Maria Gonzalez arrives at the gleaming corporate headquarters at 5 AM every morning. She cleans the bathrooms, empties the trash, and scrubs the floors of executives who make more in a day than she makes in a year. She earns $12 an hour$24,960 if she's lucky enough to get full-time hours, which she rarely does.
Meanwhile, the company she cleans for just announced record profits of $2.3 billion, and its stock price jumped 15%. Shareholders celebrated as millions flowed into their portfolios. Maria? She's trying to figure out how to pay for her daughter's school supplies.
This isn't a story about corporate greedit's bigger than that. This is about how the stock market has become the most sophisticated wealth extraction machine in human history, designed to siphon the value created by workers like Maria and deliver it to people who have never mopped a floor in their lives.
The Great Deception
We're told the stock market represents the "health of the economy." But whose economy? When stock prices soar, we're supposed to celebrate. When they crash, we're told it's a disaster for everyone.
The reality is simpler and more brutal: the stock market is a mechanism for extracting wealth from workers and concentrating it among shareholders. Every dollar that flows to shareholders is a dollar that could have gone to higher wages, better benefits, safer working conditions, or lower prices for consumers.
Maria's Story: The Human Cost of Shareholder Value
"I've been cleaning these offices for eight years," Maria tells me over coffee at a diner near her work. "I've watched them renovate the executive floors three times. Marble countertops, gold-plated fixtures, art that costs more than I'll make in my lifetime."
"But when I asked for a $2 raisejust $2 an hourthey said the budget was tight. Then I saw in the news that they spent $500 million on stock buybacks that quarter."
"They have money for shareholders but not for the people who actually keep their company running. I don't understand how that's legal."
Maria works two jobs. After her morning shift cleaning offices, she goes home for a few hours, then heads to her evening job at a grocery store. She works 65 hours a week and still qualifies for food stamps. Her employer's stock has tripled in value over the past five years.
How the Extraction Machine Works
The mechanics are elegantly simple:
- Maximize "shareholder value" becomes the company's primary goal
- Cut labor costs by keeping wages low, reducing benefits, and eliminating full-time positions
- Increase productivity by demanding more work for the same pay
- Extract the surplus through dividends and stock buybacks
- Repeat until workers can barely survive
This isn't capitalismit's extraction. Real capitalism would see workers sharing in the prosperity they create. Instead, we have a system where the people who create value get scraps, and the people who own paper get rich.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Since 1980:
- Worker productivity has increased by 70%
- Worker wages have increased by 12%
- CEO compensation has increased by 1,200%
- Stock market value has increased by 2,000%
Where did all that extra value go? It went to shareholders. Every improvement in efficiency, every technological advance, every hour of overtimeit all flows upward to people who contribute nothing to the actual work.
The Buyback Scam
Stock buybacks are perhaps the most brazen example of this theft. Companies use their profits to buy back their own stock, artificially inflating the share price and enriching shareholders without creating any new value.
These buybacks were actually illegal until 1982, considered market manipulation. Now they're the primary way corporations reward shareholders while telling workers there's no money for raises.
In 2024, S&P 500 companies spent over $1.3 trillion on buybacks and dividends. That's $1.3 trillion that could have doubled the wages of every minimum wage worker in America.
Maria's Daily Reality
"My daughter wants to join the school soccer team," Maria continues. "It's $150 for the uniform and fees. I've been saving $10 a week when I can, but something always comes up. Car repair, medical bills, rent increase."
"Meanwhile, the CEO of the company where I work just bought his third vacation home. I read about it in the company newsletter. They're proud of his 'success.' But I can't afford to let my daughter play soccer."
This is the human cost of "shareholder value maximization." While investors celebrate their returns, real people like Maria are denied basic dignity and opportunity.
The Retirement Lie
Defenders of this system often argue that workers benefit through 401(k) plans and retirement accounts. This is perhaps the cruelest lie of all.
First, many workers like Maria don't have employer-sponsored retirement plans. Second, even those who do typically have accounts worth tens of thousands, while individual shareholders may have millions. The benefits flow overwhelmingly to people who were already wealthy.
Using workers' modest retirement savings to justify massive wealth extraction is like pointing to breadcrumbs to justify taking the whole loaf.
A Different Path Forward
This system isn't inevitable. Other countries have found different approaches:
- Germany requires worker representation on corporate boards
- Nordic countries have collective bargaining that ensures workers share in productivity gains
- Some US companies like Costco prove you can treat workers well and still be profitable
Policy Solutions
- Restrict stock buybacks or tax them heavily
- Mandate worker representation on corporate boards
- Link CEO pay to median worker wages
- Strengthen collective bargaining rights
- Increase minimum wages to living wages
What You Can Do
- Support businesses that treat workers fairly
- Invest responsibly in companies with good labor practices
- Vote for representatives who prioritize workers over shareholders
- Join or support unions in your workplace or community
Maria's Hope
"I'm not asking for much," Maria says as our conversation winds down. "I just want to work hard and be able to provide for my family. I want my daughter to have opportunities I didn't have."
"But this systemit's rigged. The harder I work, the richer other people get. That's not right. That's not the America I was promised."
"I clean their offices, but I'm the one who's invisible. Maybe it's time they started seeing us."
The Choice We Face
We can continue pretending that rising stock prices benefit everyone while workers like Maria struggle to survive. Or we can admit what's really happening: the stock market has become a sophisticated machine for extracting wealth from the people who create it and concentrating it among the people who own it.
The choice isn't between capitalism and socialism. It's between an extractive economy that treats workers like disposable resources and a productive economy that recognizes workers as the source of all wealth.
Maria deserves better. Every worker deserves better. And until we restructure this system to serve the people who make it run, we'll keep reading about "record profits" while real people can't afford to let their children play soccer.
The stock market isn't stealing from workers by accident. It's stealing by design. The question is: how long are we going to let it continue?