What are you suggesting as a better system?

To withold basic needs for profit, you need to be able to provide basic needs in the first place.

All of the alternatives I know of can't even reach that point.

Companies go bankrupt all the time.

> Our economic system is predicated on withholding basic needs for profit.

An economic system based on "to each according to his need" has been tried many times. It fails to deliver.

> If the business fails, the owner simply has less money or they have to become a worker.

The fact that you consider "losing everything you've saved up for your entire life, plus what you've borrowed, and destroyed your ability to borrow more" as "simply" is... mind boggling to me. I would rather work for someone else than risk losing everything by starting my own business (plus I prefer to develop software rather than run a business); that risk is _way_ beyond what I'm comfortable with.

There is risk to capital. The government does not bail out every business that fails. That's ludicrous. Investors like VCs can and do lose their investments all the time with no government intervention whatsoever. An owner is also risking in terms of opportunity cost - time lost to starting a business and failing is inherently riskier than working with similar talents and investing in safer assets like index funds for the potential upside of higher returns if the business succeeds.

Bootstrapped companies also come with risks to the founder's own capital and credit risk if loans are taken and the business fails to generate revenue to service them.

Depends on the field what you risk. Many white collar jobs will not risk their lives or injury, plus nowadays regulations should reduce these extreme risks.

Saying "owner simply has less money" can have many implications on their life. If they choose to put money in a company rather than have a bigger apartment/TV/car/whatever, I find it fair for that to be rewarded a bit.

I think it is disingenuous to think "basic needs" is simple to define, considering that there is no cheap and free energy source (and other resources). For someone living in a warm climate, the basic need for heating in north of Europe will look like a waste.

My opinion is that tax systems are completely outdated and they should use more "asymptotic/exponential/complex formulas". Sure a tax of x % on profit worked 100 years ago when most people were "closer" but with today's growth (of many things), you get too much concentration. But of course that would imply that people understand both tax and math, so most will not demand it.