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> I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young goo

> I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young good workers are undervalued because a large employer makes more money from them than they are paid. No, the point was that at a big company you get paid the average value of the work your and your peers does, while when you work for yourself you get paid the value you yourself does. This means that for strong performers going alone is better, and for weak performers going to a company is better. Nothing exploitative here, just natural consequences of scale and imperfect productivity measures.

tomgp 7y ago
"the average value of the work you and your peers do"... minus whtever the bosses feel they can cream off the top.
- shantly 7y ago
  Yeah you get paid the average cost of having that work done, not the average value at all. That may well be 10x what you're paid for the work, in some positions.
  - username90 7y ago
    The surplus value wasn't provided by you though, the people who built the company added it. I know that I wouldn't make enough contributions to warrant my current salary if I worked for most other companies than the one I work for now, so they actually give me more money than the value I bring. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
    - shantly 7y ago
      I don't think it makes much sense to assume that all of what's not "surplus value" (the "due" return of capital, I take it?) is already captured by labor, which is what the claim that all the value one creates over one's compensation is "provided by [...] the people who built the company" means, I'm pretty sure. In fact I think things get pretty messy and unhelpful when we start trying to attribute the "proper" due of anyone involved in this. You get what you get, and if your employer's not getting more than that they should probably look at hiring someone else, and if they could pay you less for exactly the same return on your labor they absolutely would, even though the value you're creating is the same, which tells me that no, capital is not somehow responsible for all that extra value, and I don't think it makes much sense to put things in those terms, even—like workers, they just get whatever they can manage to get. [EDIT] point remains, your wage is the cost of having that work done by labor in the market, unrelated to the value (return on investment, say) it provides, except that same value puts a de facto cap on the wage. If capital can get a 10% return paying $20/hr, they'll do it. If they could find a way to do the exact same thing but pay $10/hr, they would. "Value" remains constant.
- username90 7y ago
  The boss is a part of the team.
Jwarder 7y ago
> This means that for strong performers going alone is better, and for weak performers going to a company is better. I'm not sure about this. Performance and value depend on the environment. Some organizations can provide the infrastructure to uplift workers' performance but some people work better in a self-directed situation.

tomgp 7y ago

"the average value of the work you and your peers do"... minus whtever the bosses feel they can cream off the top.

shantly 7y ago
Yeah you get paid the average cost of having that work done, not the average value at all. That may well be 10x what you're paid for the work, in some positions.
- username90 7y ago
  The surplus value wasn't provided by you though, the people who built the company added it. I know that I wouldn't make enough contributions to warrant my current salary if I worked for most other companies than the one I work for now, so they actually give me more money than the value I bring. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
  - shantly 7y ago
    I don't think it makes much sense to assume that all of what's not "surplus value" (the "due" return of capital, I take it?) is already captured by labor, which is what the claim that all the value one creates over one's compensation is "provided by [...] the people who built the company" means, I'm pretty sure. In fact I think things get pretty messy and unhelpful when we start trying to attribute the "proper" due of anyone involved in this. You get what you get, and if your employer's not getting more than that they should probably look at hiring someone else, and if they could pay you less for exactly the same return on your labor they absolutely would, even though the value you're creating is the same, which tells me that no, capital is not somehow responsible for all that extra value, and I don't think it makes much sense to put things in those terms, even—like workers, they just get whatever they can manage to get. [EDIT] point remains, your wage is the cost of having that work done by labor in the market, unrelated to the value (return on investment, say) it provides, except that same value puts a de facto cap on the wage. If capital can get a 10% return paying $20/hr, they'll do it. If they could find a way to do the exact same thing but pay $10/hr, they would. "Value" remains constant.
username90 7y ago
The boss is a part of the team.

Jwarder 7y ago

> This means that for strong performers going alone is better, and for weak performers going to a company is better. I'm not sure about this. Performance and value depend on the environment. Some organizations can provide the infrastructure to uplift workers' performance but some people work better in a self-directed situation.