[dymk]

The problem is that he was unfairly compensated by the economic system (capitalism) he works in, and had to fight for years only to just about break even on legal fees.

The guy's gumption led to the invention of a multi-billion dollar pear year industry, and he got basically none of it.

[ralusek]

The inverse also happens, though, because socialism fails to capture the value. According to the labor theory of value, for example, his work would’ve been valued at some function of (training * hours worked). Despite creating billions in value for humanity, he would’ve been treated very similarly to the rest of his coworkers

[Draiken]

Nobody's talking about socialism.

But let's say it was a more socialist society. As a result, everyone would be earning more, including him. And maybe the CEO that tried to fuck his research would earn less.

IDK but for me that sounds like a very good trade-off, given the CEO did nothing, as always, and got billions.

[legitster]

> The guy's gumption led to the invention of a multi-billion dollar pear year industry, and he got basically none of it.

But... the billion dollar industry is also capitalism? This logic is circular and makes no sense. If there is no capitalism there is no compensation to be distributed in this case, period.

The argument that he was unfairly compensated based on merit is fundamentally a capitalist argument. You can't play it both ways.

[dymk]

Are you saying the outcome here is fair and desirable?

The first step to fixing a problem is admitting one exists. This seems clearly like a failure of capitalism to reward the innovation of a person who actually did the innovation.