In practice what happens is the availability of exploitable labor creates incentive for abusive employers (and others in power in the society) to maintain poor conditions among their potential labor pool.
In many (both historical and ongoing) cases the societal abuses this goes with are quite horrific, and the large-scale power imbalances are extreme.
Removing abusive employment relations at a society-wide scale is a strong first step towards helping people out of the kind of desperate situations where such arrangements would seem better than alternatives.
The abstract libertarian fantasy-land where every “consensual” “contract” is mutually beneficial sounds nice if you don’t bother learning the details of specific past and present legal and social systems. In reality these abusive social relations are a nightmare, doing irreparable damage to countless people’s lives.
In many (both historical and ongoing) cases the societal abuses this goes with are quite horrific, and the large-scale power imbalances are extreme.
Removing abusive employment relations at a society-wide scale is a strong first step towards helping people out of the kind of desperate situations where such arrangements would seem better than alternatives.
The abstract libertarian fantasy-land where every “consensual” “contract” is mutually beneficial sounds nice if you don’t bother learning the details of specific past and present legal and social systems. In reality these abusive social relations are a nightmare, doing irreparable damage to countless people’s lives.