This is a common kind of belief among rational people about how the world should work, based on a casual reading of early law. In general they fail to take into account the fact that there has been decades+ of many smart and awful people chipping away at these laws with exceptions and loopholes until they effectively apply nowhere anymore. For instance, the idea of "exempt" employees was originally only for executive-level people, but now just applies to everyone with an office job. The law is what the modern courts say it is, not what we wanted it to be 100 years ago.