"You're a CEO.... but.. you're paying for the High Grade air and water filters for your people??"
"Yep."
"AND paying them higher wages with... HEALTH and HOUSING BENEFITS with paid time off??"
"That I am."
"So how in the name of MONEY are you making so much profit??"
"Oh that's easy. My people are happy, and they are healthy. Happy, healthy, workers means good production. They also tell me if something is wrong, and I mitigate it quickly. Safety is included."
"You're as corrupt as those GALACTICS! You should be in prison!"
"Hm, and yet it's ones like you that keep ending up on grave worlds." -- Anon Guest
"I don't get it," complained Oligarch Blote.
CEO Cens took a deep breath and tried again. "Let's boil this down into simple words. Nod when you understand." Ze waited for Blote to nod. "Motivated workers work better." Nod. "Unmotivated workers only work to order." Cautious nod. "Injured workers can't work as good as whole workers." Suspicious nod. "Sick workers work less." Slower nod. "Dead workers don't work at all."
"There's always more workers," said Blote. "Why should I care if some cog breaks? They're replaceable parts of the machine."
Cens took a different angle, since Blote could not be convinced to care about his workers. "All right. So. A cog, as you put it, breaks. You have to clean up the mess, which costs money. You have to find a replacement, which costs money. You need to equip them, which costs money. You need to train them, which costs money. You need to wait for them to get enough experience to work effectively. It all costs so much, that it's cheaper to keep one cog and make sure they don't get damaged. It's just economic sense to keep a trained worker healthy and uninjured."
Blote was already working on the numbers. Furiously creating a cost-benefit analysis based on his own statistics. "It was already bad enough that I had public education based on basic training and aptitude assessment... This is sickening."
"Mm-hm?" said Cens.
"You're right and I hate it," growled Blote. "If I keep them alive and healthy, I don't have to red-ink replacement expenses."
"You did ask how I kept making profits," singsonged Cens.
"It stinks of socialism," he snarled. Socialism, here pronounced, My most hated enemy that I devoted my life to destroying.
"Really?" said Cens, playing innocent like a virtuoso. "I thought it smelled like profits in the copy-book."
[Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]
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