[normal_man]

The victims are the employees of Apple who receive a tiny percentage of the value they create, while a huge percentage of it goes to the corporate owners.

Edit: by extension, all the consumers are likely in the same position. Employees are all exploited by their employers, who steal most of the value created which they had little to no hand in.

[r_smart]

|Employees are all exploited by their employers, who steal most of the value created which they had little to no hand in.

I'm sorry, but this is bog-standard communist clap-trap. Even if you don't like the current arrangement, the use of the word steal is absurd. Individual wealth, regardless of which income quintile you're in, has risen exponentially since the industrial revolution. There's lots of room for criticism of the world as it stands (crony capitalism and printing a sea of money being favorites of mine), but words like exploit and steal are crazy. And to say that an employer had little hand in the value of the products created is just silly. Even if we ignore everything else, you can't just disregard the massive capital expenses that go into building the infrastructure to make an iPhone. Somebody had to come up with that money to even make the company possible, long before the profits started rolling in.

I've had the dubious pleasure of working for companies that were posting little or no profit vs others that were making lots of money. Personally, I'd be happy to be 'exploited' by the wages Apple pays.

[normal_man]

Well I am a communist, so that makes sense. Crony capitalism is just capitalism, by the way. It's designed to work that way.

In Apple's case, the "massive capital expenses" have been paid for many times over in profit; when does the compensation shift back to the people creating the day-to-day value? Never, I guess?

And by the way, I'm not talking about the $300k engineers in Cupertino. I'm talking about the people who were throwing themselves of factory roofs until they set up nets to take even that measure of freedom away.

[burfog]

Wow, an actual communist. OK, I need to ask you a few questions.

Why should we risk it? You might say that previous attempts were "not real communism", but that is what we end up with when we try. We've killed 160 million people trying to implement communism, or at least following leaders who tell us they will implement communism. It doesn't seem wise to try again, does it? Why would things go down differently? It's awfully risky to take the gamble, don't you think?

What motivation would there be for start-up founders? If that just isn't needed because the state owns all business, how do we ensure that unproductive business doesn't uselessly stay funded while productive business is never initiated?

If there is no legitimate way to obtain great wealth, don't you think people might turn to methods that are not legitimate, such as the corruption? History shows that communism quickly turns the culture toward corruption, and that this dissipates very slowly once communism is removed.

[r_smart]

|Employees are all exploited by their employers, who steal most of the value created which they had little to no hand in.

Didn't that turn out to be bullshit? Like, years ago. Pretty sure that guy made the story up. Also, those people weren't employees of Apple.

And I'll take crony capitalism and wealth inequality over gulags and the tens of millions of people who have been killed by their communist overlords (who were also hoarding all the wealth).

[normal_man]

I'm sorry, this is bog-standard capitalist clap-trap. Capitalism has killed many more, and will continue to kill millions and millions as the effects of climate change worsen, than the concept of equitable distribution of wealth.

[r_smart]

|Capitalism has killed many more

Please support that claim.

|will continue to kill millions and millions as the effects of climate change worsen

Communist countries, past and present, hardly have a sterling reputation when it comes to environmental considerations.

Edit: Oh, and you ignored that the Foxconn thing was manufactured. Unless that's what you're calling clap-trap, but I assume not.