Ask Lemmy

Everything you buy from a company he owns takes a cut to give to him.

Not necessarily, as not all companies give dividents or buybacks. But let's say they all do.

Very few companies run at a loss for long. All profit is on the back of the workers, and if that isn't returned to them, it is parasitism. Regardless if the owner takes dividends, or borrows against the increased value of their stocks, or any other enrichment of them, is at the expense of the laborer.

I'll mention that I'm not necessarily against it, but it is the central tenet of capitalism.

The same argument applies to employees: they get a cut of a companies income? I think a fair deal: as long as they make something I want or need at a price I agree to I'll buy it. Otherwise I won't.

Issue is, the labourer is doing the work, why aren't they entitled to the value of that work? How come someone gets to just grab 20% to pay off those who don't produce the same value?

manipulate both your salary and cost of goods

Not really, I'm self-employed. As to the price of goods, see the above. We manipulate it just as well. Other large manipulators are monetary policy and taxes.

You don't have any economic muscle against the big players in your market. Are you really pricing according to the cost of production? More probably you're pricing close to market value, which you aren't deciding on your own. The bigger fish have more say in that then you do, on both the demand and supply side.

Monetary policy is a tool to affect the distribution of money, it does not itself extract or inject value.

Taxes only extract value with corruption. All taxed money put into the commons, no matter how inefficiently, are for the public good and stimulation of the economy. The extraction comes with parasitism and hoarding which happens when individuals are enriched at the expense of others. This happens through corruption ofc, both in embezzlement, underdelivered value and exploitative cash flows.

Amazon workers not being able to pee at work for a salary they can't really live on seems another example.

How's that related to individual's net worth? Customers will always want goods cheap, even if a company's ownership is diluted to the point that each shareholder isn't a billionair.

Oh, it's not about net worth. It's meant to be an example where the owner class is extracting inhumane amounts of value from the employees. Making Bezos rich at the expense of both the employees and the rest of us having to bear the loss of years of quality life with the following reduced production, increased need of social and medical support, and extracted value.

To summarise: Any money taken away from the people doing the work, directly or indirectly, is exploitation.

I happen to think exploitation is unethical.