They may tolerate (and even enjoy) your personal quirks and causes, but they are paying you to get things done that they don't have the time or skill to do themselves.
[Edit: Accidentally left ou a letter]
"Your labour and skills are not owed because they got lucky, they are owed because that is what you are exchanging with the owner to pay back your debt and earn your freedom"
You can use that logic to justify any oppression as long as you frame it in the language of property. It's not a valid argument - you don't have a choice but to exchange for money because you're in a position where you have no choice but to engage in oppressive social structures or face the violence of the state if you want to survive.
It's not a choice. You have a (metaphorical) pistol to your head to engage with the system as it is, die, or be killed.
Its really not so different from what your ancestors as serf or as debt slaves in antiquity might have lived.
As long as you live in a society where private property in absentia (ultimately based on theft, might I add) exists, the "choice" to exchange is colored by violence and is far from truly free.
In our economy, you can go work for anyone, or for yourself, or to some degree even not work at all and collect various social benefits.
Comparing programmers in 2021 to medieval serfs or ancient debt-slaves is literally absurd.
Programmers don't even really need any substantial capital to do their own thing. You can start a business with a laptop costing under $1,000.
The capital for a programmer's startup is not the laptop, its the intellectual property. That costs way more than a 1000$, typically the equivalent of at least a few tens of thousands of dollars in IP. But beyond that programmers are very far from the average.
The average person in the 2021 worldwide economy cannot live off social benefits on a whim.
So to compare these things is not equivalent.
It's not true that all white collar workers can switch jobs every few years. Some white collar workers in the US can, and even then with asterisks (non-competes, wage fixing, etc...)
The biggest reason why serfs would stop moving is to have children and a wife.
But yeah, I do agree that a direct comparison of programmers to serfs is a bit overboard. However, I am also seeing it in the sense that things don't really change much, even in a few centuries. The world is probably getting better for the people, but that doesn't mean that the same old tactics by the rich and powerful don't appear in new clothes.
This is ridiculous. In the US people constantly quit to start small businesses, work for other businesses, or just not work at all. There is zero threat of violence if you choose not to work.
Additionally, there is no concept of debt slavery at all outside of the military (which is probably the most successful socialist institution in the US). There is no forced labor to pay down debt.
> private property in absentia (ultimately based on theft, might I add)
Based on theft from who? If I grow some cucumbers in my garden, who have I stolen them from?
The cucumbers aren't stolen, but the land is. Ultimately almost all private property in land was dispossesed of common ownership or previous inhabitants. Not that you need to feel guilty about it, but you do need to pay your taxes.
SOME people. Median savings are ~$4k, realistically the average person needs access to credit (which they may not have), a strong support network, or some other way of surviving longer than 2 months without work.
And whether or not you do have the wealth or support network needed to choose not to work is determined mostly by who your parents are. This isn't a fair system.
There is no threat of violence if you choose not to work. The violence is if you try to subsist to your means without engaging with the economic system. So you are forced to engage in the economic system as it is.
As for debt slavery, I'm simply saying that the arguments used to justified exploitative labour relations are exactly the same as were used to justify debt slavery.
If you grow cucumbers in your garden, your first need to buy the land for the garden, which was ultimately stolen from someone else. But growing a cucumber in your garden is not private property in absentia, it's private property in present use.
Division of labor is the foundation of civilization, and how we have become so incredibly wealthy.
In a division of labor system, everyone needs to contribute as much as they benefit, on average, and the system of mostly voluntary trade is how we keep track of that. You trade your labor for money, that you in turn trade with others for the result of their labor.
Demanding to share the fruits of that system - which come from the work of countless other people - without being willing to contribute to it with your own work is both selfish and antisocial.
Taxation is stealing money from your citizens and we don’t describe it that way because it makes the term somewhat meaningless.
It's pretty clear that capital is running away with the game right now. Until that's rectified, your argument about exchanging labor and skills for money makes your parent's point rather than negating it.
That is, the exchange is only free among parties with relatively equal power (at least collectively). And, if it's not a free exchange then your point is moot.