4 ms·

> 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

> 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."