* Value is not just the price that someone pays for something. If I give a homeless person a laptop for free, that homeless person is receiving value despite it

* Value is not just the price that someone pays for something. If I give a homeless person a laptop for free, that homeless person is receiving value despite it not being a non-monetary transaction. Garbage men are very valuable, but the full monetary amount of that value isn't necessarily paid for. * It's possible that garbage collectors as a whole create more "value" than Oprah Winfrey. The difference is that the value created by garbage collectors is dispersed amongst millions of garbagemen and other people, while Oprah Winfrey gets to keep most of her value. * There's an oversupply of people willing and able to pick up garbage relative to the supply of jobs. This puts downward pressure on the wages, ensuring that the compensation for their work is less than the true value generated.