[civilian]

It's important to have incentives to reward success. How would a business even grow if it could never keep profits?

The working class does benefit from Apple, in the form of high-quality technology that even they can purchase.

[SapphireSun]

There are a variety of alternative arrangements that have been proposed. Economic democracy is one of them (that is, the workers control the company via elections, which will influence their pay).

The workers benefit somewhat from Apple, yes, in the form of a consumer gadget. I will grant Apple some utility, it did find a way to fuse existing science and technology in an interesting way to produce a very nice pocket computer.

However, this has had many effects, some good (access to information and maps), some bad (dissolution of privacy, addictive interfaces, the creation of "apps" at the expense of the open internet). Apple then uses this commodity to vacuum up dollars from consumers in excess of what it cost to produce... and do nothing with them other than allow executives and securities holders to slake their desire to accumulate. It's an addiction in itself.

[dvtv75]

I'm sold! I'll go in and refuse my pay check because my employer offers me high quality products that even I can purchase.

I can't, because I won't have the money to purchase them, but they are "in business to make money," and I'm clearly only here for the opportunity to buy the products that I make.

OK, sarcasm isn't especially productive, but I hope my point is clear: if my employer takes all the money and pays only subsistence wages, which the huge power imbalance enables, then he's doomed because nobody can afford his products.

At the very least, mine would be if he hadn't managed to get massive tax breaks for being a "job creator" who's also persuaded the government to subsidize those jobs with public funding, and then decided that he's not topping those wages up with the money his business earned. Basically, running costs are funded by the public while he pockets all the profits and pays me with my own tax dollars.

The working class needs more than just the benefit of stuff being offered for sale. We need to be able to spend and save, the ability to shape the economy and keep it running, otherwise it all breaks down.