People running multiple 49-worker companies and opening satellite factories up in developing countries to avoid sharing profits with their workforce(s), having once-a-week meetings, and the like are struggling to break even?

If you would like to see the terminal state of a laissez-faire society, you can visit Hong Kong. More luxury cars on the road than anywhere else you'll ever see and plenty of the toothless, recyclables-scavenging senior citizens that I referenced earlier as well. Hundreds of thousands of people living in literal wire mesh cages because that's all that they can afford. A wealth gap that yawns like a chasm.

It's easy to advocate policies when you think that you'll never have to actually submit yourself to living in the society that those policies will ultimately create.

I think the argument here is not that it's a bad idea to create a safety net state. The argument is that as long as no law is broken, there is no such thing as "exploiting a loophole". Politicians should just learn to design better laws with less loopholes.

A: So you have three 49-person companies ... That's odd.

B: I employ no more than 49 people in each of my companies and start new companies as necessary to avoid sharing profits with my employees, having to deal with worker councils, and the like.

Playing corporate twister to evade the clear intent of laws sure seems like loophole exploitation to me.

In addition to working around the intent of laws that empower workers, organized groups of business owners are constantly trying to overturn those laws and, in the meantime, discourage enforcement.

I think the problem is with "intent of laws". Laws should minimize the degree to which intent plays a role, because intent is subjective, and therefore subject to very expensive and wasteful litigation.

The choice:

1) pay a couple lawyers $300k to minimize taxes

2) pay the government $1 million

Both are legal. Choose one.

If the laws are drawn up well, then option (1) is in no sense unethical.

You're making it sound like every decision people make is a financial one. That's factually untrue. Most people make decisions on the combined basis of self-interest and their personal views on morality. There are plenty of things people could do to ruin the lives of other people that aren't technically illegal, and ruining other people's lives can have financial gain, especially if those other people are business competitors. Yet we don't do those things. Why? Because self-interest isn't the sole driving force behind human behavior. It's one component. So while I happen to agree in this specific case that taking advantage of these kinds of legal loopholes for personal gain is to be expected and that the incentives need to be changed, it seems ridiculous to call people economically illiterate for understanding that behavior is not determined solely by self-interest.