There are three important sources of occupation:
a) Employment
b) Contract work
c) Retail
An employee is required to work for a specified number of hours each day, perform specific duties and is paid an agreed remuneration/
A person who performs contract work is paid for the work done at the agreed fee. This usually depends on the time taken and the skill required. The contract work can be for professional services, such as medical and legal work, or involving skilled or manual labour. The contractor is not certain of the number of paid work, but can usually plan based on the average quantum of work for that trade.
A retailer runs a business and earn a profit margin on the goods sold. The retailer has to pay for the fixed cost, such as rental of the retail space. The trades include the sale of goods or cooked food.
Under the exploitative capitalist system, the cost of the rental or other fixed cost can be a burden to the contractor (e.g. hire of a taxi) or the retailer (e.g. rental of the shop). Another burden is the interest cost of capital or credit to set up a business.
Life would have been better, if the tradesmen and retailers do not have to carry a heavy fixed burden (in terms of rental or interest cost). They should earn an income based on their efforts. Perhaps that income can be shared with the providers of the capital or the retail space.
Perhaps there was a reason Japanese Society during the Shogun/Samurai periods, ranked professions as Farmers first, Artesians and Craftsmen second and Merchants at the bottom of productive trades. (They were considered above beggars, the lame and insane.)
ReplyDeleteOnly Samurai's were allowed to carry swords and could use it with imppunity against any inferior they considered offensive. I imagine overcharging wasn't an issue.
I am not certain of your point, if there is no capitalist system, what is the alternative ? Let the govt allocates resources ? A poor man with a good idea would not be able to raise any money to start his venture. The capitalist system has flaws, but it is not totally without merit, as you seem to imply. Resources and ideas need to be matched, what needs to be done is to recalibrate the system, so there is accountability.
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