What about a third competing employer that then offers him 14%? And then the next one 16%? Because that's how it works when you have a marketable skill. You negotiate and compare different offers.

Right, I've heard the same explanation before but in different words. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm imagining that competition benefits employers a lot more than it benefits employees. The most common jobs aren't the most common because the barrier to entry is high; I think that most workers are pretty disposable and the labor market for them looks more like a race to the bottom than this rosy picture that I see free-marketeers painting.

They are, just like how employees depend on the business owner to provide them with a work site, things to do and a salary. I don't know where you were going with this.

Wasn't going anywhere with it. I asked about it because OP said the inverse and it seemed like a nothing statement.

Depends on the system. In a free market what is stopping someone from starting a new company and poaching all the top skilled people in that area because all other employers colluded to keep wages artifically low?

Why would anyone want to preserve the free market if they could rig the game in their favor and benefit from doing it? Out of the goodness of their hearts? I don't know if you're a libertarian but the idea of establishing and maintaining a pure free market seems dead on arrival to me. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it's so far removed from the reality of human nature it's practically incompatible with democracy.