For a firm to profit, the commodity's sale price must obviously be more than the cost of its production. Market competition ideally shaves prices closer and clo

For a firm to profit, the commodity's sale price must obviously be more than the cost of its production. Market competition ideally shaves prices closer and closer to their original production costs as firms undersell one another. If a firm profits, it follows that it has paid its workers wages less than the value their labor has generated. Collective action through a union brings wages closer and closer to the true value of their labor. Both of these situations limit the extent to which an ownership class, engaged in no productive labor itself, can siphon off the value that real work produces. Captive markets and "right to work" shops likewise both afford this class the liberty of being as parasitic as it wishes.