[fennecfoxen]

> Maybe we need to start thinking of labor as a (actually, the main) party responsible for creating the value the firm produces for society.

Right. That's pretty much straight Marxist ideology. (I say this as a matter of fact, not as a matter of denigration per se.)

Idea for you.

It's a free country, relatively speaking. So if labor is truly primarily responsible for the value in something, perhaps you and a bunch of laborers should get together and start a business providing value to people, and paying lots of money to the labor. Assuming the labor is the primary thing that generates value, it should be easy - in fact, they can attract the best labor by paying more than they'd get in a regime which does not value their output.

If, however, you find that it is really hard to get started because it takes a lot of money to buy equipment (or to pay salaries of people programming vast troves of computer-code, which is more or less custom-manufactured capital)... if you find that it's hard to get started with labor alone, then you've effectively demonstrated that capital provides a significant part of the value.

Silicon Valley may provide a few interesting case studies for you if you wish not to do the exercise yourself at this time.

[unclebucknasty]

There is no need to test whether capital provides value, as it obviously does. Your parent was speaking to viewing labor as providing the primary value.

I noticed though, that your test's premise started as a means to challenging your parent's assertion that labor provided the primary value (i.e. you implied that capital provided the primary value). But, your test's conclusion was that capital provided only significant value, which no one is arguing. Apparently, you couldn't bring yourself to conclude that capital provided the primary value, perhaps because your test doesn't prove it.

But, I have an exercise for you. Imagine starting a company with very little capital, but plenty of labor (i.e. people willing to work for a share in future profits). Now, imagine starting a company with $1B and no labor.

In any case, regardless of which you deem technically "most" valuable, there is still the question of degree: that is, do the rewards accrue to the parties proportionate to their value?

[bsbechtel]

I actually run a painting company where we pay our employees roughly double the industry standard, and we're one of the (if not the) fastest growing painting companies in the state we are located. As owners, my business partner and I are investing every penny we can back into R&D and new technology to improve our efficiencies. Both provide value.