My view of their argument is, you can't have a 'fair' share while you have a boss that controls the productive forces, while you are forced to either work under their employ or starve. The arrangement itself is unfair. Though I definitely still would advocate for better worker's rights, wages and such right now.
Maybe I am misunderstand this whole conversation haha, but it seemed you thought it was a pessimistic view that the bosses won't pay a fair share, so I was replying that it seemed like a realistic view because in the position that bosses have, there is little incentive for a proper fair share. Though on reflection their comment was doomer-y regardless of the underlying intention.
I'm not quite sure what it means for someone not to act as forced.
I don't understand what you mean by this.
You seem to be negating the possibility of advancing beyond the status quo
Some things can be advanced beyond the status quo, for example degrees of exploitation. Some things can't be advance beyond the status quo, for example the existence of exploitation.
It's how your original comment and the clarification both read for me. Advancing past the status quo of oligarchs exploiting workers is what you have seemed to me as rejecting as impossible.
I don't take that as a doomer view at all. It's the view that we must eliminate bosses. Which, to me, is actually a far more positive view than the one that sees having bosses as inevitable, but simply wants slightly higher compensation from the slave masters.