I suppose this is all relative. Paying people a paltry wage, cutting their hours so they can't get employer-sponsored healthcare, routinely committing wage theft, forcing minors to be use unsafe equipment, requiring doctor notes for time off from work, denying PTO requests or shifting PTO so it can't be accrued or paid out are all pretty common with some major US corporations. And on top of that they took advantage of raising inflation to jack up prices or reduce product quantities so they could maximize profit.

So, yeah, Americans aren't working 16 hour shifts in mines anymore and child labor laws are largely in effect. But, I also wouldn't say most people are treated "quite well." That's not the media force-feeding me stuff. That's first-hand experience and watching what friends and family are going through right now.

Look at how people are treated in places without decent labor laws or other protections. There are hundreds of millions of people right now toiling away in miserable and dangerous conditions. Middle class workers in the US and Europe are the exception, not the norm.

Google "wage theft US" ...

I think some people treat people well, but I've met too many small business owners who bristle at paying minimum wage.

How much power do such people have? (Clearly not zero, but ...)

Enough to keep the minimum wage from growing logically or justly

Big businesses, too.

For sure! But there are sooooo many people who think that the majority of small business owners are good people who take care of their employees like they're family.

You've never heard of sweatshops or labor trafficking?

Walk into any office in the United States and you'll find this. There's even a phenomenon associated with it that has a name: The Peter Principle.

Within any organization, you will have the sociopaths who want the glitz and title and power but have no respect for those they'll have to knock down to get there. That is what we're talking about.

The Peter Principle is about being incompetent, not sociopathic.

I think maybe you are confusing Gervais with Peter.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

> on average, "as poorly as they can get away with" actually does mean that they treat people quite well.

This is a very important point and the strength of capitalism. Even a self asshole like Elon Musk is incentivized to provide useful goods and services and create jobs that raise people's standard of living.

I mean, Musk is currently being sued by a bunch of his old employees for not paying them properly, so not sure if he’s the best example here. He also fired like 80% of his workforce at twitter/X so not sure how incentivized he actually is to “create jobs.” And arguably the changes he has made has made his product worse in the process.