> I like how we carve out acceptable targets for exploitation, and it's always young people.
Working is a two-way agreement, not exploitation. The job market "discriminates against" people with little or no experience. Gaining experience is valuable, that's why young people choose to take jobs with low monetary pay.
This would be true if the worker could fall back on a minimum basic income or some other humane way of surviving without the work. If the worker has only the choice between penury and working for the conditions demanded by the employer, then employment amounts to coercion.
I mean you could argue that literal slavery is a two wagy agreement because the slave always has the option of committing suicide. For most low income workers, employment can't be a market because they need it to survive and the companies have a major structural advantage.
> This would be true if the worker could fall back on a minimum basic income or some other humane way of surviving without the work.
We do, it's their family. Young people are (typically) still living at home, so most of their large expenses are already taken care of or greatly reduced.
There are exceptions, of course, but we can't fashion a society around exceptions.
> but we can't fashion a society around exceptions.
I genuinely don't see why not. And there are many people who are at or near poverty whose families are also at or near poverty. Or their families don't like them because they are gay or married someone of a different race or any number of things. I can sort of see this for young people, but lots of very poor people aren't young.
> The job market "discriminates against" people with little or no experience.
Just because a category X is being shafted in the market, does not mean that decision was made By the market.
I have personally witnessed a lot of discrimination ( Not neccesarily against me) - too young to promote, someone this young should not ne earning so much.
Or treating years of experience as if it was an objective performance metric, like tou can 9nly advance after X years.
What will you do with your $7 an hour toilet paper delivery experience ?
Of course it's exploitation, it's just that when it doesn't happen to you it's fine, and even more fine when you benefit from cheap deliveries and cheap uber rides
Ive seen non-western societies discriminate against old and young.
Western society discriminates against young people but protects the older generation.
Combined with growing bon-working population, this is resulting in political disaster.
Majority of working age population voted against Brexit, against current conservative government in Britain, against Trump presidency.