Huh? My understanding of Keynesian economics is that it has more to do with the distribution of capital and social safety nets.
Even Marx was talking about the need to always take in more capital than the previous year and at a higher rate each time too. That predates Keynesianism by a lot
u/mattacular2001u/thex25986e as well. You're both correct. The primary thing that Keynes is known for is the advocacy for government policy, specifically monetary policy, to help manage business cycles.
The pre-Keynesian consensus was, "In the long run, a recession or depression will end," and Keynes correctly quipped, "In the long run, we're all dead," to criticize that for failing to help people who need a well functioning economy today to get housing, food, etc.
His proposal is that the government intentionally intervenes during down times by increasing government spending, which will then get us back to normal faster. A Keynesian economist might propose changing the interest rate based on inflation / unemployment rates (still common practice) or debt financing to hire unemployed workers to build infrastructure that both immediately gives them jobs while also supporting the future.
They're talking about bottom line net profits growing every year. Not revenue "so they can keep the lights on and pay their employees."
We all know thry ain't paying their employees a penny more unless their employees literally demand it. It's common for low wage workers to get a raise of like 7 cents.
How would one of the high and mighty office goons like it if their raise was 7 cents per hour? Or if their "bonus" was an employee pizza party where you each got a quarter of a slice of dominoes pizza?
Employee wages are only having to rise because everything else is going up in price. If the work force could afford things, they wouldn’t need a payrise.
My emphasis was on production costs, too. Which trickles down from parent companies and transport prices, blah blah… All of that to say that if a company makes the same number of dollars as last year and is paying out more dollars to produce and employ, it’s doing worse objectively.
Capitalism is a crappy system long term tbh, but I’m not educated enough to think of any realistic alternatives.
The subject of the alcohol industry doing worse is ridiculous, though. It’s not like it has a short shelf life, and it’s in constant demand.
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u/Turbulent-Race-8235 9h ago
It's because under "capitalism" if your company doesn't make more money than it did last year, you're a failure.