It depends on one's definition of "forced". Yes, we are all free to quit working. But If forced means to continue employment, out of necessity to maintain food clothing shelter, then yes people are technically "forced" to work. Quasi-voluntary slavery, wage slavery.
It's a Gordian Knot and when one realizes the solution is to leave the knot behind, in come the tricksters (mind fare) and/or enforcers (warfare) to by hook or crook drive you back into the knot. You'll never be allowed to untie it much less cut it as Alexander did. Besides, Alexander had his own knots to which he bound with, so much for heroes.
I've always considered the scene itself in Apocalypse Now where Chef after confronting the tiger in the jungle is screaming "Never get out of the boat" as allegory. In a following scene, Willard uses the words as metaphor and the warning, "unless you were going all the way!"
But like Col. Kurtz, would they send in the Willard's if we dare to "go all the way?" Even Willard understood the insanity that sent him, the same that created the insanity ahead of him and yet what did he choose to do in the end? Either direction was insane. Move beyond fear and the tiger may indeed be the more logical choice here.
What's the lesson of Ishmael? Maybe the current choices aren't so free after all if the goal is to never leave the knot in the first place or never get off the boat. The real trap is thinking we can control and fashion the knot to begin with.
To quote Dr. Powell, "what have I taken from you?" Leaving the knot or the boat behind answers that question for the Dr. Caulder's of the world and thus why leaving the knot or the boat can't be allowed too begin with.
