> In environments with literally hundreds of people waiting at the door to take your job the environment is going to be more competitive...

True.

> ... , and it should be.

No. A current employee is not a replaceable part of machinery, and should not be treated the same as a prospective employee. The difference is that an employer has responsibilities to their current employees, and little responsibility to prospective employees. Now I'm starting to think that all my analogies to families were not so ill conceived. Hiring someone is not unlike marriage. The fact that there are plenty of fish in the sea, does not mean that your wife should live in a competitive environment. Once you marry her you take it upon yourself to forsake all others -- even if they are better -- unless you wish to divorce, which can be messy, as it should be.

> Businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees.

I don't think so. I know this is how businesses are often described (especially in America), but this is not some universal truth. In Germany, so I've read, employees get up to half of the board seats, with shareholders having a one seat advantage ([1] and [2]).

EDIT:

[Here's a direct quote from [3]: "On the assumption that the primary goal of employers is to maximise profits in the interests of shareholders, codetermination can reorient the company's goals in the interests of workers. A better balance may be struck so that the company interests are not so one sided. For unions, codetermination is part of democratising the economy. It is also a way for workers to better the terms and conditions of their contracts in an orderly and regulated way."

In short, "businesses exist to return value to shareholders, not to employees" is far from being an axiom of society. It is certainly not the necessary order of things or a divine decree.]

> Its unreasonable to expect a business to be generous to its employees at the expense of its shareholders...

I think it is not only most reasonable, but the right thing to do. In fact, shareholders should expect this as custodians of a very important social structure - the workplace. Going back to the family analogy (which seems more apt by the minute), while it is the parents who decide to start a family for their own selfish goals (maybe it's their biological calling, and maybe they think it will give them purpose in life), it is most reasonable, and even expected, that they should be generous to their children at their own expense.

I think both parties, shareholders and employees, should get whatever is fair from their arrangement. What is considered fair should be decided by accepted values and by negotiations, where each party exerts whatever power it has to achieve a stronger position.

It is true, however, that if you stop viewing the workplace as a social contract, it stops looking like a family, and people start looking like replaceable machine parts.

> ... it just doesn't make for a very efficient business or a very efficient marketplace.

I think Germany is doing fine.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination

[2] http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relat...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany