I in fact do work 75% time for 75% salary, and somehow I managed to work it out as a mutually voluntary arrangement with my employer without using the coercive power of the State.
Good for you, but that requires an unusually enlightened employer. There were some people who managed to arrange safe jobs in the pre-OHSA days. Doesn't mean government intervention wasn't necessary.
The "government" doesn't exist independently of the people (even when it fails to represent them equally, either through unequal interest or unequal capacity to exert influence.) It is a mechanism through which the people "stand up for themselves to get" things that they want.
