Case A)
1) Imagine you are a farmer, and you tend your fields all season to bring a truck load of Tomatoes to market -- who owns the profit the sale of that product may bring?
2) Imagine you are a farm-hand, and you tend the fields all season to bring a truck load of Tomatoes to market -- who owns the profit the sale of that product may bring?
Case B)
1) Imagine you are software programmer, and you manage to build the next 'killer app' in your spare time, and you manage to actually get users to pay money to use the app -- who owns the profit the sales of that app may bring?
2) Imagine you are software programmer, and you manage to build the next 'killer app' while at work, and you manage to actually get users to pay money to use the app -- who owns the profit the sales of that app may bring?
Case C)
1) Imagine you are writer, and you manage to create the next 'best seller' in your spare time, and you manage to actually get readers to pay money to read your work -- who owns the profit the sales of that creative work may bring?
2) Imagine you are writer, and you manage to create the next 'best seller' on assignment of your publisher, and you manage to actually get readers to pay money to buy your book -- who owns the profit the sales of that creative work may bring?
Discuss quietly among yourselves ...
Now for a basic primer on the Economic system known as Capitalism, in which much of the world, ekes out a living.
Hopefully the following "rules of the game" may shed some light on "Who owns, What?" ... while on that road to capital profits ...
Understanding Capitalism Part I: Capital and Society
by R. G. Price -- Nov 20, 2003
[...]
In a capitalist system property ownership is ultimately the only way in which value is "realized". Ownership of property grants the owner of the property full rights to all of the value of that property. That is, at its core, what capitalism is about, the ownership of rights to value.
At the same time, labor is the only means by which value is created. "Labor" can include work done by people, by nature, or by machines, but nevertheless, the only thing that actually creates new value is doing work.
This is the key first step in understanding capitalism.
If you own something then you own full rights to all of the value of that thing. This means, for example, that if I own a piece of metal, and I get someone to sculpt that metal into a statue, I, through my property rights, am still entitled to the full value of the statue because I own the property. The person who took the block of metal and performed work on it to increase its value is not entitled to anything. He has no legal claim to any of the value of the object at all, even though he is the one responsible for increasing the value of the item. In fact, all of the "added value" as a result of labor is obviously a product of the worker.
In this type of system the property owner may pay a wage to someone to perform work on his or her property in the hopes that the work performed will increase the value of the property.
In this case a capitalist may go to the public and offer a fee, of say $100, to anyone who will perform the work that he or she is requesting. Someone may take this offer and agree to perform the work. The worker, of course, still has no rights to any of the value of the property, the capitalist retains full rights and just agrees to pay the wage to have the work done. Whatever value results from the work being done is fully owned by the capitalist. If he pays the worker $100 and the result is a product that is worth $5,000, then the worker has no legal claim to anything other than the $100 which he originally agree to do the work for.
[...]
Apparently it's good to own stuff, even it seems, the creativity and/or productivity of others ...
It's kind of by design. ... by Capital design.
Lesson: Never sell short, the 'true value' of your labor.
(... if you can avoid it, of course.)