your central premise seems to be one of perfect agency - "if you don't like it then just quit". But this is empirically an invalid argument, because people /can

your central premise seems to be one of perfect agency - "if you don't like it then just quit". But this is empirically an invalid argument, because people /can/ just quit but they /don't/. You then retreat to the tautological argument of "if they're not quitting then they must not want to", completing the self-referential circle of reasoning to disregard any need for non-market intervention in working conditions. This is why I said there would probably be no getting through to you - defenses of laissez-faire capitalism typically rest on theory that is not borne out empirically. Your process of reasoning is just finding excuses. People don't quit jobs that are objectively degrading, making them pee in bottles? They must secretly like it. My dad says the job is overly demanding, especially for a country with high levels of unemployment (Scotland) where you could realistically just hire more workers to make the job more reasonable? It's all good because the exercise of constantly running for your job is good for you! This is rationalisation, not reasoning - so there's little point trying to argue further because it's possible to make an excuse for basically anything in this manner. It's not like I can't sympathise - I went through a libertarian phase myself and trotted out similar arguments. It was only when I tried to address the counter-arguments on a consequentialist and empiricist level, and simultaneously had started studying some theories of causality that also had sociological implications (cybernetics and systems theory), that I realised that my arguments to agency didn't hold up, because we do not have perfect agency - our actions and choices are constrained by our circumstances and responsibilities, beliefs, values and whatnot, and that an ideal economic system would be able to allocate labour in such a way that maximum meaningful work is performed while retaining human dignity. Capitalism, especially unrestrained, fails miserably at both of these.