I had a somewhat unique experience with work. I designed my job in the context of a university student services program that was partly funded by the federal goverment. It was part of the original OEO, Office of Economic Opportunity the core of president Johnson's war on poverty. Our division was charged with providing services in an academic sitting to support minority and otherwise disadvantage students. Our students were disabled and many drove wheelchairs. The service I put together fixed wheelchairs and got them running so students could carry on their academic work.
It was an ideal job, and it just happened the Office of Labor Relations was just upstairs from the shop, which made unionizing the shop an easy task. Our Director was for unionization well partly because he was in a wheelchair and wanted to make sure the best service was available.
Well, times changed, that director was considered a bad director by the administration and a clique of students who objected to his drinking and late hours at work. Pretty difficult to defend the guy. The new director was a straight arrow from the Midwest. Without going into detail about her faults, needless to say the wheelchair service shop days were numbered.
I left to seek employment elsewhere. The elsewhere were small businesses who sold power wheelchairs. All the profit was in sales. The repair and maintenance service cost the business money and the bosses did their best to keep wages as low as possible. The pay was approximately half what I was earning at the university. The move from public institution to private small business was devastating and there I languished for the next thirty years.
Once in the private sector, it was obvious why a public service was necessary. Repairs could drag on for weeks while the business made sure the work would be covered and paided by medical insurance. At the unversity service center, there was no wait. We didn't charge for the service, used re-cycled parts and or our own skills to effect repairs. Some new parts were necessary, but these were kept to a minimum.
While wages in the small business world did rise a little over the years they barely stayed even with the cost of living and rent. I remained in the same apartment and carried on the same life style as I had when I started. Luckly my ex-wife and her next husband both worked for city governments and earned together about triple my wages. This made it possible to send our son to college.
This tale is the mirror to your essay, starting at a meaningfull job with good wages and relaxed hours, I went into the cauldron of petty capitalist business owners who were, with one exception, vicious with their hours, wages, and conditions.
I don't know the statistics, but I'll assume that most of the US labor force do not work in small business, and thank god they don't. I have no idea where this and various homilies that attend small business as an ideal come from, except from the child like imaginations of economists who seem to think that capitalism is about butchers, bakers, and small shop owners.
CG