Comment by xixixao

Companies are controlled by shareholders who appoint the board who appoint the CEO. If the CEO decides to pay employees more, the board will change him because shareholder put money to get money out, not to give to employees.

Companies can give "shares" to employees, which means excess profits can be made dividends out of which employees "touch a bit".

If you would have your own company (privately own and full control) you are of course free to share the excess profit as you see fit.

Edit: and of course, share buy back avoids some taxes that you must pay, which in other schemes would have to be paid.

> Why couldn’t the companies with excess profits just pay they employees more in salaries?

They could, but why should they? Which advantage get the shareholders from this?

The only reason why a company with excess profits "should" pay the employees more is if

i) for a given role, the expected results of potential applicants varies a lot (i.e. the company has an incentive "to hire the best of the best")

ii) the market for these exceptional talents is tough (i.e. if the company does not hire the best, someone else will; additionally, if the company does not pay the employees really well, they will be poached)

That would set a precedent they don’t want. Investors and the Federal government have little interest in labor gaining power.

The only people who matter are shareholders. Employees are a means to the end of making money for the owners of the company whether through stocks or other kinds of ownership.

Why would they do that when they could pay shareholders and themselves?

That would not make the share price number go up, which in turn means it doesn't make the leadership's net worth number go up, which means the leadership won't make that choice.

They could, but then they'd have to report lower profits by the same amount. I want to actually defend this though: Corporate profit is a very narrow measure, by design. It was never intended to capture how well the nation is doing.

For businesses, employees are a necessary evil and not company's beneficiaries.

they don't want to

the purpose of a company is to deliver maximum return to shareholders; if they're not doing that, then they're failing their fiduciary duty and the shareholders might try to force the company to change its ways

the shareholders want the money coming to them, not to the employees

(this is why the Public Benefit Corporation, "B-Corp" structure was invented, so that the company's stated purpose can be something other than simply generating value for its shareholders)