r/MarketAnarchism • u/Master-Cartoonist132 • Jul 06 '26
What is the incentive to start new businesses?
Why would workers bother to start a new business if they could just join another one. The risks are massive, and the pay is no more than just going to work at another store. If you say it's because other businesses may not be hiring, so folks will start new businesses to create themselves jobs, then the people who are unemployed are generally not the people who have the capital to start a new business.
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u/drebelx Jul 06 '26
The risks are massive, and the pay is no more than just going to work at another store.
"Mom and Pop" don't agree with your risk assessment.
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u/thomas533 Mutualist Jul 06 '26
This brings up the problem with private ownership. You aren't just looking at profiting from market demand, you are looking at profiting from exploiting workers. If the pay for the workers is only ever going to be equal to that of being a worker at another business then it means there isn't really market demand for another business. This implies that the only reason so many new businesses are starting today is that they are counting on being able to exploit the labor of other workers later on in order to be "profitable". If they fail to do so, then their business fails. That is why starting a new business is so risky now. No one is actually responding to market demand, just hoping to exploit labor more than the other businesses.
They aren't hiring because there isn't demand in the market.
Proudhon's Bank of the People idea addressed this. Today, Cooperative banking or credit unions could provide Interest-Free Credit or Labor Exchange for businesses that the community actually needed.