In this capitalistic society, there are many true believers, that believe strongly that whatever the market will bear, should be the true price of just about any product being sold; and that further those that are the employers, should seldom be mandated by a government agency to be compelled thereby to pay some sort of living or even a minimum wage; but rather, the marketplace as whole, through some sort of self regulation as well as by competition, will come to an equilibrium of what the prevailing wages shall be.
It all sounds kind of nice in theory, but the reality of the situation is that not everything that is priced is actually priced fairly. That is to say, in a truly competitive marketplace in which literally everything conceivable that is for sale or rent, contains a multitude of competitors, and further no single competitor is dominant within a given industry, nor is there in existence some sort of consortium of similar vendors all working together as if one, directly or indirectly, then in all probability, the pricing of such goods will be fairly close to truly being what the market will bear. However, the nature of the capitalistic system, is for the big fish to eat the small fish, so as to sooner or later, thereby reduce the choices that consumers have to a few really gargantuan players, that thereby are able to control the pricing of their products for sale, by virtue of having economics of scale that cannot easily be matched by anyone else still left standing, and/or by receiving favoritism by government entities, including tax authorities, so that, these companies effectively are able to not only extract additional profits from consumers, but are essentially subsidized by governmental entities in doing so.
In regards to labor, only a fool believes that someone that is not part of a labor union, can ever really be in the position of having a true and equal seat at the table of negotiation in regards to their given salary, and therefore vast amounts of people, are placed into the unenviable position of having to accept the pay so being offered to them, because they actually don't have as much choice, as certain people believe. While it is true that they do have choices and that they do have options, these are, almost without exception, still leaving those individuals in a very vulnerable negotiating position.
So then, when it comes to products being sold, or the prevailing wages of those that make up the labor force -- to a very large extent, those that are in control of their marketplace, are able to charge a price that permits them to make a greater profit, because any company or group of companies that effectively are unassailable and monopolistic in structure, are in position to do just that. Further, without the power of unions, corporations are able to quite easily set labor conditions which are beneficial primarily for those corporations and at the expense of those that are in need of work.
It is one thing for a business to make a profit, it is an entirely different thing, when that profit, is the be-all and end-all of their existence. In the scheme of things, money and thereby profits should not be of more value, then the very humans that make up societies. This thus means that those that are clever enough, through whatever means, to make excessive profits and proceed to do so; have their values misaligned, for successful and sustainable societies are built upon human cooperation as opposed to human exploitation.