I know something about business people. They are smart about making a profit. I could go on for hours about how there is nothing wrong with that (in fact, if tempered by love of neighbor it is beautiful and excellent).
But for now I will just say “business people are working to make a profit.”
One way that business people choose to make a profit in a way that protects their personal property is by creating a corporation. The corporation provides “limited liability” – meaning that they will only risk what they put into it; they cannot lose their house, their retirement, their children’s education accounts, etc.
Sometimes corporations are formed and made available either in a limited way or publicly for investment. Others can share in the limited liability opportunity to create wealth.
Smart business people invest their money where it will earn them the biggest rewards. If they have been taught well they also consider their ethical values in their investments.
A corporation is going to do what it can to get the best profit out of the money that it has. If the market forces them to pay absurd (at least it seems absurd to those of us who aren’t paid as much) amounts of money in order to acquire executives who will make that happen the corporation will do so.
A profitable corporation with effective executives also happens to create heaps of jobs for those who are either just starting out or who for some reason have chosen to work for someone else their whole lives.
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Corporations get their money by providing a product for consumers. These consumers are always ultimately the source of the corporations money.
The only way corporations can get money to pay any tax that they are charged is to “pass it on” to consumers. That doesn’t mean there is a line item on your receipt that says “corporate tax surcharge.” It just means that the money has to come from consumers.
So why shouldn’t the big evil corporation just give less to their execs or to their investors? Because then the big evil corporation wouldn’t have the best execs and wouldn’t be able to get any investors.
Then the big evil corporation would go away, along with all of those jobs, benefits packages, and paychecks for its slaves.
Some people know how to invest and make money. When they do so investors make money, executives are paid extremely well, the slaves have a bit of dignity and a bit of pay to live off of, and the consumers get good stuff. Take away that incentive for the wise business man and there are no more evil executives and no more profits for greedy investors; but… there are also no more jobs with paychecks for the “slaves” and no more nice products for the consumers.
And… No more big evil corporation for the civil government to tax.
Everybody loses if we create an atmosphere that is hostile towards business investors (“the rich”) making money.