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{{A|work|{{image|Donut|jpg|}}}}A time-honoured incentive plan for agents, by agents.

Financial services firms have long struggled with the distinction between ''ownership'' and ''service''. A firm’s owner takes her reward from the investment of [[capital]] — cash that the firm uses to acquire kit, rent premises, pay suppliers and hire staff, all in the collective enterprise of selling things — goods or services — for a return exceeding that capital outlay. As long as the firm does that, it is making money and its shareholders will see a return on their capital — simplistically, that net return, divided by the relative size of their stake.

Shareholders may wish to oversee how their capital is deployed, but this is to look after their own interests rather than the company’s ''per se''. But they do not have to do anything beyond ponying up the money and not asking for it back.  

They ''can’t'' ask for it back, indeed: the transaction by which one invested capital is a sale and purchase: the money has gone. What a shareholder has in return is a ''[[share]]''. If she wants out, the company is not obliged to offer her anything, let alone the sum she once invested. She may find someone to whom she can ''sell'' her shares, but she must accept the price they are prepared to pay.  

One of the things a capital infusion can buy is ''[[servant]]s''. In the modern argot, we call these people “employees”, though an important nuance — namely ''servitude'' — is lost in our formulation.

A servant is paid for what she does. She is the inverse of an equity holder — she contributes no money — rather, she costs it — so must ''do something'' to earn her keep.

In a perfect world — for a landed capitalist, at any rate — servants would be paid only for what they contributed. This is easier to measure for some workers than others: for salespeople it is straightforward. For back-office staff, less so. For legal officers [[legal value|more or less impossible]].