That's like saying we don't need laws against physical punishment at workplace, after all, you simply have the freedom to not sign a contract with an employer who beats their workers with a stick, right? In fact why have any regulation around employment, you are free to pick where you work, do you not?

Why would you need laws against physical punishment at a workplace if you already have general-purpose laws against assault?

Freedom must be protected by good legislation, otherwise you end up with situations like wage slavery[0] or a food desert[1]. More freedom for companies could easily mean less freedom for the people. Although I concede the point that basically any country is in a better shape than NK in this regard.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

That's the opposite of protecting the freedom, as with such legislation you're limiting people's freedom to enter contracts of their own choosing.

Yeah that's true. Ideally I'd limit them to the least exploitative contracts possible. My thinking here is inspired by the free software movement, where the basic idea is that by having a specifically limiting license, they enable the greatest freedom for users. With the implied idea being that by having fewer restrictions, the system ends up being more restrictive, instead of less restrictive.

> You already have them: freedom not to sign a contract with such an employer.

When that employer is the only major one around, there is no such thing as a truly free choice.

There's a reason why meatpackers, Amazon or Walmart like to set up shop preferably in areas with high unemployment and why unionization attempts have been so fraught with failures - these companies exploit that the US social safety net is pretty much broken, and when your survival depends on that crap job you're not gonna complain too much.

A truly free labor market is one where everyone can choose to not work without losing their home as a result... only then, employers are forced to provide actually competitive working conditions (wages, workplace safety, equipment, break times).

You always have a choice to not engage in any commercial activity with other people and rely on your own devices.

You reasonably can't. Most people don't live in rural areas with enough farm land, and even if you have farm land that can grow enough (both in quantity and variety) crops to feed your family, which is a rarity in itself, you still need to deal with property taxes, expenses for maintaining your farm house and equipment, school expenses...

Face it, there is no way of living "off the grid" to a reasonable degree.