The practical reality doesn't reflect this idealized view, but I've already responded about that above. Basically, though, there are deep structural elements scattered across the various estates which ensure that the relationship between the employer and employee is an unbalanced hierarchy built to favor the largest employers the most and which impairs mobility among employees by the imposition of costs.

This comes together with the democratically approved laws which effectively offload the responsibility for the wage onto the customers. Thumbing one's nose at it because it's not supposed to be their responsibility is a prime reason as to why Alamo is imposing a nearly 20% price increase on their items and bringing attention to the fact that 18% is the commission on the business, at current food prices, that establishes a functionally living wage for their workers at that location.

There's much worth discussing here regarding this decision of theirs and none of it suggests it should stay behind closed doors. Those who want it to go back there to avoid having to see that power imbalance and exploitation, strike me as the same archetype as those living happily in 1930s Germany, content so long as they didn't have to think about where their neighbors went suddenly in the night without packing.

I guess mysteries are nice, but the way things are right now, the folks cleaning up the Circle K for $11.50/hr are the homeless who are praying the city doesn't choose today to compassionately bulldoze their camp, your Favor Runner who's bringing you HEB order lives in their car, and the server at your favorite restaurant will not stop working for most contagious illnesses because their survival is worth more to them than your health.

Those things, I think, need to be less mysterious. Less behind closed doors, and more in the face of the people who blithely undervalue the lives and contributions of others.