The “libertarian” capitalists often use risk as their rationale for accepting the profit motive. In this reasoning, profit is the reward that capitalist owners get for taking the risks that the workers aren’t taking.

For one thing, this is absolute bollocks, since the workers take just as much risk as the owners. Workers have to contend with losing their jobs and taking a major hit while looking for another one, while the rich owners benefit from lenient bankruptcy laws.

But more importantly, if it’s true that risk-taking is a skill that capitalist owners must have in order for their business to be successful, then it should be a job rewarded like any other. Just as mutual banks providing capital should be rewarded for their work, not with rent on capital but with a wage, risk assessers should be rewarded for their work, not with rent on capital but with a wage.

Let us be clear on this: the capitalist concept of profit is nothing more than a rent on capital, predicted on the concept that capital participates in the making of the full product. Benjamin Tucker has already refuted this nonsense 120 years ago. Capital is not owed a wage because only people produce, not money or tools. Profit is therefore nonsense. To use risk as a justification for it, is equally nonsense: nothing will magically turn money or tools into economic agents.

If the “entrepreneur” is providing a valuable service, then let him provide it, on the free market. If he’s not, if his job is nothing but exploitation, then let him starve.