No, this is where you are wrong. Of course I oversimplify when I say split 50/50 between the employees and the corporation. That was meant as an illustration. But you have to understand that it doesn't have to "make sense" to you... It just IS where value comes from. Actual value. Not price, not profit, but VALUE. Again, the difference between a tree and furniture is WORK. The furniture has more VALUE thanks to the WORK that was put in processing the tree into furniture. Yes, we value the furniture more, which is the REASON why we work at making furniture out of trees.

Second, you should know that the ONLY market with true competition is the labor market. ALL OTHERS are characterized by more or less absolute anti-competitive measures, strategies and tactics. It's called "the games theory of economics". The labor market being the only one where there is true competition, it means that all employees are essentially pit against all others (within an activity or activity group, obviously) for who will do the most for the least pay. With international trade even came the abolition of borders in the labor market: the dude living in NYC is pit against the dude who lives in a hut in Bangladesh for who will do the most for the least. Guess who wins.

The consequence of this is virtually ALL corporations squeezing the worker base for ever more, giving ever less in compensation and benefits while corporate profits and top management compensation increase continually. Does that sound familiar? If not, look at the inflation-adjusted median household income for the last 60 years in your "western capitalist democracy" of choice. What do you see? It's flat. That's right, no increase. But wait! 60 years ago, most households had ONE worker. Nowadays there are two. So you doubled the number of workers and total income, adjusted for the devaluation of currency, STAYED THE SAME.

So the problem is education? All this time, technology has been increasing the value created per man-hour of work, but overall we're making half as much BECAUSE OF LACK OF EDUCATION? I'm sorry but that's not it.

You seem to feel that everybody having a fair shot at "making it" if they work hard and smart enough and get a good education is a good thing? That's what socialism is all about: Making sure that capitalism does not become SLAVERY.