Re: hyperbole?
The length of the contract has nothing to do with whether the contractor is acting like an employee or not. Some 'permanent' workers stay in roles for less than a month; contractors can certainly work with a single client for many years without necessarily taking on the attributes of an employee.
Why is it seen as fine for two companies to have a successful multi-year partnership (or even unsuccessful when it comes to Capita, IBM, etc) but a contractor cannot?