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> ...have skills worth very close to $0.. I would rephrase this. They are stuck in their circumstances which forces them to survive on a few cents a day. MNCs

> ...have skills worth very close to $0.. I would rephrase this. They are stuck in their circumstances which forces them to survive on a few cents a day. MNCs like Nike take advantage of this by getting their goods manufactured in Bangladesh at next to no cost and sell them for thousands of dollars. If the same workers in Bangladesh were to migrate to US I am sure they will make minimum wages, so their skill is indeed not $0.

sjducb 4y ago
I think you misunderstand capitalism. The market value of their skills is amlost $0 There are other ways of valuing those people, but you have to break out of a capitalist framework if you want to value them at more than a few dollars a day.
- FredPret 4y ago
  [flagged]
- amflare 4y ago
  There are very few economic frameworks that actually value people at all. And unless your idea is to replace capitalism with an agrarian structure, then almost anything else you could suggest would see people as an expense, which is the economic opposite of value.
  - noelherrick 4y ago
    If you really think that, then shouldn't you abolish economics? If a system doesn't value humans, and in fact in its history has proven it will turn babies into profit (lookin' at you Nestle), it's anti-human and as a human, it's immoral to support that system.
  - WA 4y ago
    Of the few, which would be one?
    - amflare 4y ago
      Capitalism, Feudalism, and maybe Mercantilism all come to mind.
908B64B197 4y ago
> If the same workers in Bangladesh were to migrate to US I am sure they will make minimum wages, so their skill is indeed not $0. Assuming they even qualified for immigration, would they even be employable?
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  I'm getting down voted but let me elaborate: Do they speak a language that would be widely useful in the US? Are they literate? Numerate? Basic stuff we take for granted here in America, where everyone had at least 10 years of public schooling. We're not even going into the more "advanced" skills like a driver's license, or functional literacy.
digging 4y ago
> If the same workers in Bangladesh were to migrate to US I think we have to factor in reality and external constraints if we're looking at this scenario. An individual worker, maybe you can say that. But the entire segment of the developing-world workforce? If they were somehow able to immigrate en masse, it would disrupt the economy enough that I don't think we could predict the effects and say "they'll earn $7.25/hr". Where they live, doing the work they do, they as individuals have almost no monetary value to western capitalist society (despite collectively generating uncountable value).
- whack 4y ago
  > the world's bottom billion already have skills worth very close to $0 This is the context of the response you were commenting on. There is a distinction between "this person is earning close to $0 because they are living in a poorly functioning country and economy" vs "this person's skills are worth close to $0". The latter implies that even if that person moved to another country, they wouldn't possess any skills worth paying $7/hour. Which is false. For perspective, if you took Bill Gates and parachuted him into an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, they would consider him to be useless. But few would agree with an absolute statement that "Bill Gates has no valuable skills."
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Well then we should bring them all here and also raise the minimum wage to $1000/hour. No. If all the unskilled workers in Bangladesh moved here, they mostly wouldn’t make minimum wage. They’d mostly just be unemployed.
- chii 4y ago
  > they mostly wouldn’t make minimum wage. They’d mostly just be unemployed. really? i would imagine they would find a job, and is willing to accept one that paid at least minimum wage.
ZainRiz 4y ago
There's two aspects to value creation: 1. How much more value you can now create. E.g Moving from assembly to managed code was also a 1000x shift 2. How much of that value you actually capture, as opposed to it going to your CEO, customers, etc The people in developing countries have the misfortune of being able to capture only a minuscule fraction of the value they create
- chii 4y ago
  One potential reason for the value capture problem for low wage workers is that a lot of objects they manufacture does not have a huge intrinsic value - instead, the value comes from the branding and advertising associated with the object (such as a sneaker). The workers did not create the branding, marketing or hype. The fact that a sneaker that is manufactured for dollars is sold for thousands, is the actual travesty. The workers is capturing the inherent value of the labour - because if they did a clone of the sneaker, and sold it without any of the branding/marketing, it would not sell for thousands, but instead probably low $10s-$50s dollars, which is inline with the labour and material that went into it.
tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
Globalized flattening is happening, but the issue is that the vast majority of everyone will be flattened to a level of poverty with a tiny fraction of humanity being *illionaires because they will own the means of production, the real estate, the intellectual property, and the influence on most government systems to keep it that way (regulatory capture, dirty campaign financing). It will be gradually harder and harder to compete with mega-rich entities in any area, automation and AI will increase, and so wages will fall while prices inflate.
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  People have been predicting this since Marx and the exact opposite has been happening ever since. Even if you look at the US, the number of people living in poverty has gone down dramatically in the past 50 years just due to an expansion of welfare benefits.
  - tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
    Respectfully, you're completely and utterly wrong. 1. https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM 2. Look outside and see how many homeless people there are in any average America metro. This was not the case 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years ago. 3. EDIT "Inequality for All" https://youtu.be/zvAFPHLFMa0 https://youtu.be/zvAFPHLFMa0
    - iLoveOncall 4y ago
      When your argument is "look outside" you should know it's so weak it's not worth posting.
  - fwip 4y ago
    The "number of people living in poverty" is based almost entirely on how you define poverty. America defines it as "three times the cost of a minimum diet in 1963" (adjusted for inflation). No accounting for housing, medical expenses, education, transportation, etc. So you're right, we have fewer people starving to death, because food is relatively more affordable (and SNAP). However, we have more people who can't afford housing, medical emergencies, having children, or an education. The way that poverty has presented and affects people has changed, but our guidelines are still based on the idea that you aren't poor unless you literally can't afford to eat.

sjducb 4y ago

I think you misunderstand capitalism. The market value of their skills is amlost $0 There are other ways of valuing those people, but you have to break out of a capitalist framework if you want to value them at more than a few dollars a day.

FredPret 4y ago
[flagged]
amflare 4y ago
There are very few economic frameworks that actually value people at all. And unless your idea is to replace capitalism with an agrarian structure, then almost anything else you could suggest would see people as an expense, which is the economic opposite of value.
- noelherrick 4y ago
  If you really think that, then shouldn't you abolish economics? If a system doesn't value humans, and in fact in its history has proven it will turn babies into profit (lookin' at you Nestle), it's anti-human and as a human, it's immoral to support that system.
- WA 4y ago
  Of the few, which would be one?
  - amflare 4y ago
    Capitalism, Feudalism, and maybe Mercantilism all come to mind.

908B64B197 4y ago

> If the same workers in Bangladesh were to migrate to US I am sure they will make minimum wages, so their skill is indeed not $0. Assuming they even qualified for immigration, would they even be employable?

908B64B197 4y ago
I'm getting down voted but let me elaborate: Do they speak a language that would be widely useful in the US? Are they literate? Numerate? Basic stuff we take for granted here in America, where everyone had at least 10 years of public schooling. We're not even going into the more "advanced" skills like a driver's license, or functional literacy.

digging 4y ago

> If the same workers in Bangladesh were to migrate to US I think we have to factor in reality and external constraints if we're looking at this scenario. An individual worker, maybe you can say that. But the entire segment of the developing-world workforce? If they were somehow able to immigrate en masse, it would disrupt the economy enough that I don't think we could predict the effects and say "they'll earn $7.25/hr". Where they live, doing the work they do, they as individuals have almost no monetary value to western capitalist society (despite collectively generating uncountable value).

whack 4y ago
> the world's bottom billion already have skills worth very close to $0 This is the context of the response you were commenting on. There is a distinction between "this person is earning close to $0 because they are living in a poorly functioning country and economy" vs "this person's skills are worth close to $0". The latter implies that even if that person moved to another country, they wouldn't possess any skills worth paying $7/hour. Which is false. For perspective, if you took Bill Gates and parachuted him into an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, they would consider him to be useless. But few would agree with an absolute statement that "Bill Gates has no valuable skills."

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

Well then we should bring them all here and also raise the minimum wage to $1000/hour. No. If all the unskilled workers in Bangladesh moved here, they mostly wouldn’t make minimum wage. They’d mostly just be unemployed.

chii 4y ago
> they mostly wouldn’t make minimum wage. They’d mostly just be unemployed. really? i would imagine they would find a job, and is willing to accept one that paid at least minimum wage.

ZainRiz 4y ago

There's two aspects to value creation: 1. How much more value you can now create. E.g Moving from assembly to managed code was also a 1000x shift 2. How much of that value you actually capture, as opposed to it going to your CEO, customers, etc The people in developing countries have the misfortune of being able to capture only a minuscule fraction of the value they create

chii 4y ago
One potential reason for the value capture problem for low wage workers is that a lot of objects they manufacture does not have a huge intrinsic value - instead, the value comes from the branding and advertising associated with the object (such as a sneaker). The workers did not create the branding, marketing or hype. The fact that a sneaker that is manufactured for dollars is sold for thousands, is the actual travesty. The workers is capturing the inherent value of the labour - because if they did a clone of the sneaker, and sold it without any of the branding/marketing, it would not sell for thousands, but instead probably low $10s-$50s dollars, which is inline with the labour and material that went into it.

tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago

Globalized flattening is happening, but the issue is that the vast majority of everyone will be flattened to a level of poverty with a tiny fraction of humanity being *illionaires because they will own the means of production, the real estate, the intellectual property, and the influence on most government systems to keep it that way (regulatory capture, dirty campaign financing). It will be gradually harder and harder to compete with mega-rich entities in any area, automation and AI will increase, and so wages will fall while prices inflate.

ChadNauseam 4y ago
People have been predicting this since Marx and the exact opposite has been happening ever since. Even if you look at the US, the number of people living in poverty has gone down dramatically in the past 50 years just due to an expansion of welfare benefits.
- tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
  Respectfully, you're completely and utterly wrong. 1. https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM 2. Look outside and see how many homeless people there are in any average America metro. This was not the case 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years ago. 3. EDIT "Inequality for All" https://youtu.be/zvAFPHLFMa0 https://youtu.be/zvAFPHLFMa0
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    When your argument is "look outside" you should know it's so weak it's not worth posting.
- fwip 4y ago
  The "number of people living in poverty" is based almost entirely on how you define poverty. America defines it as "three times the cost of a minimum diet in 1963" (adjusted for inflation). No accounting for housing, medical expenses, education, transportation, etc. So you're right, we have fewer people starving to death, because food is relatively more affordable (and SNAP). However, we have more people who can't afford housing, medical emergencies, having children, or an education. The way that poverty has presented and affects people has changed, but our guidelines are still based on the idea that you aren't poor unless you literally can't afford to eat.