@strypey you're weirdly obsessed with this idea that if a person can choose poorly that makes them a slave. that isn't legally what makes people slaves. there is no statehood enforcing your assignment as a cotton picker.

you're apparently trying to construct a naive systems argument that a preference gradient to bad ends is the same as being literally, violently forced in to bad ends. even though that isn't what's happening and wagies tend to leave a lot of communal support off the table (a notorious character flaw of low status/class people; middle and upper class engage in a lot more reciprocity)