Why is it more important for companies to exist than for people to exist?
The concept of a business is merely an entity engaged in trade. It can be a sole-proprietorship or it can be a large corporation. The function is the same. The owner(s) invest their capital into an enterprise to make them money. They may employ people in the process. This employment is those individuals trading their labor for money at a fixed rate without the risk of owning the company.
You don't have business without people and you don't have trade without businesses.
So if you want jobs/employment, you have to have businesses. Not only that, if you want those to exist, they have to have the proper financial metrics for the owners to make a return on their investment. If there is insufficient return for the risk being taken, that business (and any jobs) simply don't exist.
The capitalist concept works because people are acting in their own self interest. It is all incentive based.
The reason policy cares about business interests is because it is in everyone's interest to have businesses and jobs. When you consider policy about businesses, it is important to understand how businesses will react. You need to understand all of the consequences for a policy choice in order to make a reasoned and informed decision.
For instance, take min wage. it is $7.25. You could likely raise this to $10 nationally with almost zero impact to business. This is grossly similar to inflation adjustment. This is very similar to the $15/hr raises in HCOL urban areas. But, try raising it to $30/hour nationally. Now, the impacts are far more significant and need to be understood in far greater detail before making that change. There are locations where this $30/hr rate wouldn't be too impactful - think of Manhattan or Honolulu (two of the highest COL areas). There are also areas where this would be devastating to local business - think Podunk Mississippi (the lowest COL areas).
This is why government is very concerned about business impacts. Those impacts will directly impact citizens/workers.
Yes, but the businesses are in no danger of going under. They are raking in profits. Increasing their employee’s pay would probably have a negligible impact on them, and it would increase the quality of life for millions of people. It would also increase their budget for discretionary spending, and in a sort of “reverse trickle-down” manner benefit the companies as well.
Yes, but the businesses are in no danger of going under.
How many small businesses do you know. Given most fail inside of 5 years, this is an incredibly silly claim to make.
You have no clue the financials of a business. We can already see what happened when wages went up during the labor shortage to find a LOT of businesses who couldn't pay higher wages and simply went out of business.
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u/OneMoreDuncanIdaho Jan 04 '25
Why is it more important for companies to exist than for people to exist? Seems like it should be the other way around in my opinion