One cultural paradigm that extractors love is the taboo against talking with fellow employees about how much we get paid. I took a job once at a little more than the wage at my previous one. After a couple months, I found out everyone else on the same contract was paid 30% more, even though I was constantly challenged to perform but they had time-filling easy jobs. It was a government contract, so an upgrade had to wait until the next year, and it only came to my attention when I saw the work invoice accidentally. The exploitation is boosted when the owner class owns the lawyers and keeps wages secret.

As self-employed persons, it is nearly impossible to find a sweet spot between surviving, thriving and price gouging when the personality flip side is between imposter syndrome, debts, fatigue and aggressive competitive risk-taking. The latter favors those who have security or inheritance(youth is a form of security). Not knowing one's market value destroys our risk vs reward perception. Aggressive people learn early that risk taking and speed have more value than decency and useful work. The younger they start, the more times they can jump with little to lose. Competition is always about climbing up the pile of bodies. Exploiters keep the bodies from knowing where they are in the pile.