In any case where a more awful threat can be imagined, should we claim that the lesser threat doesn't constitute real coercion?

That's just absurd.  You can try to compare economic pressure vs. threats of physical attack as much as you'd like, but the threat of being attacked is not comparable to choosing between a shitty job and welfare.  Should we prosecute Wal-Mart for refusing to pay a higher wage when employees have few, if any, other job choices?  I don't think so.  But if Wal-Mart executives hired thugs to force you to agree to take a position at the store, the executives would, without question, be prosecuted.  It's not a reasonable comparison.

The situation is, in no way, like that of the hereditary landowners and peasants, either.  You, unfortunately, seem to be looking at Wal-Mart as a Marxian fantasy of the poor being somehow enslaved by the wealthy because of capitalism -- as though the entire system were simply based on a game for the "elites," in which the rest of society goes nowhere.  This is simply foolish.

There are rarely, if ever, "equal" choices.  The choice is still a free one, and it is this sort of choice that helps to determine the wage level.

The wealthy only have the power to "set the terms" because of the surplus of labor, just as unions have, in the past, had the power to threaten companies like GM and Ford with walkouts.  Is this not, also, coercion?  When demand for labor contracts, as it does when the plants move out of town, the wage falls and fewer people are hired.  What you're seeing is what any basic model will predict.  It's not a matter of advocating social Darwinism, which I do not.  (Accuse me of it all you like.  I feel no obligation to defend myself against false accusations.)  At the international level, the addition of over two billion people to the labor market -- and that's only in China and India -- represents a massive expansion in labor supply and a new, lower market wage in some sectors, like manufacturing.  So, to answer a separate comment down the thread, it is not necessary to connect economic thought with ideology.  There is some (admittedly far-from-perfect) science to the subject.

You have engaged in circumstantial ad hominem.  You're essentially saying, "Drew doesn't understand what is happening to the lives of working Americans, because he's a member of the elite!"  Well, I've got news for you: I'm willing to bet that you earn at least two or three times more than I have ever earned.  I've worked for several years in retail, doing heavy lifting and stocking, and often for twelve and (on a few occasions) twenty-four hours at a time.

And at wages lower than those offered at Wal-Mart, with no benefits.  Now I don't claim to have endured a difficult life thus far.  In fact, I won't hesitate to admit that I've had it pretty easy.  But don't attempt to cast aside my claims based solely on what you think my background includes, because you don't know my background.

That's how people debate when they have nothing constructive to say in response to an opponent's point: They abandon serious thought and engage in plays to emotion, hoping their opponents will be too gutless to fire back with opinions that are likely to be unpopular.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.