I would argue wage labor, and capitalism as a whole, are inherently exploitative. I came from a manual labor background; Ranch hand, construction, metal fab, which is why I'm so passionate about this. I'm used to being paid $~15/hr to do very physically demanding work, knowing that the contracts are often 10-15k for a job a crew of four guys can knock out in a day or two, including labor and materials the expense is ~3-5k plus indirect costs (tools, trucks, taxes etc.), so why shouldn't the remainder of the profit go to the people that generated it? I understand the margins are thinner in most retail and service situations but the same logic can be applied. If you were losing money on an employee, or even just breaking even, would you keep them on they payroll?