> And that's fine too. The $12 profit is appropriate compensation for the person investing their capital into a capital starved sector of the economy. That compensation is incentive for others to invest in that sector.

This doesn't address the imbalance of power between the job seeker and the job provider. The job seeker is still at a disadvantage in the relationship. We're talking externalities, not the efficiency of supply and demand in a perfectly efficient market. I reject the notion that such a market exists.

> Any contract formed toward that end is an act toward a commission of a violation of someone's rights, and thus appropriately prohibited.

There are crimes that don't involve the violation of anyone's rights. Such contracts should still be invalid.

> If the less powerful party provides genuine consent to such a provision, then it's no one else's business. They agreed to those circumstances.

And are now unable to seek retribution for additional damages. You're arguing for the ability to sign legal protections away.

> Blanket judgements based on crude generalization are not directly addressing the issue of less resourced parties being at a disadvantage in legal battles.

Then provide a more direct solution.

> The issue is the legal disadvantage that less resourced parties face, which has to be addressed by more resources going towards legal representation for less resourced parties.

This is a start, but doesn't address the potential loss of livelyhood. It also doesn't address the potential for abuse at the contract negotiation process. If you're going to propose something like everyone getting free, government provided legal aid and some form of basic income, sure that might address all of my issues, but I have a feeling you wouldn't appreciate the taxes required to maintain such a system.

> I think anyone who's grown up with Western ideals would consider a third party interfering with a consensual interaction between two adults to be a totalitarian imposition that infantilizes and patronizes one or both counter-parties.

And yet I just gave a laundry list of counterexamples. Repeating utterly untrue statements doesn't lend them more legitimacy, it just makes you look out of touch. Which, to be clear, you are.

The US is, compared to most of the western world, far more anti-union, and anti-union ideology is more pervasive here than in most western nations. The right to act without government intervention to the extent you hold it is a fringe view, and is not something that most people support. And there's good reason for that:

> Just like slavery didn't violate anyone's rights 300 years?

> If the less powerful party provides genuine consent to such a provision, then it's no one else's business. They agreed to those circumstances.

Your proposed system would allow people to sign themselves into slavery. Stop trying to argue that slavery was some unjust evil, when you're simultaneously arguing for a system that would allow slavery. You can't have it both ways. Either slavery (or perhaps indentured servitude, since that was often consensual) didn't violate people's rights back in the day, or your proposed legal framework, which would allow people to sign themselves over as slaves, would! Which is it?