5 ms·

Suppose we lived in an America in which if a black person wanted to work in the tech industry they had to get a special license from the federal government call

by an_cap 9y ago

Suppose we lived in an America in which if a black person wanted to work in the tech industry they had to get a special license from the federal government called the H-1Black license. Nobody here on HN would then be discussing if companies were abusing the H-1Black system or whether H-1Black workers were being paid less than the going market rate. A minimally decent person would notice that the obviously correct thing to do would be to remove the requirement that blacks get an H-1Black license before being allowed to work. The ethical intuition that leads to this conclusion, I think, is that one shouldn't be discriminated against based on one's circumstances at birth. Everybody (at least on HN) seems to agree that if an employer is willing to hire me, third parties (i.e. other people who also wanted the same job) shouldn't be allowed to prevent the employer from hiring me just because I was born the wrong race or the wrong gender. But people seem to think that if I were born on the wrong side of the border then its totally fine for third parties to demand preferential treatment. Can someone explain the logic to me? Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of race or gender but okay to discriminate on the basis of citizenship/country of birth? Would it be okay if NYC started requiring people outside New York to obtain a highly scarce license to be able to work in NYC? Could whites start requiring non-whites to obtain a license?

ikeyany 9y ago
Are you seriously asking why it's ethical to encourage American companies to hire Americans?
- cscurmudgeon 9y ago
  Do American companies sell only in America? India had a "Be Indian Buy Indian" policy for decades. Look how it turned out.
  - ikeyany 9y ago
    Within reasonable limits. Being pro American doesn't mean being anti everyone else.
- an_cap 9y ago
  Yes. And I am looking for an answer that couldn't then be used to argue that it's also ethical to encourage White companies to hire Whites. And I'm not even asking that you don't "encourage" American companies to hire Americans. I'm simply asking that you don't ban (or make it extremely difficult) American companies who do want to hire non-Americans from doing so.
  - hudibras 9y ago
    I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you don't understand the concept of incorporation. In exchange for certain benefits bestowed by the government (limited liability, corporate tax rates, implied protection of physical assets by police, firefighters, armed forces, etc.), a company must follow some policies and laws, one of which could certainly be "hire Americans." As to your "White company" question, I'm just going to guess that you haven't heard of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...
  - ikeyany 9y ago
    Creating a business in America and therefore being a part of the American economy means prioritizing America in your business interests. If you are against that (e.g. willing to undercut American wages by hiring cheaper foreigners), then you should be penalized. If businesses were free to reap America's rewards without contributing to America's "costs", then America's economy would (continue to) crumble as businesses (continue to) exploit that loophole. Think of it as a "If you want to use America's resources to thrive, then you should contribute to America's economy" tax. God is watching--do you honestly see why that policy exists? Or can you still not fathom why the policy is a good idea? Your "white" counterexample is non-nonsensical, primarily because of the Equal Protection clause of the constitution--it has always been illegal/unethical to make a racial distinction...surely this is something you've known since high school gov.
    - an_cap 9y ago
      You're completely ignoring the substance of my question. Of course I understand that the US constitution doesn't allow racial discrimination. Surely its the case that racial discrimination is inherently bad and THEREFORE the US constitution prohibits it. Do you really want to hold the position that racial discrimination is bad BECAUSE the US constitution prohibits it? You seem to ascribe very special moral rights to this particular association of people that we call democratic states. Why is the USG allowed to ban foreigners from coming to the US if they undercut American wages? Is New York State allowed to ban people from NJ from working in NYC by a majority vote (or a super-majority vote)? Again, I'm not asking whether the US constitution allows this - I know that it doesn't. The question is regarding ethics not law.
SilasX 9y ago
Right, if you assume away the legitimacy of national borders and nations' right to determine admittance and membership, than any immigration restriction whatsoever looks pretty atrocious (including H1Bs). FWIW, the same assumption would eliminate your ability to object when a foreign army wants to peacefully enter on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And if you assume away the legitimacy of property rights, you look pretty atrocious turning away the homeless from your property. I don't think it's hard to see why national and property borders might be not objectionable, but blanket racial job restrictions would be.
- an_cap 9y ago
  I don't give away my right to object when a black army moves into my neighborhood on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And yet I do demand strong evidence that this is a likely scenario before essentially banning black people from my neighborhood. The correct analogy is not that you're being forced to accept a homeless person into your property. Its that if I want to accept a homeless person into my property, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from doing so. Unless you make a convincing case that they're going to invade you. Which I don't think you have.
  - Banthum 9y ago
    Other people you live with don't want to accept a homeless person into the home. And, you are part of a social contract between these other people you live with (e.g. your countrymen) where you can't just override them. If you had your own country where nobody else lived, where you had no social contract with anyone, it would be fine for you to let anyone in (of course, you wouldn't have a country for long).
    - an_cap 9y ago
      Other white people in my neighborhood don't want to accept a black person into the neighborhood. And, I am part of a social contract between these other people I live with (e.g. by fellow neighbors) where I can't just override them. If you respond by saying that the social contract of the country (which bans discrimination based on race) supercedes the social contract of my neighborhood then I'll say that the social contract of the world supercedes even that.
ageek123 9y ago
It's actually not legal for a company to discriminate based on citizenship/country of birth: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/nationalorigin.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/nationalorigin.cfm However, the US government can decide who is eligible to work in the country, just like it can decide who is eligible for legal residence, citizenship, etc.
TheBiv 9y ago
(I'm not arguing for or against, because your question is to explain the logic to you) I believe the logic comes down to the highest constitution you bind yourself to. By birth we are bound to our country of birth's constitution and once we become an adult we have the ability to renounce that constitution and apply to be bound by another countries constitution.
qaq 9y ago
? Needing a work visa is fairly universal thing what does it have to do with discrimination? If US citizen wants to work in EU, Canada, India or whatever other country they too need a work visa.
aaronblohowiak 9y ago
People expect their government to protect them from people of other nations in matters of physical and economic security. h1-B workers at Tata etc drive down wages. Globally, labor isn't scarce. If there were a true global labor pool, wages in USA would be further depressed. People have no intrinsic right to immigrate into the country of their choice (they do have a right to leave their country if another will take them, however..)
- an_cap 9y ago
  Whites expect other whites to protect them from people of other colors in matters of physical and economic security. H-1Black workers drive down white wages. Blacks have no intrinsic right to move into the white neighborhood of their choice (they do have the right to leave their ghetto if another will take them, however..)
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  This is funny/ridiculous, after all US and the West was busy shoving Globalization down everyone else's throats just few decades ago and now every wants to reverse Globalization. This should be a case study, which I know won't ever happen!
  - arjie 9y ago
    It's not going to get a case study because it's been extensively studied already. An easy to understand introduction is to look at the Stolper Samuelson theorem. This isn't a recent development. It precedes the existence of the United States as a nation. Textiles in the U.K., mill workers. It's been done before. Protectionism is often just a straight subsidy from whichever society is being protectionist to the members which are being protected. Or, as people on the Internet are prone to saying: if you can't compete, legislate. If you're somehow losing your job to Infosys, you can't be that good. Real loss for society occurs when a good candidate can't get into the US because Wipro took all the visas.
    - thewhitetulip 9y ago
aangjie 9y ago
I'll take the bait.. > Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of race or gender but okay to discriminate on the basis of citizenship/country of birth? Because, a country and it's city, and infrastructure have been built by money spent on by a bunch of people who paid taxes. For a another country, person to come in enjoy the infrastructure, make money and compete with the ones who paid for the infrastructure is unfair by design. Disclaimer: I'm an Indian working in India.
- an_cap 9y ago
  I am somewhat sympathetic to this argument but only with the following revisions. An adult foreigner coming to the US has, if anything, better fiscal implications for the US than the children of American citizens since children need are very likely a net fiscal negative for say the first 18 years of their lives. New Americans, whether they are formed by birth, or by immigration enjoy the existing infrastructure without having paid for it. If you say that American parents have already paid taxes on behalf of their children then I'll say that American employers have already paid taxes on behalf of their foreign employees. I'm fine with having a consistent 'entry fee' for all new Americans as long as said entry fee applies uniformly to both children of Americans and foreigners who wish to immigrate.
Banthum 9y ago
I'll begin with a simple analogy. Your house is for your family, including children who have never done anything to earn it. Why can't other people come in, eat your food, watch your TV, and sleep in your bed? Why should other people, or other children, not have the same rights to your home as your children do, just because of the circumstances of their birth? II So, you can see that "one shouldn't be discriminated against based on one's circumstances at birth" is not actually a universal principle at all. It's a general goal, but must be tempered by other concerns. In this it's like honesty - as a general goal, we should try to be honest. But being 100% honest every moment would be foolish and harmful. Morality is more complex than applying simplistic rules without exception. III People have communities which they care about more than other, more distant communities. Your family, then your neighborhood, your city, your province/state, your country, humanity, all of life. You can mix in your tribe (if you have one), language group, class, race, sports team fans, or whatever else you like in there. The point is that an eternal part of human life, since our earliest beginnings, has been to form concentric in-groups with loyalty and concern falling off as you move away from the self. Why? Since other people are loyal to you the same way, that creates the possibility of a mutual structure - a tight family with strong loyalty in both directions, then a country of people with good mutual loyalty, then a world of humans who care about each other somewhat. We all benefit from this, and it's also sustainable. If you want to be suicidally moral, you can start treating every human as well as you treat yourself. In some sense, I'd applaud you. But what you're doing won't last and won't have a long-term impact on humanity. You'll rapidly exhaust yourself as you give away your resources while nobody gives anything to you. In the end, your behavior will be wiped out by unstoppable Darwinian forces. If you want to be sustainably moral, you need to set up loyalty and care that runs reasonably symmetrically across relations, so it can be maintained that way. Because morality is not absolutes. It is a negotiation between Darwinian principles and our desire to be more than apes, murdering and raping and pumping out as many kids as we can. You cannot ignore either side of this fundamental tension.
- an_cap 9y ago
  I find very little to disagree with in what you say. All I ask for is a presumption in favor of allowing a willing foreigner to work for a willing employer. And I think that small harms like reduction in wages from say 100k/year to 60k/year is not sufficient to override that presumption especially since for the foreigner, the opportunity to work in the US often translates to a 5-fold increase in their income.
lazypenguin 9y ago
Jeeze, way to compare apples to oranges. Ultimately this is not a debate of discrimination (which you seem to be trying to shoe-horn into the conversation), it's a debate about exploitation. The argument is about the abuse of a well-intentioned program to exploit workers in other nations that are not protected by systems in the US and are thus, cheaper. I would argue that most people consider H1B-abuse and immigration reform distinct, yet related, discussions. It is possible to oppose the H1B program yet support immigration reform.
taway_1212 9y ago
There's plenty of similar discrimination going on already in trades in professions. Essentially, doctors or unionized skilled workers prefer to give openings in their profession to their kin. With "discrimination" based on nationality it's the same thing, except that you're giving preferential treatment to your fellow Americans. It's not hard to see why given that, as an American, you and most/all of people you care about (family, friends) are likely Americans as well. It's just taking care of people who are important in your life.

by an_cap 9y ago

ikeyany 9y ago

Are you seriously asking why it's ethical to encourage American companies to hire Americans?

cscurmudgeon 9y ago
Do American companies sell only in America? India had a "Be Indian Buy Indian" policy for decades. Look how it turned out.
- ikeyany 9y ago
  Within reasonable limits. Being pro American doesn't mean being anti everyone else.
an_cap 9y ago
Yes. And I am looking for an answer that couldn't then be used to argue that it's also ethical to encourage White companies to hire Whites. And I'm not even asking that you don't "encourage" American companies to hire Americans. I'm simply asking that you don't ban (or make it extremely difficult) American companies who do want to hire non-Americans from doing so.
- hudibras 9y ago
  I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you don't understand the concept of incorporation. In exchange for certain benefits bestowed by the government (limited liability, corporate tax rates, implied protection of physical assets by police, firefighters, armed forces, etc.), a company must follow some policies and laws, one of which could certainly be "hire Americans." As to your "White company" question, I'm just going to guess that you haven't heard of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...
- ikeyany 9y ago
  Creating a business in America and therefore being a part of the American economy means prioritizing America in your business interests. If you are against that (e.g. willing to undercut American wages by hiring cheaper foreigners), then you should be penalized. If businesses were free to reap America's rewards without contributing to America's "costs", then America's economy would (continue to) crumble as businesses (continue to) exploit that loophole. Think of it as a "If you want to use America's resources to thrive, then you should contribute to America's economy" tax. God is watching--do you honestly see why that policy exists? Or can you still not fathom why the policy is a good idea? Your "white" counterexample is non-nonsensical, primarily because of the Equal Protection clause of the constitution--it has always been illegal/unethical to make a racial distinction...surely this is something you've known since high school gov.
  - an_cap 9y ago
    You're completely ignoring the substance of my question. Of course I understand that the US constitution doesn't allow racial discrimination. Surely its the case that racial discrimination is inherently bad and THEREFORE the US constitution prohibits it. Do you really want to hold the position that racial discrimination is bad BECAUSE the US constitution prohibits it? You seem to ascribe very special moral rights to this particular association of people that we call democratic states. Why is the USG allowed to ban foreigners from coming to the US if they undercut American wages? Is New York State allowed to ban people from NJ from working in NYC by a majority vote (or a super-majority vote)? Again, I'm not asking whether the US constitution allows this - I know that it doesn't. The question is regarding ethics not law.

SilasX 9y ago

Right, if you assume away the legitimacy of national borders and nations' right to determine admittance and membership, than any immigration restriction whatsoever looks pretty atrocious (including H1Bs). FWIW, the same assumption would eliminate your ability to object when a foreign army wants to peacefully enter on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And if you assume away the legitimacy of property rights, you look pretty atrocious turning away the homeless from your property. I don't think it's hard to see why national and property borders might be not objectionable, but blanket racial job restrictions would be.

an_cap 9y ago
I don't give away my right to object when a black army moves into my neighborhood on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And yet I do demand strong evidence that this is a likely scenario before essentially banning black people from my neighborhood. The correct analogy is not that you're being forced to accept a homeless person into your property. Its that if I want to accept a homeless person into my property, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from doing so. Unless you make a convincing case that they're going to invade you. Which I don't think you have.
- Banthum 9y ago
  Other people you live with don't want to accept a homeless person into the home. And, you are part of a social contract between these other people you live with (e.g. your countrymen) where you can't just override them. If you had your own country where nobody else lived, where you had no social contract with anyone, it would be fine for you to let anyone in (of course, you wouldn't have a country for long).
  - an_cap 9y ago
    Other white people in my neighborhood don't want to accept a black person into the neighborhood. And, I am part of a social contract between these other people I live with (e.g. by fellow neighbors) where I can't just override them. If you respond by saying that the social contract of the country (which bans discrimination based on race) supercedes the social contract of my neighborhood then I'll say that the social contract of the world supercedes even that.

ageek123 9y ago

It's actually not legal for a company to discriminate based on citizenship/country of birth: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/nationalorigin.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/nationalorigin.cfm However, the US government can decide who is eligible to work in the country, just like it can decide who is eligible for legal residence, citizenship, etc.

TheBiv 9y ago

(I'm not arguing for or against, because your question is to explain the logic to you) I believe the logic comes down to the highest constitution you bind yourself to. By birth we are bound to our country of birth's constitution and once we become an adult we have the ability to renounce that constitution and apply to be bound by another countries constitution.

qaq 9y ago

? Needing a work visa is fairly universal thing what does it have to do with discrimination? If US citizen wants to work in EU, Canada, India or whatever other country they too need a work visa.

aaronblohowiak 9y ago

People expect their government to protect them from people of other nations in matters of physical and economic security. h1-B workers at Tata etc drive down wages. Globally, labor isn't scarce. If there were a true global labor pool, wages in USA would be further depressed. People have no intrinsic right to immigrate into the country of their choice (they do have a right to leave their country if another will take them, however..)

an_cap 9y ago
Whites expect other whites to protect them from people of other colors in matters of physical and economic security. H-1Black workers drive down white wages. Blacks have no intrinsic right to move into the white neighborhood of their choice (they do have the right to leave their ghetto if another will take them, however..)
thewhitetulip 9y ago
This is funny/ridiculous, after all US and the West was busy shoving Globalization down everyone else's throats just few decades ago and now every wants to reverse Globalization. This should be a case study, which I know won't ever happen!
- arjie 9y ago
  It's not going to get a case study because it's been extensively studied already. An easy to understand introduction is to look at the Stolper Samuelson theorem. This isn't a recent development. It precedes the existence of the United States as a nation. Textiles in the U.K., mill workers. It's been done before. Protectionism is often just a straight subsidy from whichever society is being protectionist to the members which are being protected. Or, as people on the Internet are prone to saying: if you can't compete, legislate. If you're somehow losing your job to Infosys, you can't be that good. Real loss for society occurs when a good candidate can't get into the US because Wipro took all the visas.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago

aangjie 9y ago

I'll take the bait.. > Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of race or gender but okay to discriminate on the basis of citizenship/country of birth? Because, a country and it's city, and infrastructure have been built by money spent on by a bunch of people who paid taxes. For a another country, person to come in enjoy the infrastructure, make money and compete with the ones who paid for the infrastructure is unfair by design. Disclaimer: I'm an Indian working in India.

an_cap 9y ago
I am somewhat sympathetic to this argument but only with the following revisions. An adult foreigner coming to the US has, if anything, better fiscal implications for the US than the children of American citizens since children need are very likely a net fiscal negative for say the first 18 years of their lives. New Americans, whether they are formed by birth, or by immigration enjoy the existing infrastructure without having paid for it. If you say that American parents have already paid taxes on behalf of their children then I'll say that American employers have already paid taxes on behalf of their foreign employees. I'm fine with having a consistent 'entry fee' for all new Americans as long as said entry fee applies uniformly to both children of Americans and foreigners who wish to immigrate.

Banthum 9y ago

I'll begin with a simple analogy. Your house is for your family, including children who have never done anything to earn it. Why can't other people come in, eat your food, watch your TV, and sleep in your bed? Why should other people, or other children, not have the same rights to your home as your children do, just because of the circumstances of their birth? II So, you can see that "one shouldn't be discriminated against based on one's circumstances at birth" is not actually a universal principle at all. It's a general goal, but must be tempered by other concerns. In this it's like honesty - as a general goal, we should try to be honest. But being 100% honest every moment would be foolish and harmful. Morality is more complex than applying simplistic rules without exception. III People have communities which they care about more than other, more distant communities. Your family, then your neighborhood, your city, your province/state, your country, humanity, all of life. You can mix in your tribe (if you have one), language group, class, race, sports team fans, or whatever else you like in there. The point is that an eternal part of human life, since our earliest beginnings, has been to form concentric in-groups with loyalty and concern falling off as you move away from the self. Why? Since other people are loyal to you the same way, that creates the possibility of a mutual structure - a tight family with strong loyalty in both directions, then a country of people with good mutual loyalty, then a world of humans who care about each other somewhat. We all benefit from this, and it's also sustainable. If you want to be suicidally moral, you can start treating every human as well as you treat yourself. In some sense, I'd applaud you. But what you're doing won't last and won't have a long-term impact on humanity. You'll rapidly exhaust yourself as you give away your resources while nobody gives anything to you. In the end, your behavior will be wiped out by unstoppable Darwinian forces. If you want to be sustainably moral, you need to set up loyalty and care that runs reasonably symmetrically across relations, so it can be maintained that way. Because morality is not absolutes. It is a negotiation between Darwinian principles and our desire to be more than apes, murdering and raping and pumping out as many kids as we can. You cannot ignore either side of this fundamental tension.

an_cap 9y ago
I find very little to disagree with in what you say. All I ask for is a presumption in favor of allowing a willing foreigner to work for a willing employer. And I think that small harms like reduction in wages from say 100k/year to 60k/year is not sufficient to override that presumption especially since for the foreigner, the opportunity to work in the US often translates to a 5-fold increase in their income.

lazypenguin 9y ago

Jeeze, way to compare apples to oranges. Ultimately this is not a debate of discrimination (which you seem to be trying to shoe-horn into the conversation), it's a debate about exploitation. The argument is about the abuse of a well-intentioned program to exploit workers in other nations that are not protected by systems in the US and are thus, cheaper. I would argue that most people consider H1B-abuse and immigration reform distinct, yet related, discussions. It is possible to oppose the H1B program yet support immigration reform.

taway_1212 9y ago

There's plenty of similar discrimination going on already in trades in professions. Essentially, doctors or unionized skilled workers prefer to give openings in their profession to their kin. With "discrimination" based on nationality it's the same thing, except that you're giving preferential treatment to your fellow Americans. It's not hard to see why given that, as an American, you and most/all of people you care about (family, friends) are likely Americans as well. It's just taking care of people who are important in your life.