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As a Bangladeshi, I can tell you that the workers in my country don't have proper unions. They can't negotiate. Salary is the last thing on their minds, they ca

As a Bangladeshi, I can tell you that the workers in my country don't have proper unions. They can't negotiate. Salary is the last thing on their minds, they can't even negotiate safe working conditions. They are uneducated, so they don't know what they deserve. See here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fir... So, the cheap stuff that you're getting is because someone is getting a super bad deal, by exploiting the heck out of workers. Same in China. The garments factory owners are walking away with tonnes of money, leaving the workers high and dry. The more _subtle_ point that the author is making, is that, "wait, if people realize that they can get awesome developers in developing nations for a lower price, I'm not going to get hired any more in my over-priced city". Good, move to a place where your salary is worth more, and work to enrich that community. Why should SF and NY get all the benefits of economic growth?

bagacrap 6y ago
I have a feeling that many of the engineers who live in locations far off from SV such as Bangladesh, who do have the skills to make it as a FAANG employee (for example), already choose to move to SV/London/etc and collect that salary. If so, there shouldn't really be all that much untapped potential* in the third world. The way FAANG companies greedily hoover up the eligible talent pool (regardless of whether they have good project ideas for those folks to work on) makes me think it's not likely they'd overlook a vast pool of talent that's cheaper and just as productive. *Not counting those who never had access to education or a computer to become fully realized engineers in the first place. Just commenting on ready-to-go software engineers.
- hh3k0 6y ago
  Not everyone is willing to leave family, friends, and country behind.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    But its a larger fraction than ever before in history, its pretty safe to say. So the problem is perhaps the smallest its been, and declining. That's a positive thing.
    - jrochkind1 6y ago
      So many parts of the world have such terrible living conditions that anyone with an option will leave even though it means leaving your family and everything you know behind, while those left behind are those with no options stuck there, and most rich countries do their best to make it harder and harder for anyone else to make it there... and you conclude this is a positive thing? Truly we live in the best of all possible worlds!
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Its against the site rules to construe the worst possible meaning to a comment. And its lazy to put words in others' mouths. If you have something to say, just say it. Without attacking others, please.
        jrochkind1 6y ago
        I thought you were saying it was a positive thing that so many people were willing to leave family, friends, and country behind, in leaving poor countries for rich ones. I may have misunderstood? There was a comment saying not everyone was willing to do this, then you said but more people are than ever before in history, which is positive, no? Did I misunderstand? But you're right, sorry, I could have phrased my reply in a way that was more explicit about not putting words into your mouth. I should have just put it in my own words, without projection: You say, if I'm understanding, that it's a great thing that never before in history have so many been willing to leave family, friends, and country behind. When I see that so many people are leaving family, friends, and everything they know behind for other countries, when they are moving from poorer countries to richer ones, what I see is that quality of life is so unequal across the planet, and people are so desperate. While meanwhile most rich countries are doing their best to keep out these desperate people hoping to leave everything they knew behind for a chance at a secure and dignified life. This to me does not seem like a positive thing. People should better be able to find safety, security, and dignity without having to leave behind their family, friends, and country.
- gamesbrainiac 6y ago
  I think there are a lot of preconceived notions regarding developing nations. A lot of people who can leave, do leave. I left, for example. However, there are a tonne of people who are super smart, but can't leave because of their ageing parents, or other reasons. Leaving everything you know behind takes courage, and adapting to a new world, a new life takes a lot out of you. Not everyone wants to leave their loved ones. Furthermore, if you are older, it's even harder. Funny story, one of the reasons I left Bangladesh is because I used to work for this company that paid me 1/6th of the salary someone else was making in a more developed Asian country. I was doing the same work, succeeding at it too. However, when I wanted equal pay for equal work, they decided to not renew my contract. Back then, I was young, so I decided to apply abroad, an was luckily accepted. Not everyone can do this, because again, you have family, and responsibilities. 2 months into my new job, my old company begs me to come back, and offers me the salary that was more than I wanted, and an O1 visa sponsorship should I want to go to America.
  - comprev 6y ago
    Most Eastern Europeans I worked with in the Netherlands all had one thing in common - they put the effort in to leave their home countries (Romania, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.) and never return. They took all the optional extra courses at school, took as many professional exams as they could afford, and worked on their craft as software engineers to get an opportunity to move to NL, IE or UK.
    - gamesbrainiac 6y ago
      In Bangladesh, the tried and tested way is to enrol in a master's program and take it from there. Not always something that you can afford though.
    - petre 6y ago
      Mostly because they're sick with corruption and politicians in those countries or they hadn't had much to leave behind.
      - 6y ago
- purple-again 6y ago
  I very much doubt this is true. I’m sure there are a very large number of FAANG quality engineers all over the eastern US, let alone other countries, that couldn’t or wouldn’t make the move to SV. I would be willing to put money on it being the MAJORITY capable of being hired into those roles couldn’t or wouldn’t move there to take them. There is no amount of money that would have convinced me to leave Florida. My family and my wife’s family is here. My children’s friends and extended support networks are here. This life is not worth losing for any pay raise. I’m willing to bet a very large number of quality engineer made the same decision I did.
- eternauta3k 6y ago
  There are plenty of skilled engineers who either don't make it into FAANG or don't manage to get into the US.
- luckydata 6y ago
  you really overestimate how much FAANG companies understand about the world, or how to hire productive employees. It's all dances and bullshit, and puffery on behalf of the employees to make you believe we're the pinnacle of human intellect. I should know, I'm one of them :)
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  that's quite silly - leaving your family is a very questionable deal, you grandparents or parents basically wither away without seeing their children and grandchildren. The visa laws make you a second-class citizen (well non- citizen, really) and ensure that you cannot spend much time with them - there is a maximum limit on the number of days you can spend out of the country. Also usually they mean you cannot bring your grandparents. Hell, UK home office basically killed a woman because they denied entry to UK to her sister for an organ transplant. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/leukaemia-patient-dies-after-sister-uk-visa-refused-denied-entry-stem-cell-transplant-donor-cancer-may-brown-martha-a7846931.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/leukaemia-pa... You have to have relatives and friends that can look after your family, because every now and then they need help and you are not there to help them. For many folks who have half-decent life at home, the trouble is not worth it. I have many friends from eastern Europe who have come to UK to study and went back. Lastly, why is FAANG the ultimate benchmark? Some people develop safety and life-critical systems, land rovers on mars, etc. I hold them in higher regard.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    There are vast numbers of people from poorer countries working in richer countries so that they can send the money home to their families. In the Phillipines (for example) it's so normal for parents to work abroad (usually in Arab countries) while the grandparents look after the children, the whole economy is affected by it. And FAANG is the ultimate benchmark for salaries because they pay so much, not because they're held in high regard. In fact, the stories coming out of FAANG (FB and Apple especially) seem to show these are dystopian nightmare workplaces that you only work in because of the ridiculously high salaries.
    - geoduck14 6y ago
      Fun fact! Income is NEGATIVELY correlated with job satisfaction in SOME scenarios. Imagine the thought experiment: you get paid GREAT, but you boss is aweful. You decide to quit as soon as you find a job that let's you keep you current lifestyle. If it is hard to do that, you keep your job longer...and you have poor satisfaction. To counter this, I got a 10% raise 6 months ago, and it was tots legit.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  As if it was easy to emigrate to the US or western Europe for non-citizens…
  - RestlessMind 6y ago
    It's super easy in case you are a talented young person. See Canada's point base migration system or Blue Card for EU.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > I have a feeling that many of the engineers who live in locations far off from SV such as Bangladesh, who do have the skills to make it as a FAANG employee (for example), already choose to move to SV/London/etc and collect that salary What is this feeling based on? You have to invest a lot of money, time and effort into paperwork before you can dream of migrating. One does not simply "choose" to move; it takes months or years of effort - not every talented individual takes this route, or even thinks it's worthwhile - there are a lot of trade-offs, even for the most naïve. I suspect this idea of talent=success is an instance of the Just-world fallacy (one way of reading what you said is that those who are talented have already been rewarded by FAANG jobs, therefore those who haven't yet are not talented, obviously)
tachyonbeam 6y ago
On the flipside, if you can make Silicon Valley money and go live in Mexico or Thailand, chances are that you will cause real estate prices there to increase and become less accessible to the locals. You and your high salary, particularly in a low-income country, are an inflationary force. Does you bringing your high income there automatically translate in enriching the local community?
- gamesbrainiac 6y ago
  It definitely does. You are not going to have enough people migrating to make a large enough difference. By all means, go to Thialand, they will welcome you with open arms. More money in the economy means more jobs for people. More people with a higher level of technical skill will also enrich the community should you choose to participate.
- throw8932894 6y ago
  Foreigners can not buy or own properties in Thailand. Often this scenario enriches some local after divorce.
  - true_religion 6y ago
    If you live in Thailand and marry a Thai national, its pretty straight forwards to become a citizen. There's no reason Joe Shmoe developer won't do this.
    - Lunatic666 6y ago
      I wouldn't call living and working in Thailand for 10 years, speaking fluent Thai and passing an interview in Thai for your citizenship straightforward, but YMMV. edit: typo
      - true_religion 6y ago
        If you are married to a Thai national the only requirement is that you stay there for 3 years.
jrochkind1 6y ago
I find the author's point to be a very disturbing one: If we really pay people fairly, I won't be able to afford all these cheap consumer goods any more. The "idea" of location based pay for developers is that you an have the same standard of living in Boise on less salary than in London. Whether this is true or not is subject to debate. But what's not subject to debate is that, as you say, Bangladeshi garment workers do not have a standard of living that is okay. What do we do with the fact that our (in the USA or UK) cheap clothing comes at that "price"?
- blackshaw 6y ago
  Author of the original piece here; see my response elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26141175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26141175
toyg 6y ago
> the cheap stuff that you're getting is because someone is getting a super bad deal And this is Bad and should be fixed. Developed countries should push poorer countries into paying better salaries to their workers and improve their conditions. This would directly benefit "westerners" too, since it would reduce migratory pressures and get a more level-playing field in economic sectors that have been wiped from these shores -- some even in quite strategic sectors, like the PPE shenanigans last year showed. Would that mean my plastic bullshit would get more expensive? Yeah, so what? Maybe this would reignite the debate on effective redistribution in our countries too, which was basically killed in 1989.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  It's not always even passed to consumer -> you might pay $20 for a T-shirt but the worker might get paid $1 for it!
runarberg 6y ago
Precisely. The OP reaches the wrong conclusion from an excellent point. The fact that they are benefiting as a consumer because of location based salaries is another point against them. Pitting “closing down the ‘sweatshops’” (i.e. unemployment) as the only alternative for the workers is disingenuous. Another alternative is worker control over the factories. Yes OP as a consumer will loose some luxury as the price of consumer products rises along with the workers’ pay, but what natural law states that the OP has the right to that luxury at the cost of foreign workers? The original point, you deserve the value of your work in salaries regardless of your location still holds. Even more so when it is applied to the global scale. And the fact that it isn’t applied on the global scale is just another fact pointing to the fact that we live in an unequal economy that exploits workers. Instead of rejecting this, OP should have reached the conclusion that there are alternative worker arrangements which would benefits workers globally.
- vslira 6y ago
  The author doesn't actually say it out loud, but > OP should have reached the conclusion that there are alternative worker arrangements which would benefits workers globally. This is specifically what he DOESN'T want. What he's saying is that someone from Boise, ID shouldn't complain too loud about location-based pay, because taking the logic to its extreme would mean redistributing all this worker and consumer welfare with the rest of the billions of workers worldwide and, surprise surprise, that would actually suck to essentially every American, doesn't matter how poor. So, basically: "Hey guys, don't rock the boat. We might be crew but you don't want the rowers competing for our place"
  - runarberg 6y ago
    Thanks for calling it out. This is what I read as well but I wanted to give the author the benefits of the doubt (don’t attribute malice... and so on). However it is hard to read anything else from this short, concise, and well worded article. In my circles we have a saying that there is no such thing as an ethical consumption under capitalism. What the OP is basically saying is: “That is fine, unethical consumption is good actually. As long as I’m the one benefiting on other’s expense”.
ymbeld 6y ago
> They are uneducated, so they don't know what they deserve. They are uneducated, so they don't know what they deserve. You don’t need a formal education to know whether you are being taken advantage of. Only people with formal education believe such lies.
Ayesh 6y ago
I totally agree with this. The exploitation of the human resource is true and brutal! I grew up in Sri Lanka, and there is a relatively small yet similar situation. Workers are paid $100-200, and have the jobs hanging in a thread leaving no room for negotiations. There is a massive environmental impact as well. Those big companies often don't play by the rules, and often pollute the water ways, air, etc because who cares if they make money.
0x008 6y ago
> Good, move to a place where your salary is worth more, and work to enrich that community. Why should SF and NY get all the benefits of economic growth? Do you really think Globalization should force everyone to move where their salary is worth more?

bagacrap 6y ago

I have a feeling that many of the engineers who live in locations far off from SV such as Bangladesh, who do have the skills to make it as a FAANG employee (for example), already choose to move to SV/London/etc and collect that salary. If so, there shouldn't really be all that much untapped potential* in the third world. The way FAANG companies greedily hoover up the eligible talent pool (regardless of whether they have good project ideas for those folks to work on) makes me think it's not likely they'd overlook a vast pool of talent that's cheaper and just as productive. *Not counting those who never had access to education or a computer to become fully realized engineers in the first place. Just commenting on ready-to-go software engineers.

hh3k0 6y ago
Not everyone is willing to leave family, friends, and country behind.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  But its a larger fraction than ever before in history, its pretty safe to say. So the problem is perhaps the smallest its been, and declining. That's a positive thing.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    So many parts of the world have such terrible living conditions that anyone with an option will leave even though it means leaving your family and everything you know behind, while those left behind are those with no options stuck there, and most rich countries do their best to make it harder and harder for anyone else to make it there... and you conclude this is a positive thing? Truly we live in the best of all possible worlds!
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Its against the site rules to construe the worst possible meaning to a comment. And its lazy to put words in others' mouths. If you have something to say, just say it. Without attacking others, please.
      - jrochkind1 6y ago
        I thought you were saying it was a positive thing that so many people were willing to leave family, friends, and country behind, in leaving poor countries for rich ones. I may have misunderstood? There was a comment saying not everyone was willing to do this, then you said but more people are than ever before in history, which is positive, no? Did I misunderstand? But you're right, sorry, I could have phrased my reply in a way that was more explicit about not putting words into your mouth. I should have just put it in my own words, without projection: You say, if I'm understanding, that it's a great thing that never before in history have so many been willing to leave family, friends, and country behind. When I see that so many people are leaving family, friends, and everything they know behind for other countries, when they are moving from poorer countries to richer ones, what I see is that quality of life is so unequal across the planet, and people are so desperate. While meanwhile most rich countries are doing their best to keep out these desperate people hoping to leave everything they knew behind for a chance at a secure and dignified life. This to me does not seem like a positive thing. People should better be able to find safety, security, and dignity without having to leave behind their family, friends, and country.
gamesbrainiac 6y ago
I think there are a lot of preconceived notions regarding developing nations. A lot of people who can leave, do leave. I left, for example. However, there are a tonne of people who are super smart, but can't leave because of their ageing parents, or other reasons. Leaving everything you know behind takes courage, and adapting to a new world, a new life takes a lot out of you. Not everyone wants to leave their loved ones. Furthermore, if you are older, it's even harder. Funny story, one of the reasons I left Bangladesh is because I used to work for this company that paid me 1/6th of the salary someone else was making in a more developed Asian country. I was doing the same work, succeeding at it too. However, when I wanted equal pay for equal work, they decided to not renew my contract. Back then, I was young, so I decided to apply abroad, an was luckily accepted. Not everyone can do this, because again, you have family, and responsibilities. 2 months into my new job, my old company begs me to come back, and offers me the salary that was more than I wanted, and an O1 visa sponsorship should I want to go to America.
- comprev 6y ago
  Most Eastern Europeans I worked with in the Netherlands all had one thing in common - they put the effort in to leave their home countries (Romania, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.) and never return. They took all the optional extra courses at school, took as many professional exams as they could afford, and worked on their craft as software engineers to get an opportunity to move to NL, IE or UK.
  - gamesbrainiac 6y ago
    In Bangladesh, the tried and tested way is to enrol in a master's program and take it from there. Not always something that you can afford though.
  - petre 6y ago
    Mostly because they're sick with corruption and politicians in those countries or they hadn't had much to leave behind.
    - 6y ago
purple-again 6y ago
I very much doubt this is true. I’m sure there are a very large number of FAANG quality engineers all over the eastern US, let alone other countries, that couldn’t or wouldn’t make the move to SV. I would be willing to put money on it being the MAJORITY capable of being hired into those roles couldn’t or wouldn’t move there to take them. There is no amount of money that would have convinced me to leave Florida. My family and my wife’s family is here. My children’s friends and extended support networks are here. This life is not worth losing for any pay raise. I’m willing to bet a very large number of quality engineer made the same decision I did.
eternauta3k 6y ago
There are plenty of skilled engineers who either don't make it into FAANG or don't manage to get into the US.
luckydata 6y ago
you really overestimate how much FAANG companies understand about the world, or how to hire productive employees. It's all dances and bullshit, and puffery on behalf of the employees to make you believe we're the pinnacle of human intellect. I should know, I'm one of them :)
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
that's quite silly - leaving your family is a very questionable deal, you grandparents or parents basically wither away without seeing their children and grandchildren. The visa laws make you a second-class citizen (well non- citizen, really) and ensure that you cannot spend much time with them - there is a maximum limit on the number of days you can spend out of the country. Also usually they mean you cannot bring your grandparents. Hell, UK home office basically killed a woman because they denied entry to UK to her sister for an organ transplant. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/leukaemia-patient-dies-after-sister-uk-visa-refused-denied-entry-stem-cell-transplant-donor-cancer-may-brown-martha-a7846931.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/leukaemia-pa... You have to have relatives and friends that can look after your family, because every now and then they need help and you are not there to help them. For many folks who have half-decent life at home, the trouble is not worth it. I have many friends from eastern Europe who have come to UK to study and went back. Lastly, why is FAANG the ultimate benchmark? Some people develop safety and life-critical systems, land rovers on mars, etc. I hold them in higher regard.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  There are vast numbers of people from poorer countries working in richer countries so that they can send the money home to their families. In the Phillipines (for example) it's so normal for parents to work abroad (usually in Arab countries) while the grandparents look after the children, the whole economy is affected by it. And FAANG is the ultimate benchmark for salaries because they pay so much, not because they're held in high regard. In fact, the stories coming out of FAANG (FB and Apple especially) seem to show these are dystopian nightmare workplaces that you only work in because of the ridiculously high salaries.
  - geoduck14 6y ago
    Fun fact! Income is NEGATIVELY correlated with job satisfaction in SOME scenarios. Imagine the thought experiment: you get paid GREAT, but you boss is aweful. You decide to quit as soon as you find a job that let's you keep you current lifestyle. If it is hard to do that, you keep your job longer...and you have poor satisfaction. To counter this, I got a 10% raise 6 months ago, and it was tots legit.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
As if it was easy to emigrate to the US or western Europe for non-citizens…
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  It's super easy in case you are a talented young person. See Canada's point base migration system or Blue Card for EU.
sangnoir 6y ago
> I have a feeling that many of the engineers who live in locations far off from SV such as Bangladesh, who do have the skills to make it as a FAANG employee (for example), already choose to move to SV/London/etc and collect that salary What is this feeling based on? You have to invest a lot of money, time and effort into paperwork before you can dream of migrating. One does not simply "choose" to move; it takes months or years of effort - not every talented individual takes this route, or even thinks it's worthwhile - there are a lot of trade-offs, even for the most naïve. I suspect this idea of talent=success is an instance of the Just-world fallacy (one way of reading what you said is that those who are talented have already been rewarded by FAANG jobs, therefore those who haven't yet are not talented, obviously)

tachyonbeam 6y ago

On the flipside, if you can make Silicon Valley money and go live in Mexico or Thailand, chances are that you will cause real estate prices there to increase and become less accessible to the locals. You and your high salary, particularly in a low-income country, are an inflationary force. Does you bringing your high income there automatically translate in enriching the local community?

gamesbrainiac 6y ago
It definitely does. You are not going to have enough people migrating to make a large enough difference. By all means, go to Thialand, they will welcome you with open arms. More money in the economy means more jobs for people. More people with a higher level of technical skill will also enrich the community should you choose to participate.
throw8932894 6y ago
Foreigners can not buy or own properties in Thailand. Often this scenario enriches some local after divorce.
- true_religion 6y ago
  If you live in Thailand and marry a Thai national, its pretty straight forwards to become a citizen. There's no reason Joe Shmoe developer won't do this.
  - Lunatic666 6y ago
    I wouldn't call living and working in Thailand for 10 years, speaking fluent Thai and passing an interview in Thai for your citizenship straightforward, but YMMV. edit: typo
    - true_religion 6y ago
      If you are married to a Thai national the only requirement is that you stay there for 3 years.

jrochkind1 6y ago

I find the author's point to be a very disturbing one: If we really pay people fairly, I won't be able to afford all these cheap consumer goods any more. The "idea" of location based pay for developers is that you an have the same standard of living in Boise on less salary than in London. Whether this is true or not is subject to debate. But what's not subject to debate is that, as you say, Bangladeshi garment workers do not have a standard of living that is okay. What do we do with the fact that our (in the USA or UK) cheap clothing comes at that "price"?

blackshaw 6y ago
Author of the original piece here; see my response elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26141175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26141175

toyg 6y ago

> the cheap stuff that you're getting is because someone is getting a super bad deal And this is Bad and should be fixed. Developed countries should push poorer countries into paying better salaries to their workers and improve their conditions. This would directly benefit "westerners" too, since it would reduce migratory pressures and get a more level-playing field in economic sectors that have been wiped from these shores -- some even in quite strategic sectors, like the PPE shenanigans last year showed. Would that mean my plastic bullshit would get more expensive? Yeah, so what? Maybe this would reignite the debate on effective redistribution in our countries too, which was basically killed in 1989.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
It's not always even passed to consumer -> you might pay $20 for a T-shirt but the worker might get paid $1 for it!

runarberg 6y ago

Precisely. The OP reaches the wrong conclusion from an excellent point. The fact that they are benefiting as a consumer because of location based salaries is another point against them. Pitting “closing down the ‘sweatshops’” (i.e. unemployment) as the only alternative for the workers is disingenuous. Another alternative is worker control over the factories. Yes OP as a consumer will loose some luxury as the price of consumer products rises along with the workers’ pay, but what natural law states that the OP has the right to that luxury at the cost of foreign workers? The original point, you deserve the value of your work in salaries regardless of your location still holds. Even more so when it is applied to the global scale. And the fact that it isn’t applied on the global scale is just another fact pointing to the fact that we live in an unequal economy that exploits workers. Instead of rejecting this, OP should have reached the conclusion that there are alternative worker arrangements which would benefits workers globally.

vslira 6y ago
The author doesn't actually say it out loud, but > OP should have reached the conclusion that there are alternative worker arrangements which would benefits workers globally. This is specifically what he DOESN'T want. What he's saying is that someone from Boise, ID shouldn't complain too loud about location-based pay, because taking the logic to its extreme would mean redistributing all this worker and consumer welfare with the rest of the billions of workers worldwide and, surprise surprise, that would actually suck to essentially every American, doesn't matter how poor. So, basically: "Hey guys, don't rock the boat. We might be crew but you don't want the rowers competing for our place"
- runarberg 6y ago
  Thanks for calling it out. This is what I read as well but I wanted to give the author the benefits of the doubt (don’t attribute malice... and so on). However it is hard to read anything else from this short, concise, and well worded article. In my circles we have a saying that there is no such thing as an ethical consumption under capitalism. What the OP is basically saying is: “That is fine, unethical consumption is good actually. As long as I’m the one benefiting on other’s expense”.

ymbeld 6y ago

> They are uneducated, so they don't know what they deserve. They are uneducated, so they don't know what they deserve. You don’t need a formal education to know whether you are being taken advantage of. Only people with formal education believe such lies.

Ayesh 6y ago

I totally agree with this. The exploitation of the human resource is true and brutal! I grew up in Sri Lanka, and there is a relatively small yet similar situation. Workers are paid $100-200, and have the jobs hanging in a thread leaving no room for negotiations. There is a massive environmental impact as well. Those big companies often don't play by the rules, and often pollute the water ways, air, etc because who cares if they make money.

0x008 6y ago

> Good, move to a place where your salary is worth more, and work to enrich that community. Why should SF and NY get all the benefits of economic growth? Do you really think Globalization should force everyone to move where their salary is worth more?