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An affluent country like Dubai could afford to treat these workers a lot better locally than they may be treated in their homelands. I reject the premise that

by munk-a 5y ago

An affluent country like Dubai could afford to treat these workers a lot better locally than they may be treated in their homelands. I reject the premise that we live in a world of unregulated capitalism where free-markets force us all to engage in a race to the bottom when it comes to working conditions, and the modern world also rejects that with a plethora of examples: how can US workers who demand trivial things like sane working hours and health care possibly compete with people overseas who can do the same work while being paid peanuts - it's because we as a society can demand that. The people of the UAE could similarly demand that labourers be paid better and receive better treatment - it's not an unavoidable economic outcome that near slavery exists, it's a choice.

Aspos 5y ago
Great. So Dubai should force Indian companies pay their Indian workers more, but Indian companies in India should not be forced to, right? How would you justify this? And what if I ask you to apply the same logic to H1B?
- munk-a 5y ago
  In Dubai, like America, the companies should be forced to treat domestic workers fairly. It'd be really swell if those companies treated workers fairly in India as well and the population of Dubai could put pressure on India to improve working conditions but that's a sovereignty and economic question. I think it'd be really swell if standards of living across the globe were a lot more equalized, but that's not the world we live in. We can fix our own back yard but other nations are blocked by different base standards of living - we can influence that by, for instance, preferring to buy products from companies that treat overseas labour more fairly which will slowly transfer wealth and raise up those well off or, if you're bezos rich, I guess you could just try and wave a magic wand... but there just isn't enough domestic GDP to support higher wages in some countries.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
In my country the minimum wage is the same for everyone regardless of nationality. That would immediately fix the whole issue.

by munk-a 5y ago

Aspos 5y ago

Great. So Dubai should force Indian companies pay their Indian workers more, but Indian companies in India should not be forced to, right? How would you justify this? And what if I ask you to apply the same logic to H1B?

munk-a 5y ago
In Dubai, like America, the companies should be forced to treat domestic workers fairly. It'd be really swell if those companies treated workers fairly in India as well and the population of Dubai could put pressure on India to improve working conditions but that's a sovereignty and economic question. I think it'd be really swell if standards of living across the globe were a lot more equalized, but that's not the world we live in. We can fix our own back yard but other nations are blocked by different base standards of living - we can influence that by, for instance, preferring to buy products from companies that treat overseas labour more fairly which will slowly transfer wealth and raise up those well off or, if you're bezos rich, I guess you could just try and wave a magic wand... but there just isn't enough domestic GDP to support higher wages in some countries.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

In my country the minimum wage is the same for everyone regardless of nationality. That would immediately fix the whole issue.