It would be cool if you could expand on this. Do you live in one of these places?

I'm also wondering when there's going to be a sea change. London is full of people in their 20s spending ~50% of their income on rent, and pretty much just breaking even overall.

I feel like people are going to get sick of this eventually. Either people will leave the most expensive cities, or new ways of "hacking" housing will emerge.

I guess you could say it's also the point of most tech startups, but only for the founders and the first few employees.

> Paying people the same value they contribute is not socialism. It's called: Being a good person. <

I am sorry but the whole disagreement is on what value a worker contributes.

According to Capitalism and Capitalism supporters, a productive activity is the sum of (Land/raw materials + Labor + Capital). Capital is nothing but deferred consumption. If you don't consume what you could consume, then that constitutes as capital.

When you say that Capitalism exploits another's surplus labor, what you don't understand is that the Capitalist pays for that surplus labor via capital (or time). Any worker in Capitalism is entitled to the full share of the profit as long as he does not expect wages to be paid out immediately, and that he is willing to wait until the profits pour in.

Because most labor is paid immediately, and workers have no risk or delayed consumption, they don't get the share from the profit.

Karl Marx noticed this phenomenon, but was unable to understand the role of Capital(and yea I know he wrote a whole book on this concept). To him, careful inspection revealed a 'conspiracy theory' among the capitalists which he dubbed as class struggle and class interest.

> How is the risk the founder takes that different to Employee #1's? < When you compare the risk of the founder vs risk of the employee #1, it is the matter of how much capital is on line there. Clearly the risk taken by someone who has invested $1000 is less than the risk taken by someone who has invested $10,000 into the same venture at the same time.

Funny thing is when people talk about a cooperative, it's no different than an early stage equity startup where nobody gets paid a salary. The moment a cooperative pays salary before the revenue, it will need capital and the person providing the capital would deserve a bigger share from the profits.

I'm fine with this, as long as the risk/reward ratio is equal.

Maybe each employee has to donate credit to the company for expenses if they don’t have the cash?

I started my company with bank loans and credit lines. If it goes bust, it's my reputation and I will have to pay back the money.

If someone isn't willing to risk this as well, they aren't an equal partner and shouldn't share equally in the reward.

Some people aren't willing to risk this much, yet still want to contribute. They are employees.

You misunderstood me, I am not saying you should exploit your workers, pay them fair wage. What I am saying is that founder who took the risk should enjoy the fruits.

> How is the risk the founder takes that different to Employee #1's?

Employee #1 will probably be getting a salary, if the company fails he can get a job somewhere else. Meanwhile the founders who worked on the idea probably used their savings initially not to mention quitting their jobs and working on the idea and facing humiliation if the company fails.

That takes courage which everyone cannot do which is why founders deserve to get rich if they build something valuable, employees not so much unless they are willing to stick it out till the end.

For whatever reason, society seems to value risk-taking 10x more than it values work. Just look at the replies in this thread. People are actually arguing that founders deserve their megawealth because at some point they risked something, and that employees do not deserve it, regardless of how much they work, because they didn't risk anything (although I would argue that employees #1-4 risk a hell of a lot more than most founders).