“Entitled” is a term used by elites to describe their lessers seeking to be above their rightful station. It's only ever used to punch down.
Other terms are used for the already powerful seeking to retain power including some that reflect the speaker's perception that it is unjust power involved, but “entitled” just isn't generally used in that direction.
With that in mind, I think the word may have a general-purpose use to describe people grabbing for things the speaker things they should not have.
Edit: This is the passage I was thinking of
"We rarely hear ... of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines ... that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate.... Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen, who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, combine, of their own accord, to raise the price of their labour.... But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters, upon these occasions, are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which ... generally end in nothing but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#link2H...
I have worked immediately next to a former South African military officer that now works as a senior software engineer at one of the most profitable companies in the world. This person has also seen and experienced unimaginable poverty first hand and its amazing how quickly these experiences bring people into a common understanding or appreciation.
I think the world entitled is completely appropriate in this context. To reaffirm that when employees walk out of Google for a protest it isn't the contractors or employees in the various support jobs who walk out. It is the entitled software engineers whose jobs are more mobile and face less income insecurity. Ask any Googler that walked out about that stratification.
As for management demanding more for less that is far more complex than it sounds. Does that imply pay reductions, improvements to efficiency, increased labor education, automation, something else, or a mix of various factors? Demanding more for less is perhaps one of the most solid ways a small shop can compete and take share from a giant titan.
It does depend why they are walking out. If a software engineer walks out in support of a cleaner then this is the opposite of entitled behaviour. Unfortunately e.g. the UK has made this illegal.
The problems happen when the government interferes in this process. For example, recently Washington State removed the exemption mentally disabled workers have from minimum wage laws. This was hailed as a victory for justice and fairness. The result is those workers can't get a job anymore.
http://histsociety.blogspot.com/2013/12/why-were-tariffs-pol...
Your claim that it must be perfect to be considered a free market is argumentative, not substantive.
What’s your definition of free market, then?
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/ha-joon-...
Protectionism isn't free market, either.
Market doesn't do any of these. Prices or wages do not set themselves "because market wills it". They are set because people will not accept a different outcome. If the employer is stubborn and there are few other options, nobody can really drive the wages up.
Taking anot market is like talking about evolution. It is not even a force, just a label for emergent behavior.
So the market is as free as people are, and the main damper are actually mobility and debt. People who cannot move are limited to local market which can have a very different equilibrium. People who are in debt are forced to take immediately available offers.
And finally, a typical person cannot outwit or outwait a corporation, much less government.
Information asymmetry and availability of various instruments of pressure is vastly different.
By the way, corporate law and setting wages is also use of force. You do not get to really negotiate any of it from equal position. Likewise you are very limited in negotiating credit. The difference is, law is at least slightly transparent and corporate law is not.
So, where it's this "free" in the market?
Not Force: do this or I won't give you something of mine
But they want to feel valued and do worthwhile things. By pricing them out of a job, they are denied that opportunity.
Meanwhile, are you expecting that the relatives (if they exist at all) shoulder all the burden and costs of caring themselves?
Only because someone does not live alone doesn't mean they don't have a cost of living. Indeed, a disabled person's cost of living is likely higher than an able-bodied one. Nevertheless, they should be expected to compensate this with a lower income than everyone else?
>Googlers just come off as entitled
then "entitled" does seem to be the same concept you refer to as "self-entitled" ...
I don't mind people proposing different uses of language, but the person you are responding to literally quoted "entitled" which in original context meant exactly what you refer to as "self-entitled"
so I really see no value in your "correction" or was that a "self-correction" ?
The former is a superset of the latter and the former term is often used for the latter, as here, where the specific subset being referenced is clear from context.
> so many people abuse the word.
Not particularly; natural language is just subject to more contextual nuance in meaning than most computer code.
Or only every time you hear about it?
Yes, employees are fighting for their wills. What's wrong with that? If you don't fight you don't get anything
Being employed by Google should not give you special political or social privilege. For someone to have the privilege of deciding what one of the worlds largest companies does, they should stump up the resources to become a shareholder.
You do not want corporations becoming political. Grocers should not choose their customers based on their political leanings. That would be bad. The principles are the same.