[lehighguy]

So lets start with this comment:
"Unless you own your own business you are earning less than you produce (unless the business you work for returns no profit, then you could earn exactly what you produce.)"

You said you took macro economics so I'll assume you understand both marginal product of labor and economic versus nominal profit.

In a competitive marketplace businesses earn what is referred to as economic profit. That is thier profit is a function of the risk and time value of the capital they allocate. Since you have to put up money to start and run a business, and that capital is at risk, you need to be compensated with a certain level of economic profit. Consider it the cost of capital (are you familair with that financial term? It isn't necessarilly microecon but more finance).

An additional worker produces value to the company equal to his marginal utility. So for instance, if I'm hired by a business and my labor helps produce $100,000 worth of utility that is my marginal product.

However, note the use of the word help. You didn't produce that $100,000 worth of value out of the blue. You did it with the assistance of anothers capital, another ideas and business model, anothers relationship, anothers reputation. I can make quite a lot of money trading for my company, but I couldn't do it on my own without assistance. You only produce part of that $100,000 worth of value, and that is your salary. The remaining amount goes toward compensating the business owner for the use of the above items.

I'll give government wealth redistribution programs a terse mention, because that's all they deserve. Governmental attempts to redistribute worth have all failed miserably. One need not even gesture as to peoples rights to thier own property, such moral posturing is unecessary to prove the point. Those systems fail because they have been unable to provide a better life for thier propulations. It is a pure failure with no redeeming qualities.