Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you do the job or live in the bay area, move and do something else if you don't like it. Trust me, the service worker who commutes on public transit for three hours a day and makes 1/5th a tech salary would love to swap spots with the tech "serfs" if they had a chance.
Okay, okay, let's discard the tangential argument, and stay on track shall we? We're talking principles here, and in principle we are all serfs. Some are much better compensated than others, but it doesn't change the underlying principle that spending your life consumed with working is asinine. And yes, life is much more comfortable for all serfs than in ages past. Even those in poverty often have big screen TVs, smart phones, Netflix, cable, game consoles, etc. Of course you have to do what you have to do to survive, but many of us are pissed that there's this arbitrary minimum of 40 hours. You can work a lot more than that, or make a lot more for your 40, but you're pretty much required to work at least 40. Ironically, for many service jobs it's actually hard to get full-time, which necessitates getting multiple part-time jobs (I've been there).
So yes, we are all serfs living in various degrees of comfort, but without that which we really crave: freedom. Sure, we could start a business, but most of the capital for doing so (past and present) is held by a very small number of people. Wealth perpetuates wealth, you've got to have money to make money. And you have to have a lot of money to earn your freedom.
No, we are not all serfs in principle, that argument is absolutely ridiculous. If you're so oppressed by your employer and committed to your own sense of victimhood, move into the woods, start homesteading, and "never work again." At that point you'd probably start calling nature despotic because the resources for you to survive in the woods don't just bring themselves to you. We are nothing like serfs. The thing that's holding you back is your expectations on quality of life, not the hours you work.
I mean, if you perceive "lack of free time with which to enjoy six figure salary" as economic exploitation, you have a pretty awesome life. The plight of the service worker and the plight of the software engineer aren't in the same galaxy, it's silly to group them together.
If the software engineer and the (American) service worker aren't in the same galaxy, then the service worker and the average global worker aren't in the same supercluster.
It's hardly 1/5th the tech salary. in the bay area, a BART worker can earn more than a Software engineer. Crate operators in new york earn 150K+, approaching 500K with overtime and benefits. And 120K isn't 4 times more than 30K, it's more like 2.5 times more when you factor in federal and CA taxes.
You might be 1% likely to die working software, but 20% more likely to lose 1 year of life due to inactivity. Different people might choose differently.
