Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy.
Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time.
Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - Europeans extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing.
Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups.
So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo!
> On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1].
How much do you think wages are in Nigeria to the US? A quick googling gives approximately 3 cents to the dollar. That's a 33x difference. You would rather not improve the wages of someone making $0.03 / dollar. Because it _might_ hurt someone making $0.82 / dollar. Yeah equal pay for equal work is about protecting the relatively high US wages. And I don't think it's at all clear that exporting these jobs specifically hurts women workers and not male workers.
> Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time.
The average life expectancy in Nigeria is TWENTY FIVE years lower than in the US. Quadrupling the pay of someone in Nigeria has a far greater impact to their health than it does to someone in a first world country where there is significantly more access to medicine and other resources. If you are trying to help someone, wouldn't you want to focus on the population that is dying 25 years before everyone else?
> Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups.
How are Nigerians being exploited here? If it had been a local Nigerian company offering them a wage of $2 an hour (which is over their minimum wage) would it be exploitation? Or is it simply because the company operates multi-nationally does it become exploitative.
> Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness.
What is your proposed change here? The minimum wage where I am is $18.50 an hour. Therefore under equal-pay-for-equal-work, if a company based where I am living wants to offer a job outside my area must pay $18.50? Which means, the jobs would never get exported to Nigeria. Sure that is a win for people living in the US, but not for the people living in deep poverty on the other side of the world.
These are straw-man arguments [1]. Nice try. The original argument is equal-pay-for-equal-work and these are all arguments for why unequal-pay-for-equal-work is justified, or why much lower lifespans in Africa justify reducing the lifespans of Women in High COL locations, or that Nigerians being offered higher pay doesn't mean that they are being exploited, completely ignoring the fact of collective historical exploitation leading to the current impoverished Low COL conditions, making their current life "cheaper".
Is it really that hard to wrap one's head around the equal-pay-for-equal-work argument? Around basic fairness? Offer the same pay across the board for the same work - whether that worker is a Woman or a Nigerian. That's the basic exploitation at play here: the value of the work is $1 (for argument's sake), the US man gets $1, but the US Woman gets $0.82 and the Nigerian gets $0.03. On what basis? Being born a Woman. Or being born in Nigeria. It's not even based on skills, which is this whole different ball of wax. No, it's based on what 'your kind' make. Not what the work is worth, not on any kind of rational basis, simply based on what your kind make or what those around you make. That's deeply unfair. Offer them all $1.
Sure, now the counter argument can be, life is unfair, it is what it is. If the follow on to that is that the status quo is acceptable and that no change needs to be made, then that indicates a lack of empathy, or in the extreme, capitalistic psychopathy (which needs to be regulated, within reason, for an actual greater good). If there is empathy, which there presumably is - because I see an argument above to export jobs to reduce poverty, or to improve African lifespans - let's start by changing structural injustices. And using impoverished Nigerians to exploit US Women is not it. Pay them that da** $1 for $1 of work! Not try to get away with $1.85 for $3 of work.
You are arguing from an "fairness" standpoint but none of that matters if your proposed policy would the lives of people in poverty worse. That's where we differ. I think that if you enforce an equal-pay-for-equal-work law, you will see an increase in wages in the US and a decrease in wages in low-income countries. That is the opposite of the desired effect and a negative outcome.
> Offer them all $1.
Everyone regardless of where they are gets payed the same. Am I understanding this correctly?
So, like I said in my area the minimum wage is $18.50/hr. So a multi-national company that has people tagging data in my area would pay a minimum of $18.50/hr. And under your proposed equal-pay-for-equal-work, if that company were to hire people in Nigeria to tag data they would _have_ to pay $18.50/hr. Correct?
Would that company have an incentive to outsource work to Nigeria if they had to pay people the same $18.50/hr? This is a country ranked 154/180 on the corruption index. It is the 17th least peaceful country and has far worse infrastructure relative to the US. I think these companies would be significantly less motivated to outsource jobs Nigeria if they can hire people locally for the same price. Would you agree? If you think that companies would be more or equally likely to outsource jobs to Nigeria if they wages were $18.50/hr please elaborate.
Far fewer jobs being outsourced to Nigeria, means less job opportunities for Nigerians and worse economic outcomes. Right?
If requiring equal-pay-for-equal-work leads to worse economic outcomes for Nigerians then isn't it a bad policy?
Since you are so interested in reducing poverty and improving economic outcomes for those people abroad, what percentage of your first-world income/wealth are you sending to these impoverished regions? And for comparison, how does that amount compare to your donations to church and conservative causes?
Or am I confused and your concern only extends to reducing other people's (say for example less fortunate US women and unfortunate Nigerians) net income and definitely not your own income?
I donate 5% of my income to Malaria Consortium and Clean Air Task Force. It could be more, but it's significant for me. I would encourage you to look at givewell.org and donate to help people living in extreme poverty.
In that case, I apologize. I mistook genuine questions for obtuseness and the typical misdirectional hand-waving. With this new insight let me try again. You are right, I agree that as a policy equal-pay-for-equal work will indeed lead to a reduction in outsourcing. The solution to poverty in that case can be 2-fold (a) direct reparations, and (b) Marshall plans like for Germany and the world after WW2 [1].
It turns out that the Marshall plan was a large set of grants for billions of $ (big money in those days). There were some loans too with reasonable terms and reasonable payments, and because of natural inflation over time the payments became insignificant compared to the size of the German economy [2]. Maybe a modern day Marshall Plan with a mix of reasonable loans and grants is a good way to not shortchange either us Americans or the recipients.
Compare that with the outsourcing fiasco that has been Industry moving to China due to cheaper labor there. This did make the Chinese better off, and made the industrialists very very rich, but it gutted the American heartland and impoverished the people there, leading to the rise of Christian extremism and fascism in the US. We don't know yet if this was a fatal blow to the body politic and democracy worldwide, it's an ongoing crisis.
> Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country.
Well, that's exactly the point.
The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages.
I don't know what exactly "equal-pay-for-equal-work" stands for.
But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!"
Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good.
You want him to die.
>But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!"
>Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die.
Let's analyze your argument shall we, with some historical context - first let's make the man poor, force him to starve through colonial theft from his family, then refuse to pay him to right the historical theft (oh no, it would reduce our standard of living, we can't have that!), then oppress a local group (like women or minorities) and when they ask to be paid a fair amount (equal pay for equal work), tell them - do you want to take the rat from the starving man??? Funny how it's always one group of oppressed people that must make sacrifices for other groups of oppressed people, never people like kuboble or ninjagoo.... noooo our standard of living mustn't be affected, we can't have our taxes going up.
>Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die.
Did you offer to be that someone? Or is that all on me? You're happy to let the starving man go ahead and eat the rat as long as you don't have to do anything?
If you look at my other reply in this thread you'll realize that I actually lived being this poor person in poor country.
You might have your high morals and and what is morally rightest or who was at fault for me being born poor etc.
But knowing how it is at the bottom you have to realize that X offering me a better job does me a favor and anyone calling X to don't do that due to some moral concern over my well being is caring more about his ideals than about my actual wellbeing.
You can let them give me this job while trying to improve my position in other ways. It's not a dichotomy.
You were poor once, but you are not poor now. I also don't see you stepping up to be that someone that you asked me to be. And it's a bit rich, accusing me of "high morals" (clearly a pejorative in this context) while at the same time accusing me of forcing starving people to eat rats and accusing me of wanting poor people to die, and at the same time refusing to accept higher taxes on yourself to help those starving people avoid having to eat rats. Your arguments, Sir, are opportunistic, hypocritical and dishonest.
Why do I think so? Because here's what's really going on - there are two injustices here- the lack of equal-pay-for-equal-work, and starving poor people in poor countries. Paying a higher pittance to the poor people resolves the second injustice, which is beneficial to people like yourself while they are poor, and benefits people like yourself when you are rich.
The solution to both injustices which involves equal-pay, and reparations/grants through taxes, benefits people like yourself when you are poor, but 'hurts' people like yourself now when you are rich - that solution you don't like because then you actually have to contribute something from your "earnings".
Paraphrasing, you only care about fixing the injustice where the fix benefits you in all scenarios, and not at all about any other injustice, because that doesn't affect you. Based on that, I wonder if you actually care about fixing an injustice at all, or whether you only care about yourself, and all these arguments about fixing the poverty are a smokescreen to continue a current benefit (lower costs and taxes) for yourself. I am having a real challenge discerning the true motives here.
You really want to resolve injustice(s)? You can support both equal-pay and reparations/grants.
You only want to resolve one injustice (donor fatigue is a real thing)? Fine, support reparations/grants to help the starving poor people in poor countries. These funds can pay for public works or factories that will create jobs with beneficial ripple effects throughout their economies. Just like the Marshall Plan for western Europe after WW2.
You're building a strawman here. I don't try to fix the world. I'm trying hard to not be poor again myself, yes.
In this topic I'm just stating very narrow argument that 2$/hr is better than nothing. And a company who offers it here does more good than companies who don't offer those jobs and even more good than people trying to prevent it from doing so.
Most of your very long argument is judging me for things I haven't said, done or thought.
Just so we're clear - I'm not arguing that the Kenyans should not be offered the jobs, I'm arguing that they should have been paid at least $15/hr - that's what equal-pay-for-equal-work means. That they were paid only $2/hr is the exploitation.
Yes, my arguments are very direct and uncomfortable to hear, but if I may remind you, the judging started with your accusing me of hypocrisy, and of taking away rats from starving people, and of wanting poor people to die, when I neither said nor implied any such thing. You, Sir, even used "high morals" as a pejorative dog whistle against me. And now you want to go back to the very narrow argument? Don't dish it out if you can't handle the blowback.
Oh, don't get me wrong. Your statement in this case is hypocritical. And I stand by my argument and rat analogy.
It's just that I'm pointing out that I'm trying to discuss this particular event of offering 2$ jobs. Even if I use a rat as an analogy we are discussing this topic.
You're attacking my whole person and belief system strawmanning it by talking about e.g. my opinion on taxes or other stuff.
> I'm arguing that they should have been paid at least $15/hr -
I'm arguing that
1) you are acting against Kenyan interests if you prefer status quo over this 2$ opportunity.
2) And you think you do morally right thing by doing so.
Which of those two statements are incorrect? And please focus your answer without using angry aggressive language or I will not humor you with more replies.
Here is a timeline:
- there are poor people with no opportunities
- you don't even know our think about it
- someone offered them 2$
- you say, No! They should be paid 15$
- hypothetical: the company decides to comply with your argument and stops offering 2$ jobs
In this htpothetical case:
- have you done favor to the Kenyans?
Yes, because they would be getting $15 jobs instead of $2 jobs. I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand, that the Kenyans getting $15 is better than them getting $2. You are acting against the Kenyans' interest if you want them to get only $2 instead of the $15 that they deserve.
You might have your realpolitik moralizing that poor people should accept the $2 because they are starving but they should be getting the $15 that is rightfully theirs, and that additional $13 will help many more starving people than $2 will because the additional $13 will create more opportunities in their economy.
> Yes, because they would be getting $15 jobs instead of $2 jobs
No. They would get nothing instead.
I totally agree that 15$ would be likely better for them. But the 15$ isn't rightfully theirs. With this opportunity gone they will go back to their <1$/hr but without you thinking about them being exploited.
The $15 is external too. OpenAI should have paid $15/hr for the work, not exploited them by paying only $2/hr.
Why is it exploitative? Because the money (OpenAI, "Capital") can move across borders easily to get cheaper costs, but labor cannot move across borders easily to get higher salaries, so labor is forced to accept a lower wage. If that asymmetry was not there and both labor and capital had similar freedom AND ease of movement, then it would not have been exploitative.
And I believe this is why the EU enshrines freedom-of-movement as one of its basic principles along with a common market. Otherwise capital in a common market would be easily able to move and exploit labor in various regions, because labor wouldn't have been able to move. But the freedom-of-movement right reduces that asymmetry.
It doesn't completely eliminate the asymmetry because it's still hard to move to a different language and community, but at least there's no artificial barrier like a border, and money also has the same barriers around language and not being trusted automatically in a different community.
> If they have to pay 15$ they will hire better educated, closer geographically and culturally workers.
1. For a minimum wage temporary job that doesn't need better educated, geographically or culturally closer workers? And for which they've already shown that they are willing to hire people outside North America?
2. When there is a large shortage of workers in their local continent? [1]
> the ideological manifest that is only tangentially related to the topic and I don't want to discuss it here for several reasons.
Core EU regulations against the exploitation of workers and the reasons behind them are an "ideological manifest" [sic] ?
> Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
That attitude is the reason bad people get away with exploiting labor, and why starving people exist.
I think I'm finished with this conversation. I don't believe you are having this discussion in good faith. Good luck for your future.
The reality being that labor in place A is different than in place B for many reasons unrelated to exploitation. 2$ in Kenya is terrible exploitation?? How about 4$ in EU?
You name EU as a great example.
Do you realize there are millions of legally employed EU citizens working for 4$/hr? And more working for less.
just Google minimum salary in Poland or Romania and Google how many people make that minimum.
Why a cleaning lady in Munich makes 5 times as much as cleaning lady in rural Poland?
If you don't understand why then why do you think you understand Kenyan situation?
It's not; the standard is what is that job worth to the company? If exploitable low-cost Kenyans were not available, what would these companies pay? I can't tell you that, but I can tell you it is not $2/hr.
Past the limit to edit or delete, so a clarification is in order: "Europeans" is too generic and collectivizes blame, which is not my intent and would be unfair. Please read this as edited below. Lesson learned!
-+-+-+
Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy.
Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time.
Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - European colonialists extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing.
Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those European colonialists and colonial companies play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups.
So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo!
Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time.
Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - Europeans extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing.
Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups.
So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo!
1. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...