Reply #165: Yes, using that definition, the answer to your question is affirmative. The statement is...

[Selatius]

absurd. However, I was answering the second question, not the first, and then defining what is exploitation. More to the point, my definition is benign in that it attempts to describe the situation as it is. It does not attempt to assert if it is wrong or right. Whether or not one wants to call it exploitation or something else is not my concern, and I frankly find such exercises beside the point of the relationship between employers and employees in real life.

As I had said: "In a practical sense, it is fine to tolerate some level of exploitation of all workers as long as it does not pass a societal threshold (like child labor)."

Using my own definition, the only question worth answering is to what degree the exploitation. Workers in the past were unhappy in the context of the employee-employer relationship where the employee is paid a wage with all the surplus going to the employer, and everything else under the sun was largely left up to the owner to decide. People were not happy, and the result was things like the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Wagner Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, etc.

However, my post was not merely an exercise in definitions but also my own opinion on what should happen to workers who are not happy with the existing relationship between themselves and their employers, hence the mentioning of worker co-ops and trade unionism. Otherwise, I would've omitted those.