• TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Some people think all profit is “stolen” labor value, and thus all wage labor is exploitation. I don’t think that’s true, but it is true that all for-profit firms have an incentive to pay their workers as little as possible, while getting as much productivity from them as possible, because that will maximize profits.

    For-profit companies also have an incentive to cut other costs as much as possible, to maximize profits. This is why we see things like shrinkflation, planned obsolescence, or products just getting gradually crappier over time.

    For-profit companies also have an incentive to externalize certain costs, like pollution, environmental destruction, or resource depletion, to, once again, maximize profits.