> Free from what? I can choose to quit whenever I want.

Lucky you. Many people don't have that privilege. Some don't have any saving, so switching employers isn't an option. Even in a country with good unemployment insurance, you are generally denied the benefits if you just quit —you have to be fired.

And of course, there are some horrible places where there is only one employer, and your only choice is to work for him (sometimes risking your life or health in the process), or starve.

> You are speaking from a pretty privileged background

May I ask what do you think that background may be?

Not having savings doesn't mean you can't quit. A one employer town doesn't mean you can't quit. In both cases you just quit and immediately move or take any job you can find while you look for something better.

Being free isn't having someone feed you grapes with a silver spoon while you ponder on which industry you would like to support with your intellectual prowess.

Now who's talking from a privileged perspective… Searching for a job takes time, and quitting is risky. Sure, most of the time it will be fine. But sometimes you just end up searching for a job (any job) for more than a few weeks, and next thing you know your landlord is kicking you out.

When I say "no savings", I do mean zero. Nothing. Like "I can't buy food this week" nothing.

Then there's social pressure. Why quit your job in these times of mass unemployment? That would be crazy. Even prospective employers will not see that with a good eye: in white collar jobs, you can always say "it was time for me to go", or high-status non-explanations like that. But picture a cashier looking for a cashier job. The employer will want a real reason, and you'd better forge one that doesn't look too bad. (Disparaging the previous employer looks bad, mentioning material constraints often looks bad… following your spouse might not.)

Not so long ago, societies were structured to foster intellectual curiosity. Now, they are structured to kill any form of innovation. Just because you live in a broken, intellectually devoid capitalistic society, doesn't mean that's the optimal or even correct way to organize society.

If what you are saying is true, why is the US the leading tech innovator by a wide margin? The entire bay is centered on the concept of disruption via innovation.

Most of the technical innovation in the US is financed by military sources and state-sanctioned monopolies. Things like the internet and self-driving cars basically came from ARPA and DARPA fundings —at least initially.

Compared to those thing, the typical web startup we see in the Bay area innovates little and disrupts nothing. They're just facilitators and middle men. The likes of DropBox, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, even Facebook… none are needed. They only compensate for our asymmetric bandwidth, without solving the real problem.

If you want real innovation, you need to finance fundamental research. You know, things that have no short term benefits, uncertain long term benefits, and uncertain monetisability.

In any case, the US is one of the most militaristic countries out there. It wages war all over the place for oil, and develops nice military devices to secure its supremacy. That's a pretty good drive for technical innovation.

Pretty feeble argument IMO. You restrict your analysis to companies you deem trivial and then you claim they aren't innovative. Yet you ignore the entire smartphone revolution that was started by Apple and Google.

Innovation and invention aren't the same thing. The invention of a technology is only a small component of its success. Combining it with other components to fulfill a good usecase is what makes it something useful. Google is the main player making self driving cars actually something useful,not DARPA funding.

You can continue to be apologetic for other countries being so far behind in tech innovation, but it doesn't change the point that it's happening in the US even though some ignorant commenter thinks the education system gets rid of innovation.

> Pretty feeble argument IMO.

I agree.

I want to stress however that there are many factors that drive innovation. The military setup is one. The economic system is another. Education is yet another. The mass media have substantial influence. Even if it sucks on some fronts, it may be compensated elsewhere.

Simply put, even if our economic system and our education system thwarts innovation, that's not enough to kill it.

I believe parent's point (which I am not agreeing with) was that employee's are not free because in a capitalist society you more or less need to work to survive

You need to work for someone to survive. The point is, there is a tiny minority of capitalists, who decide what to work on, and how. The rest of us hardly have a say. In terms of personal freedom, this is just as bad as a command economy (no more, no less). Also, remember that in some places, people can't even chose their employer. It's work in the mine, or starve. We westerners have it easy.

An independent contractor will still need to work to survive. But at least she's free from any boss… if she's really independent —that is, she can afford to turn down contracts.

Pensioners, or otherwise "financially independent" people are even free from lucrative work. They don't need to work for their continued survival. They can instead like look over their grandchildren or do some community work.

I'm sure there are higher attainable degrees of freedom yet. But let's work on the worst problems first. We more or less solved slavery and serfdom. Now there is employment. Next will be the need to survive. Next… I don't know, physical limitations?

This isn't correct. Look at the number of small business owners in the US. It's a minority, but it's not some tiny elite like your comment leads people to believe.

It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business. If they provide a good the population likes at a reasonable price, they will succeed.

A link with the actual numbers would have helped.

> It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business.

Generally in the order of 50.000€ for your average starting business —even a simple bakery. Not the end of the world for a Bay Area software engineer. A moonshot for minimum wage workers.

Sure, you could ask for a loan. But if you're poor, you will likely not get it.

You used to have to hunt to survive. In general you (for like a quadrillion values of "you") have to do something to survive and thrive, and it generally involves depredation or parasitism...comensalism...etc.

Especially because employees have to work for someone who tells them what to do.