I first heard that bit of capitalist propaganda in 1960 – in my third year of schooling. I never questioned it then, and it took me five decades to realize it was bull. In reality, the modern worker takes far more risks. He invests in massive debt to get an education to get the skills, and then goes to work for a company that treats him like dirt, underpays him, and can fire him at will. The lower tier workers do not get medical insurance. Nor do they get paid leave.

Salaried workers are expected to work overtime with no extra pay, and the degree of stress for workers in the modern work place is so intense that it has caused mental, physical and emotional dysfunction and disease on a scale unknown in history.

Studies have shown that the happiest people with the least stress are business owners, and the people with the most stress are middle management who are caught between the desires of the owners and the resistance of workers who are increasingly becoming deeply angry. This is the reason for the great resignation. Throughout the world, between 75% and 95% of people hate their jobs, and they hate their jobs because of the their bosses and the unreasonable and inhumane conditions inflicted by owners.

With regard to risk, depending on how you register the business, there is no personal risk. One does not lose one’s house and personal possessions. So, sorry, there is no risk. On the other hand, in order to own the business, one had to have sufficient capital to make it successful. Eighty percent of business failure goes down to insufficient capital to carry it though.

There is no need for owners to earn profit. They are already earning an excessive income. They pay workers a basic income, and they often take home a salary that enables them to buy a mansion, a luxury car, send their kids to private schools, and live well. That’s their salary. Why do they have to take home profit at year end as well? That is greed.

I grew up in business and have done too many college courses, including accounting, in business. I have also owned my own businesses plus been elf-employed for too many years to count.

Why should workers risk their lives and well-being while business owners risk nothing? It isn’t business owners doing the producing. Foxtron, in China, produces all the hardware for computer companies. The company works their workers 24/7 around 12 o4 16 hours a day, to the point of suicide. I’m sure you’ve read about it. Where is the risk for the computer company owners? It is the workers who are at risk. If anyone should profit from their labour, it is workers. Without workers, all the money in the world wouldn’t enable business to operate?

Haven’t you noticed the litany from the Great Resignation – that business owners are now stunted in providing, because they can’t find workers.

If business owners dropped the greed, they would be content with the highest salary in the company and forego profit. That is sufficient reward.

For the record, Thomas Piketty, the French economist who wrote Capital in the 21st century shows that virtually all the wealth in the world comes from the rentier class, and that it comes from property ownership. In addition, multiple studies have shown that business owners come from the upper middle classes – from moneyed parents, and that the greatest indication of future financial success is the financial worth of one’s parents.

Research has also indicated that people born in poverty, even with genius IQ, stand little chance of becoming financially successful, for the simple reason that they lack the resources to do so.

For the record, for a while now, upward mobility in America has been at the bottom of the list. Other first world countries are much easier to achieve success.