>The return is in the increase in value of the stock?
There will never be an increase in the value of the stock if there is no expected return.
If you go back to the 1600's then shareholders got their return from liquidation payouts. Someone would invest in a voyage and when the ship returned the spoils were the paid out and the company was liquidated. Not so different from a dividend really and it clearly wouldn't work for a modern industrial economy.
Ideally, people wouldn’t have any money to invest because they all earn the same amount, which they all spend on the same expenses, otherwise it gets taxed and redistributed.
The return is in the increase in value of the stock?
Dividends have only existed since the 1960s and stock buybacks only became mainstream in the 1980s. Stocks have existed in some form since the 1600s.
>The return is in the increase in value of the stock?
There will never be an increase in the value of the stock if there is no expected return.
If you go back to the 1600's then shareholders got their return from liquidation payouts. Someone would invest in a voyage and when the ship returned the spoils were the paid out and the company was liquidated. Not so different from a dividend really and it clearly wouldn't work for a modern industrial economy.
you realise most companies are private and don't have publicly tradable shares?
very common: a small company with a couple shareholders of that aren't employees
without dividends, how can the shareholders get THEIR profits out of THEIR company, without giving up control?
just leave them in there forever?
Ideally, people wouldn’t have any money to invest because they all earn the same amount, which they all spend on the same expenses, otherwise it gets taxed and redistributed.
Which is incoherent as it works against human nature.