It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
- Abraham Lincoln
But what is the fair cost of labor? It seemed like the meme was saying that any surplus was wrong because it should have gone to the physical laborers instead.
The laborers, management (assuming they actually manage) and administration (who generally does administrate as is underpaid like labor), so yes.
Yes it's wrong to have any surplus? So then deciding who is best to give loans to wouldn't be labor?
At this point it's difficult to say if a cooperative should return profits to the staff in dividends, or assign (possibly by sortition) someone to decide what to do once all expenses are managed. There are a number of ways to consider future expenses, including expansion and repairs. Just because we've depended on loans in this society doesn't mean loans are the only way this can be done.
What I do know is the current system is leaving us with a captured government and members of the society homeless, going hungry, freezing from the elements or imprisoned in huge numbers, so really it's time to try anything over letting the plutocratic elite stay in power. Given we're not responding to crises that could end our species, even literally hunting down and eating the elite factions is on the table (just as massacring the poor has been for all of history).
Even the capitalists openly admit in order to argue that capitalism can work, you have to make sure the population from which you draw labor isn't suffering, and we've failed to do this. (Marx explains that the capture of a public-serving government is inevitable when there is a power disparity.)