If I'm not allowed to spend my time working, it is not free time!
In a free society, work hours is an agreement between consenting adults. If you want to work part time, that option is widely available. But why force your preferences on the rest of us?
Agreements made when the power balance is unequal are by nature not going to be fair. It is to the advantage of the one with more power to use it to get their way. For example, Silicon Valley had a famous issue of anti-poaching agreements to force wages of engineers down. Legally forcing these things is an attempt to deal with power imbalance to the benefit of the most people.
People in the experiment the gp post describes do not want to work 'part time', they want to work 'full time' for 30 hours a week. The fact that you describe that as 'part time' undermines your argument that work time is simply an agreement between adults (as opposed to a schelling point dictated by law, tradition, and convenience).
People don't freely choose to work in a vacuum - they are coerced into it (through property law). I work to avoid homelessness and starvation, and so do most people.
If I stop working, eventually somebody will turn up at my door and throw me out onto the street.
No, but good luck trying to burn some piece of forest to get your piece of earth for your farm. You cannot justify the existing order with basic human needs. In some places you even have to pay for access to water.
"biological need" is a strange way to describe being violently attacked in your place of shelter for working insufficient hours for the capitalist class
Nope. It is a right, not an obligation. Your employer can't stop you if your want to test your wings. Though this has actually been around in some form for quite a few years.
I started my first company in 2001 by getting 6 months off from Ericsson. I wanted to during that time, Ericsson would have to allow me to come back and continue as an employee. Quit permamently after three months. Now I'm happily running my fifth startup.
I left formally after three because the new business was taking off that I couldn't see any reason to go back. Better to have 100% focus on the new business.
I realize the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937 is considered anathema among libertarians and many owners of enterprises who employ low-wage workers, but I don't think you'll find many takers among populace at large.
The "freedom" you are talking about is the freedom to take or leave work schedules we consider abusive today. If you want to go back to a world where employment means 12/7 or starve, you are free to campaign for the repeal all you like, though. Your senators' aides are standing by, call now. Meanwhile, I will be lobbying them to constrain your freedom a little more.
In a free society, work hours is an agreement between consenting adults. If you want to work part time, that option is widely available. But why force your preferences on the rest of us?