I really want to expand on this topic but it's so big that I've never been motivated to start writing about it for a post. I have about 20 pages about the topic and have read a ton of research about the way people process the concept of consent, but I'm too lazy to digest it, sorry.
Instead, I will mention the first few points that first come to mind:
1. Wage labour is, in a sense, slavery
Most of it is explained in other places of the internet. The first answer here, in a Quora post, is pretty accurate and is a proper introduction to the topic. If you have the time to read it, it's really mind-changing when you think that working for a wage is a form of freedom.
When you are presented with the choice of working or starving, you are obviously going to choose to work. Then you have a small selection of possibilities from which you can choose, and you'll try to get the better one. Some will say that here you have a choice and in slavery you don't. Let me clarify that point too.
1.1 We're all free, at all points in time, unless we're completely incapacitated.
If a murderous kidnapper points a gun at your head and says "you have 3 seconds to tell me the password of the safe or I put a bullet in your brains and try to find it myself", you have the choice to die or to give them the code.
From this scene, we can establish that freely choosing something because we need to do it in order to survive is a choice made under duress.
Duress is usually concentrated into more tangible factors (like guns and threats), but it's the same thing.
1.2 Most of the time, when you work, you give away the fruits of your labour to a party in a way that does not benefit you.
You get money for your work and other benefits, such as insurance, food, sometimes a home, a car and a cell phone, together with other benefits, but day-to-day, work is dozens of weekly hours dedicated to a cause that is not particularly of benefit to you. If you're a construction worker, most of the time it's a building that is made for someone else. If you're a coder, most of the time it's for a party that makes something completely unrelated to you.
The same goes for most jobs. So unless you have your passion job and you're doing exactly what you set out to do, you're just a minimal help to society, like an ant in an anthill with 8 billion ants, and the little help you're providing is for another ant-tribe and all you get is enough to live and some vacations to kill off the stress you built when at work.
Note: We live in an era of generosity. I know many people who will be offended by what I said. Before giving an emotional response, please calm down and try to reason it out and use well-thought-out arguments. I'm not attacking jobs and I there are some jobs I'd like to have, like in a flower garden or a library.
I'd really like to expand but it's 2 am, I have to sleep and the topic is getting too long already. Maybe I'll post a few more titles about this.
The next topic I'll discuss if I come back to this is "2. Consent is often given before the terms are explained". And I'd also love to talk about the tragic existence of human trafficking and the growing similarities between it and other traditional, socially accepted jobs.
I have already talked about traditions and the way they limit our actions in a way we cannot overcome, but that was like 6 months ago and there must be 80 posts between now and then, so I can't find it.
Another topic I'd like to touch is the way society has increased needs and its members have the obligation to fulfill them, generating more and more working hours that need filling. But that's it for today. I hope you had a good reading!