Quote Originally Posted by wuf
I get your point. There isn't a 1 to 1 correlation between getting paid more and working harder.
So this comes back to my point about the workers owning the means of production. In such a system, surely the workers are more incentivised than someone merely earning an hourly wage. The profit incentive is now held by the workers, not the shareholders.

I'm not suggesting this proves that socialism wins. But I do believe that aspects of socialism can make capitalism better. I'm surprised you don't see it as obvious, considering that you believe that profit is the best incentive. Why incetivise the shareholders rather than the workers? The workers are the ones who can make the most practical adjustment to increase revenue... working harder. Why would they want to do that if they aren't the ones seeing the benefit? The only incentive the worker really has beyond fear of losing the job is the prospect of promotion (and hence future pay rise), but I really don't think that is anywhere near as strong an incentive as a direct pay rise, shares, or performance & profit related bonuses. The problem with promotion is that not everyone will get promoted, so you're directly competing with your collegues for that incentive.

I accept that profit is the greatest incentive. I just feel that capitalism has a tendancy to incentivise the wrong people.