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.
Just so I don't misunderstand, are you suggesting that equal-pay-for-equal-work is about protecting high wages?