[dragonwriter]

> In capitalism your salary is by definition less than your value to the company.

No, it's not.

Under ideal market conditions, the price of any good (including labor) is exactly equal to its value to the marginal purchaser (and, also, to the marginal seller.)

[Supermancho]

> Under ideal market conditions

Human on Human interactions, which are required for the majority of employment, employ game theory to ensure that your pay is below your value. When talking about labor groups/unions you can approach an ideal scenario. Even those will have variation that are manipulated by human to human interaction.

There are no "ideal market conditions". The real conditions are such that, statistically, you will be underpaid in comparison to your value within a company. Sometimes you get lucky and drop into an upside down position, which is overpaid, but that's the best wage slaves can hope for.

[dragonwriter]

> Human on Human interactions, which are required for the majority of employment, employ game theory to ensure that your pay is below your value.

Sure.

But now we're talking about “in practice” not “by definition”.

[Supermancho]

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice – in practice there is” (Yogi Berra)

I do not use the "ideal market conditions" theory to describe what happens in practice, because it has little utility (except in predicting some very constrained trends).

[thescriptkiddie]

If the company pays you exactly what your labor is worth, how exactly are they supposed to make money?