“In philosophy, in politics, in theology, in history, negation is the preliminary requirement to affirmation. All progress begins by abolishing something; every reform rests upon denunciation of some abuse; each new idea is based upon the proved insufficiency of the old idea.” – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution
Finding a maritime route to the East and gaining access to the lucrative spice trade stood at the root of the European Age of Exploration. However, when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian Ocean in 1493, he found a vibrant international trade network already in place, whose expanse and wealth was well beyond European imagination.
everyone sharing this as some inspirational feel-good story has worms for brains
So, essentially, like 80% of the value created by the workers is denied to the workers usually, so that the owner can line their own pocket? And the owner gets to do this simply because they “own” the business?
You guys know that some of that money has to go to upkeep and overhead as well, right? Yes, I agree, there’s issues with how workers are paid and owners walk away with far more money than they’re worth, but even if it were a worker’s coop or something they would still not be walking away with that much. Taxes, rent, materials and more do eat out of that if it isn’t literally all being turned over to the workers, and the workers can’t do anything if there’s no building and no supplies.
I agree that there’s taxes and rent and upkeep to think about, but that’s taken out of revenue.
Revenue is the word for the money the business takes in, without cost of goods sold taken out. Cost of goods sold includes variable costs (ex: the cost for the ingredients of pizza, sales tax, and usually, employee wages by the hour) and fixed costs (ex: rent, utilities, overhead).
Notice that the above article says profit. Profit is the money a business has when the cost of goods sold has been subtracted from the revenue. There’s no tax money or rent money to be taken out of it, because it’s already been taken out.
So this actually is a scenario where the owner is taking this money home. More money, in fact, since the $78 per hour had to be divided up amongst the employees that are working. Let’s assume there are are only three employees. This means that the owner is taking home three times what the employees made on that day, everyday. And there may be more then three employees, meaning the owner could be making more money then my estimate.
Some simple math to break it further down for you. 78×3= 234. 234×8 hours = $1,872 for an 8 hour work day. While yes, there will still be some taxes to take out, and im sure the “profit” for the day did not have employee wages taken out, that is nearly $1,900 per day for the owner. And the owner is probably paying $15 an hour at most to the employees.
I’m not explaining this to be condescending, im explaining this because it’s an honest mistake to confuse profit for revenue, and because the above situation really pisses me off
