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Comment by benjaminwootton | Hacker News Reader

The vast, vast majority of companies in the world would not pay massively over market rates to their staff.

To minimise costs and maximise profits (without exploiting anyone of course) is the raison d'etre for a business, and is in no way unethrical.

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I don't disagree with you but I think we may have differing definitions of "exploitation."

To generate more value for a company than you receive in wage is to be exploited, in my book, and is subsequently unethical.

The way out of this situation is unclear but to pretend that this is not the case helps neither man nor beast.

In order for employment to be stable over the long-run, the productive employee has to create more value for the employer than they receive. (Employers have all kinds of overheads, unproductive employees, and friction/loss that has to be covered in order for the employer to not run out of money.)

I hope (and work to ensure) that my employer gets an over-unity multiple of value from me and my team’s work. That keeps everyone happy over the long run.

Oh yeah for sure I am not disputing that this is the way that the system works - the whole thing rests on the compromise point between the employer's margin and the employee's wage. Both need each other to some degree and so a compromise is reached which is the market value of labour.

That said, other models of system are available - worker coops and other models of employee-owned business can and do exist. They have their own merits and flaws though - nothing in this world is perfect.

Make it a worker-owned coop; the productive worker still has to create more value than they get paid unless someone else is continually putting money into the coop.

I agree with you in some ways and disagree in others. In yet more ways, I am undecided. However, I am convinced that this is probably not the best setting for a discussion like this that will achieve anything more than raising people's blood pressure - I hope you'll agree with me on that.

I am using the investors’ assets to amplify the value of my work, and they are bearing all the risk for me. It would be unethical not to compensate them.

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