He wrote about ideals but was not an idealist nor ideologue, and in fact was very pragmatic in nature. That’s possibly his nature or from his work as a doctor. What also stems from that, and his religious outlook, is that his ideas were to serve humans better and promote their good and benefit.

Hence, I doubt he’d find a giant company using its negotiating power - and not forgetting its other legal shenanigans (most relevant in this case would be trying to prevent unions[1] forming) - that necessitates harm to an individual through a “consensual” contract to be part of his idea of what liberty looks like. Would you negotiate such a contract for yourself? I doubt it. Can an Uber driver negotiate it away? I doubt that even more. In fact, there is no negotiation, it’s a take it or leave it offer.

In short, he didn’t seem interested in allowing powerful interests to crush individual interests based on some ill-conceived notion that it’s a free market or that there is true freedom to consent in any meaningful way.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-lyft-and-others-launch-cam...

Fair contracts need negotiating power on both sides.

As a practical matter, that doesn't work when the power imbalance is so great that one side doesn't have a realistic way to negotiate the contract.

I.e. if the best job that someone can negotiate is one where they are being exploited or abused, then that doesn't make the exploitation/abuse any more just.

The trouble is that most people will become homeless if they don't get a job. As long as there is a steady rate of unemployment, there are people that can't meaningfully decline whatever conditions are in their employment contract.

And that's what this pretty good system doesn't account for: the inherent coercion of a fundamentally unjust system