Thank you for your exhaustive reply. I agree with you. I even thought about adding a paragraph about proposition 22.

Not everyone wants to be an independent subcontractor, but the bigger problem is that many do not have the skills to succeed. We do not teach it anymore. We train people to be cogs in the big machines.

There is nothing wrong with Friedman’s doctrine in a fair competing environment. The best ROI is when the best employees are retained and rewarded. I know a long litany of cases where someone left or was fired despite that the ROI would be maximized if they stayed. In some cases, the company owner fired or pushed out these employees.

In my business life, I apply the advice from the book “Up the Organization” by Robert Townsend, https://www.amazon.com/Up-Organization-Corporation-Stifling-Strangling/dp/0787987751.