I agree with you. I didn't know how to label it but feudalism sounds right. And I think that employees are greater at fault that employers. We must know when to say enough is enough.
In the second company, I had a couple of interns and I saw that the first week they where doing like 1 or 2 hours every day more than they should by contract (4 hours/day contract). I invited them both to a coffee outside the company and talk about them about doing more hours for free.
I still have contact with one of them and before this thing of Covid exploded, we talked and said that he had with his intern the same conversation I had with him about free hours.
I think that we need a strong class / work mentality, something lost in recent years, and that it comes from education.