>Your distinctions between [...] a contractor and an employee, are arbitrary legal definitions. They aren't economic ones.

I would argue that not only are these definitions not arbitrary but they meaningfully reflect the differences in the relationship across legal, ethical and economic spheres based on the length and type of the business relationship. For instance there are very meaningful legal, economic and ethical differences in responsibilities for the seller and the buyer when leasing a house (long term) vs booking of a hotel room (short term).

Isn't it tautological to claim that legal definitions are not arbitrary because of legal spheres? As to ethics, people often invent ethics that coincidentally benefit themselves. I'm talking about economic definitions.

I thought a bit more about your ethics argument.

If you agree to provide X labor for Y $, and later say you are "ethically" entitled to Y*2, how is that ethical? Ethically, you should stick to what you agreed upon.

The ethics are about how you construct laws around employment based on the sorts of employment relationships the society considers just or ethical. For instance in many states there are regulations around workplace safety. Given the power differential between the employer and employed and general human stupidity it is understood that there are certain limitations that must be placed on an employer to protect the employed. This similar to how society recognizes certain obvious limitations to transactions such as purchasing food, medicine or the construction of Opera houses.

How does that fit in with a worker not keeping his word about what he is to be paid?

Legal definitions drive economic reality, the results of which we are discussing in this thread. What is the tax rate other than an "arbitrary legal definition"?

I consider my education an investment, by your logic that makes it a business.

Your education most definitely is an investment, and various economists have indeed calculated the returns on such investments. The ROI certainly affects students' choice of major, as well as the decision to even go to college.

Economically speaking, making an investment and expecting a return on that investment, makes it a de facto business. This is even recognized by the courts, as they've decided that a partner who supports the other going through college, is entitled to a share of the others' earnings afterwards.

You keep ignoring the primary point in order to argue semantics. Laws impact the economics of businesses operation, no matter how you define a business. The data tells us that our laws are maximizing wages for a small subset of the population. Other countries are not seeing this same divergence.

The laws in those countries are more similar to a time in the US where income was much more evenly distributed than today’s US laws. For those of us interested in improving the wage distribution for those in the bottom half, this is worth discussing. If you don’t think there is a problem, no need to comment.

> Laws impact the economics of businesses operation

Absolutely, they do. That does not imply the laws are not arbitrary.

> If you don’t think there is a problem

The US remains a country where poor people want to immigrate to in enormous numbers. Maybe they see something you don't.

Also, the share of GDP spent by the government has gone up, up, up along with increasing inequality. Maybe you should look at that? Somebody is paying for that. I suspect it is a cause of increasing inequality. The spending is so enormous that to ignore it when discussing other economic trends seems unrealistic.