Ya I agree. I've worked in several disciplines here in Idaho - working for myself writing software for 20+ years, moving furniture for a warehouse for 3 years,

Ya I agree. I've worked in several disciplines here in Idaho - working for myself writing software for 20+ years, moving furniture for a warehouse for 3 years, computer repair for 3 years, freelance contracting and consulting for at least 5 years. In most cases employees could be at-will terminated, the pay disparity between the company's hourly rate and what it pays were rather high, and employees had little or no ownership of the business. This last point is most important IMHO. I think the very simplest step to remedying labor-capitalist relations in the US is to change the corporate mandate to maximizing worker quality of life instead of maximizing shareholder value. This would basically mean that corporate boards would be > 50% workers and that work (earned income) would always be taxed less than capital gains (unearned income). This could be obtained through unions or by new legislation at the state/federal level. Richard Wolff has many videos on YouTube about it. Unfortunately since this is the US of A, democracy has been conflated with capitalism and most people seem to have forgotten that our country was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation. I argue that since wages are so low now, we're all paying an effective 50% tax to the private sector, which gets vacuumed up by the very wealthy or moved out of the country to exploit even poorer people. Our income goes to rents, school (which used to be public), medical care (which is public in most other countries), etc etc etc. It would be more profitable for the middle class to do these workplace reforms and make 2-4 times as much income at a slightly higher tax rate than we have now. The above is the most logical, succinct way I can put it, because I have firsthand experience in how the current system isn't working and isn't sustainable. And I've had it relatively easy compared to people struggling with 2-3 jobs and children to support. But the level of vitriol I get from friends and family that agree with me on most things (except politics!) is just incredible.