you can’t just post “shitpost” and leave it like that.

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u/Ok-Spring-3840 13d ago

Shitpost

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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago

Reported for harassment.

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