Most of the time I hear advice that a regular 9 to 5 job or other schedule of being an employee is making us a slave or at least depreving us from our time by keep us busy enough to not be able to do anything else. But what are other options that allow both enough time to spend on a personal life and make a good living? Most of the time, owning a business eats more time than being an employee. This is maybe a discussion about work life balance, or even being with or against the anti work movement.
I also refuse the idea that tells me to be absolutely frugal. Yes, I live bellow my means, but I also spen d money on my hobbies and what brings joy and meaning to my life. I also save up some money for investment but investing is the hard part when our stock market is too small.
The question is serious. What are the other options or other insight in the situation and its alternatives.
Question is open ended and you can add in more point of views.
If you own your own business, you get all of the profit (assuming there is any!). If you work harder/better, you are likely to earn more money.
For most standard jobs, that’s not the case and other people (who own the company you work for) make money off your work too.
It’s a risky business (heh) owning/running a business though, you don’t have any guarantee you will make money. But you will probably get a bigger proportion of any worth you are creating.
This isn’t always really true. You should get a better share for sure, but (obviously heavily dependent on what you do/where you are etc.) in some cases you start to realise how much of your money is STILL sucked away by landlords and middlemen. You own none of the means of production - so if your business requires said means, be prepared to still pay rich people ludicrous sums.
Lots of those middlemen (and even landlords) are going to be other small business owners though.
In the modern world you’re never going to be fully verticaly integrated, and that’s a good thing.
Sure, sometimes they will be small business owners, but not good ones actually providing value. Nobody minds paying someone to actually do useful work.
My point is money can be sucked away and opportunities stolen by owners who do no labour to earn it, in either case. Sometimes it’s your employer, sometimes it’s a landlord, sometimes it’s more complex.
If you own your business you likely own some of the means of production, and in some fields you can own effectively all. Anyway, that’s what “profit” means: what’s left over after you pay operating expenses.