Fair compensation often requires ongoing gestures of goodwill

Maximising shareholder value can lead to environments where labour is exploited. Workers are often constantly reliant on the goodwill gestures of owners to not exploit their contributions.

Critique

Maximising shareholder value can lead to environments where labour is exploited. Workers are often constantly reliant on the goodwill gestures of owners to not exploit their contributions.

Incentivised to exploit contribution

The disconnect between contribution and ownership creates an environment where the owners of an organisation have an incentive to try and exploit other people's contributions so they can financially benefit themselves. Some organisations might issue shares to workers for their contributions, however it is not required that they give them the amount of shares that would represent the value they have provided. This is a milder form of exploitation. Other organisations might decide to give workers no shares and actively try to minimise the income they receive. This is a more severe form of exploitation. Capitalism creates this environment where owners are incentivised to exploit other people's contributions. The ease and ability for workers to earn income elsewhere will impact the ability of capitalist owners being able to exploit them. Workers with more employment options will be more difficult to severely exploit than workers who have fewer job opportunities that they could pursue.

Goodwill gestures are unreliable

Workers that are part of organisations that treat contributions more fairly could face an ongoing risk that the leadership changes their approach to evaluating and rewarding contribution. If the business owners change there is a risk that the new ownership does not continue the gesture of goodwill that the previous owners were making. Workers will often be reliant on the issuance of shares from the organisation to minimise any issues requiring goodwill gestures from capitalist owners. This is because widely distributed shares across the organisation would mean all workers become owners that can then influence how the organisation is operated.

Capitalist organisations could still choose to compensate people fairly

Owners might not be incentivised to compensate workers fully for their value however this could still occur in some organisations. Workers are usually reliant on the goodwill gestures of owners to be paid fairly. Some capitalist organisations may properly reward each contributor with shares of ownership that reflect the value of their contributions. This would give workers more of an opportunity to influence the organisation and be rewarded for its growth. Although this would be more fair for workers, this approach would still have the problem of a share structure that gives people perpetual governance and incentives rights. This problem is covered in a separate critique of capitalism.