It’s always fun to be flippant.

Why brand all business men as those who declare bankruptcy and move on? What about the person who built the house, borrowed money from the bank, started a business from scratch, worked the long hours, developed a reliable product, a trusted company that hired skilled people to build houses, that used their wages to pay off their own mortgages? Then from those profits enlarged the business and hired more people. Think about where that company bought all their timber from, the transaction that then enabled the timber company to pay its own employees. Think about the plantations where all that timber came from, who hired people to mill the timber and paid there wages. Now think about those companies competing against other companies in the same line of work who might be moving in on your market, taking some of your business, but your loan with the bank still has to be paid, the wages have to be covered. So now you’re in a battle for survival. Who’s going to help you? The loan is yours, not the employees, your house is mortgaged, interest rates go up, global fluctuations affect the cost of materials, overseas companies enter the market. Then the banks increase loan rates so less people enter the home market, or they tighten lending procedures, or the government lets overseas companies import cheap, pre-fabs to help people get into their own home.

Extrapolate that into larger and larger more complex companies involving millions of dollars, thousand of employees. So that you can drive to your local mall and buy the latest smart phone.

I have no idea what any of that has to do with my comment.

You said

Most of us get by without having to enter the ring. All we have to do is wait for the benefits to come our way without any risk at all. — Brett

It was that to which I was responding. The business entrepreneur risks bankruptcy if things don't work out, the employee risks losing their home if things don't work out. The only person who is in the position you claim where we take no risk at all for the benefits we reap, is the person for whom the loss of investment is not a materially damaging matter, ie the very wealthy.

Notwithstanding the above, to address your ludicrously fantastical notion of how business works...

1. People don't have any incentive to develop 'reliable products'. Well-marketed products which need regular repair or replacement are more profitable.

2. The idea that the investor is helping the workers pay for their house by providing work is absurd. House prices have risen 14 times faster than wages driven entirely by property speculation carried out by those same investors. They have, on the one hand raised property prices to an unaffordable level, then created jobs which, no matter how demeaning, no one can afford not to take because of the aforementioned price increase, and you try to make out they're doing us a favour!

3. If there are sufficient companies in the market to create competition, then a new entry into the market is not creating any more jobs are they? They are just transferring jobs from their competition whom they are now outperforming. The entrepreneur benefits, but the workers just swap jobs, probably to a less well paid one (hence the competitive advantage).

4. None of this actually happens to an entrepreneur (except in extremely rare cases) because the moment a company is doing well it is floated on the stock market and owned by its investors.

The idea that the investor is helping the workers pay for their house by providing work is absurd. — Isaac

First of all my example is not an investor. They’re the owner of a business.

This is the definition of an investor:
An investor is any person or other entity (such as a firm or mutual fund) who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns. investopedia.com

None of this actually happens to an entrepreneur (except in extremely rare cases) because the moment a company is doing well it is floated on the stock market and owned by its investors. — Isaac

What do you mean by ‘None of this happens to an entrepreneur’? None of what?
That’s just plain silly. Not all companies go on the stock market.

your ludicrously fantastical notion of how business works... — Isaac

This is the problem with a lot of the anti capitalist posts on this site. You seem to have no idea who the enemy is. I’m not happy with what a lot of big business does, but at least try and understand what you’re up against. And understand that not everyone in business is the same.

There’s nothing ludicrous about what I said about how business works. But you do display your ignorance by saying so.

First of all my example is not an investor. They’re the owner of a business. — Brett

You said...

Yes, and because of that many were able to enter the computer age without having to pay for the top end. Business is quite a savage arena. Most of us get by without having to enter the ring. All we have to do is wait for the benefits to come our way without any risk at all. — Brett

Which is what my initial comment to you was aimed at. That some material risk was being taken by businessmen, like those who built Microsoft, that is greater than the risks known by the mere consumers of the product. That is your claim.

I responded by saying that the ordinary consumer has to work long hours too and if that work is not successful (they get fired) they put their house at risk. So the idea that the entrepreneur know some kind of risk that the ordinary consumer is protected from is utter nonsense.

You responded with some fantasy about a proprietor-owned building company. I charitably presumed it had at least something to do with my counter argument, otherwise I'd be left with absolutely no clue at all what on earth you were going on about.

The comment I responded to was about material risk and your claim that the entrepreneur takes some material risk that the consumer does not. Unless you've got anything further to actually support your claim, I don't much see the benefit of quoting parables from the Randian bible that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

What is the risk that an entrepreneur, like the developers of Microsoft, take that is so outside of the scale of the ordinary worker that by comparison their contribution is "without any risk at all"? That's all I want to know.

Not all companies go on the stock market. — Brett

The top ten building companies in the US close close to 200,000 projects a year, the very largest privately owned company closes just 3,000. I didn't say all companies go on the stock market, I said that except in rare cases, when a company is doing really well, it will be floated. The figures bear this out.

understand that not everyone in business is the same. — Brett

The homogeneity or otherwise of people in business is irrelevant to any opposition to the system set up to support it. Business could be constituted of 49% angels who do nothing but slave for the public good, it would still mean that a system set up to support it was primarily benefiting the 51% who are not. This is a common straw-man of the capitalist apologist - finding one lone example of the tyke who made it big, the rags-to-riches holy grail. One-offs are irrelevant to policy, it's the overall trend that matters.

The overall trend is that investors(who may also be business owners) speculate on commodities, services and property, all of which makes them very rich because...
1. They are protected from the harm of their losses to a greater extent than they are taxed for the benefit of their gains.
2. They are able to manipulate markets to create false demand for the commodity, service, or property they are gambling on.

It makes non-investors poorer because some of the commodities, services and property that the investors are speculating on are essential for living and the speculation drives the prices up faster than wages compensate.

This is a common straw-man of the capitalist apologist — Isaac

I’ve never been called that before. Thank you so much for the new and unexpected experience.