The last three years I ran my own farm, after I paid out my investor and all the employees, and then calculated my hourly rate out of what was left.
$10/hr
I netted less than that the two years prior as I was investing deeply into the business.
I make half the annual income now as an employee, but I work 1/6 the hours. I didn't feel like I was paying my employees well enough either. The one full time guy was even more badly underpaid than the seasonal temps.
In hindsight, I saw how I could have do it soooo much better. I have since had a season running a test plot with all the insight I gained on that farm, and I figured out how to make farming worth it, and that's what my wife and I are developing. I never felt like I should be paying anyone less than I did. In fact I wanted to pay them more, and my business partner was too greedy, which is why I made him buy me out after a few years. Me making less than my employees rate was a result of various factors. I chose the path, and I don't blame anyone for how hard it was to make money at that time. There were MANY factors/cicumstances contrinbuting to how things were.
A lot of people deserve more than they get, and some people take a lot more than they deserve, all the while telling themselves that they do actually deserve their takings. I understand some making more than others, but no matter how brilliant your idea is, if you can't execute your idea the plan without other people's help, then they are no less important to the plan than the guy who came up with the idea. Now if you are the idea man, and you put in two units of labor for everyone elses one unit, you should make more than the lowest level employee, but if that means paying them less than 1/3 of the idea man's share, then you are crossing into exploitation. If you can't afford to pay that, then you can't afford so much help. Do the work youself and earn that money.
The initial investment to get the business started should be repaid with some additional return, but for the investor to earn income in perpetuity is exploitation.
Just because we are all hostages of a system built by people who all died generations ago doesn't make it the right to do things, and it is certainly not the best way. To argue that this system is the best that has ever been and is therefore good is assinine.
We can do much better.
Some bosses get thousands, millions, billions of pizzas. Who can eat that many pizzas? No one.
apnews.com
www.motherjones.com
newrepublic.com
