Conversations about labor are a weird area where people are both commodified and also simultaneously shamed for acting like a commodity. Imagine opening up a s

Conversations about labor are a weird area where people are both commodified and also simultaneously shamed for acting like a commodity. Imagine opening up a shoe factory, finding out that the price of leather was too high to make a profit on leather shoes, and instead of reworking my business to match my expenses I instead demand that the leather be sold to me at a lower price. When the leather providers refuse, I go complain to a bunch of newspapers that nobody wants to sell leather anymore and that we're in a leather shortage. If your business requires all of its supplies and inputs to be sold to you below market value, then you don't have a business, you have a charity. Everyone would be able to make a profitable construction business if they got their lumber for free. Everyone could run a department store profitably if all of their inventory was given to them. But sustainable business is about learning how to build a product/service that generates more profit than the costs required to make it. If the initial costs are too high or it's a question of scaling, then that's what investments and/or subsidies are for. But either way, it's silly to try and shame suppliers (employees) for setting their own prices.