> The companies can (and likely will) fire the employees to save themselves.
Some employees. Every business has employees that are critical to ongoing operations and employees that are not critical and will be shed when doing so prevents insolvency. It's better to fire some employees and save some jobs instead of insolvency which results in the loss of all jobs at that company. There should be nothing controversial about this. Even a socialist system is going to dial headcount up and down based on whether or not having extra headcount is providing excess value or destroying value in excess of the resources being put into that enterprise/endeavor. To do otherwise is wasteful/destructive.
> and not his customer (who is generally also his employee)?
I'm unsure what you're asking here.
> reformulate to adjust to new market realities.
This is neither free nor instantaneous. The Great Depression, by way of example, lasted for 10 years and without WWII would likely have lasted a lot longer. There's a ton of friction it letting things collapse and waiting for things to reformulate for the betterment of most of society, assuming it ever does.
The owners of capital are those that would suffer the least in this scenario. Maybe they can buy one less boat, maybe they escape to another nation where things haven't collapsed. For labor, the consequences of a prolonged reformulation is often dire.
The Great Depression isn't the only example of the multi-year cost of reformulation. Zimbabwe is still suffering the costs of its reformulation. Brazil suffered the consequences after hyperinflation that destroyed companies and the damage lasted almost two decades and took the Plano Real to create conditions where things could reformulate. There's also the Weimar Republic and now Venezuela.
Reformulation is long and painful and there is no guarantee that what arises from the reformulation is better than what was there before. Given how well the US economy was generally doing before this pandemic, there is strong reason to believe it won't be better simply due to the fact that things tend to revert towards the mean.
> We assume the capital class are more capable of redistributing money than the labor class
"capable of redistributing money"? Anyone can redistribute money. That's just asking if people can spend money handed to them. Both classes are equally capable of spending money.
What's valid to ask is which class will be more effective in spending that money in a way that produces greater returns in the future. The group that spends the money on nets to catch fish in perpetuity will prove far better stewards of that money than those that spend the money on fish to feed themselves until they run out of money.
Given that the capital class is generally trained in trying to find invest money to generate future returns, it's pretty safe to assume that they will produce a richer society. That society will most likely be unequal, but the wealth of those at the Nth percentile in a society that invests well will likely be better off than those at the same Nth percentile in a society that does not invest as well.
> We assume that the costs of capital destruction are higher than the costs of damage done to the labor class (I think this is faulty)
Several examples where the costs of capital destruction result in great damage to the labor class: Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, pre-capitalist People's Republic of China, Weimar Republic, 80s in Brazil, etc.
Even the countries that socialists envy, such as the Nordic countries in the European Union, are only able to provide a strong social safety net because of the preservation of capital and a general high degree of economic freedom.
You said you believe that assumption is faulty. Can you provide us with counter-examples where allowing capital to be destroyed we less than the resultant damage to the labor class?
> The capital class have taken over the means of distribution and decision-making apparatus (this is inarguable, and is the primary reason the bailout has been shaped so favorably for capital instead of labor).
Can you elaborate here? Last The US is a democracy and everyone doing the distribution and making decisions here was elected by the American people by either direct vote (Congress) directly, indirect vote (Electoral College) or was appointed by someone that was elected by the American people.
You can't just claim something is inarguable. It's actually a pretty easy point to argue.
Near as I can tell, it has been shaped in favor of capital instead of labor because those making the decisions understand how destructive the destruction of capital will be for the entirety of the American people, both those that labor and those that don't.
> trapped under a growing debt burden without the opportunities to escape from under it.
No one is born with debt. You acquire debt voluntarily. Don't take on debt and you won't have any burden.
Some employees. Every business has employees that are critical to ongoing operations and employees that are not critical and will be shed when doing so prevents insolvency. It's better to fire some employees and save some jobs instead of insolvency which results in the loss of all jobs at that company. There should be nothing controversial about this. Even a socialist system is going to dial headcount up and down based on whether or not having extra headcount is providing excess value or destroying value in excess of the resources being put into that enterprise/endeavor. To do otherwise is wasteful/destructive.
> and not his customer (who is generally also his employee)?
I'm unsure what you're asking here.
> reformulate to adjust to new market realities.
This is neither free nor instantaneous. The Great Depression, by way of example, lasted for 10 years and without WWII would likely have lasted a lot longer. There's a ton of friction it letting things collapse and waiting for things to reformulate for the betterment of most of society, assuming it ever does.
The owners of capital are those that would suffer the least in this scenario. Maybe they can buy one less boat, maybe they escape to another nation where things haven't collapsed. For labor, the consequences of a prolonged reformulation is often dire.
The Great Depression isn't the only example of the multi-year cost of reformulation. Zimbabwe is still suffering the costs of its reformulation. Brazil suffered the consequences after hyperinflation that destroyed companies and the damage lasted almost two decades and took the Plano Real to create conditions where things could reformulate. There's also the Weimar Republic and now Venezuela.
Reformulation is long and painful and there is no guarantee that what arises from the reformulation is better than what was there before. Given how well the US economy was generally doing before this pandemic, there is strong reason to believe it won't be better simply due to the fact that things tend to revert towards the mean.
> We assume the capital class are more capable of redistributing money than the labor class
"capable of redistributing money"? Anyone can redistribute money. That's just asking if people can spend money handed to them. Both classes are equally capable of spending money.
What's valid to ask is which class will be more effective in spending that money in a way that produces greater returns in the future. The group that spends the money on nets to catch fish in perpetuity will prove far better stewards of that money than those that spend the money on fish to feed themselves until they run out of money.
Given that the capital class is generally trained in trying to find invest money to generate future returns, it's pretty safe to assume that they will produce a richer society. That society will most likely be unequal, but the wealth of those at the Nth percentile in a society that invests well will likely be better off than those at the same Nth percentile in a society that does not invest as well.
> We assume that the costs of capital destruction are higher than the costs of damage done to the labor class (I think this is faulty)
Several examples where the costs of capital destruction result in great damage to the labor class: Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, pre-capitalist People's Republic of China, Weimar Republic, 80s in Brazil, etc.
Even the countries that socialists envy, such as the Nordic countries in the European Union, are only able to provide a strong social safety net because of the preservation of capital and a general high degree of economic freedom.
You said you believe that assumption is faulty. Can you provide us with counter-examples where allowing capital to be destroyed we less than the resultant damage to the labor class?
> The capital class have taken over the means of distribution and decision-making apparatus (this is inarguable, and is the primary reason the bailout has been shaped so favorably for capital instead of labor).
Can you elaborate here? Last The US is a democracy and everyone doing the distribution and making decisions here was elected by the American people by either direct vote (Congress) directly, indirect vote (Electoral College) or was appointed by someone that was elected by the American people.
You can't just claim something is inarguable. It's actually a pretty easy point to argue.
Near as I can tell, it has been shaped in favor of capital instead of labor because those making the decisions understand how destructive the destruction of capital will be for the entirety of the American people, both those that labor and those that don't.
> trapped under a growing debt burden without the opportunities to escape from under it.
No one is born with debt. You acquire debt voluntarily. Don't take on debt and you won't have any burden.