Is it a disease? :)

Did you mean communism?

> Information, quality assurance, and good management are all scarce

I acknowledge that. Read my comment below - these skills are picked up on the go by startup founders, the same way those in a cooperative could. Professionalism is unrelated to having one head or twenty at the top.

> For instance, most programmers are content to work for the Man

Most workers in any field are "working for the Man*, not just programmers. The adoption of the agency model varies across the economy, but is less common as you go higher (think doctors, lawyers, architects, etc). We could get into a yearlong discussion about distribution (or concentration) of wealth, but I don't think this is the place and I'm not that qualified.

> I think you're being down voted because all this is probably common knowledge on a forum for smart, startup-minded hackers.

Isn't almost everything common knowledge in a community like this? I don't think that's the reason, downvoting for simply disagreeing is becoming increasingly common.

> When you talk about "extracting surplus-value" there are prominent members of this community who do that for a living.

So? I'm not picking a fight or attacking anyone, just musing on capitalism. Is it taboo? I'm sure they don't feel the need to justify what they do.