[ultrarunner]

I think this greatly oversimplifies the situation. If you find that people love your apples and are buying them too quickly, you might want to tell a friend you'll that if they'll help you sell your apples you'll give them some of the money. You've now incurred numerous tax obligations, requiring an EIN, PRWORA reporting, worker's compensation, citizenship requirements, required benefits, time tracking for overtime compliance (depending on FLSA designation), insurance obligations, and probably several other steps I'm missing (occupational licensing is a big one; let's hope your apples aren't really hair cuts).

Do all these requirements protect people from their employers? Well… maybe kind of. But no, in most circumstances you can't simply start interacting with other people without a lot of red tape.