That 50% feels like a ball and chain if you cannot leave no matter where you go. Someone once said (paraphrasing here) make someone feel free and they’re the perfect prisoner.
Discussion
The agency is there though. Depends on how you act on it.
I have no source for this other than a tour guide I once had in New Orleans. He said that certain slave owners started allowing one day a week where the slaves went into town, and sold things they made at the market, and they were “allowed” to keep the income. And then some of these slaves “bought” themselves out of slavery and became successful businessmen.
The premise that you could buy your own freedom back is fucked up in and of itself. Whether true or not, it illustrates that there’s actions and options to free ourselves, even within that fucked up and unjust system. We have to opt out in anyway we can find.