However, the point about capitalists getting rich from the labor of others, and collectively coercing the rest of us to spend time we could be doing something else enriching them, is valid no matter how hard capitalists work. Ford, etc., may work hard, but they work no harder that the people on the assembly line or in the oil fields. They may contribute managerial skill and creative vision others lack, but at the same time the system, the profit from inhibits the development of managerial skill and creative vision among many of their employees who might manifest such traits if they didn't have to work on thee line or on a rig.
[WS:] I concur. Another way of putting it is that exploitation occurs on a collective (or systemic) rather than an individual level. That is to say, it is not that Mr. X, the Capitalist, exploits Mr. Y, the Proletarian, since remuneration for work can take different forms, some of them individualistic (e.g. higher wages), other collectivistic (e.g. higher provision of public goods and social security arrangements). Under capitalism, however, wealth is accumulated rather than distributed back to society in any form, either individualistic or collectivistic, and that basically robs society of the fruits of its collective labor. It does not really matter whether capitalists personally benefit from it or not - even if they reinvested the entire surplus, or threw it away without taking a penny for themselves, exploitation would still occur.
I think the advantage of this conceptualization is that it casts the labor struggle as a struggle for public/social good rather than for personal benefit of a special interest group (i.e. organized labor). The substitution of the former by the latter, I believe, was one of the key arguments that our friend Fitch leveled against the US-style trade unionism.
In short, individuals and their effort do not matter as much as the benefit, or lack thereof, to the entire society collectively.
BTW, capitalists do produce benefit to the entire society inasmuch as they productively invest or maintain (through their consumption) demand for goods and services, thus creating employment. The point is, however, that this is not the most efficient way of creating public benefit for society out of accumulated wealth - other forms (e.g. Keynesianism or public ownership of the means of production) may be more efficient in this task.
Another point. IIRC, Marx opposed (in the _Critique of the Gotha Programme_) casting labor struggle as a struggle for higher wages, or even redistribution of surplus back to the workers (which would rob society of investments).
Wojtek