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"Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has the highest average wage in the country, ... It would be a mistake to think of these plaintiffs as an o

"Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has the highest average wage in the country, ... It would be a mistake to think of these plaintiffs as an oppressed set of victims." I think this is a pretty narrow minded view. If the economy needs a particular skill set to grow then the wages for that skill set need to rise with demand so that market actors (Students) can choose the correct profession and supply the economy with the skill set it needs so it can properly grow and create the products everyone wants. If the largest employers in the tech industry manipulated the market to keep salaries artificially low, it hurts not only the employees directly involved but also other people employed in the same industry who use average salaries to make employment decisions, students who are trying to decide what career to pursue in school and the economy as a whole which is unable to get the required labor it needs.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mgkimsal 13y ago
doesn't it hurt all the ancillary people and industries and businesses that those people would have patronized with those higher salaries as well? isn't that the heart of conservative trickledown econ? or is it fine if your employer breaks laws to keep the money from ever entering your pocket, but it's evil if the government taxes it?
- thesimpsons1022 13y ago
  you forget conservative economics is about protecting corporations, not people. (except they consider corporations as people.)
xcntktn 13y ago
The passage you quoted is pretty much the same argument that gets thrown around whenever professional athletes go on strike. Yes, they are already very highly paid, but in the end they have essentially "earned" it by any reasonable definition of the word. As with the professional athlete situation, sometimes the only way to stop salaries from being artificially suppressed is to band together to stop it. This is what the recent class-action lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other big companies is about. If things get really bad, programmers may have to form a union or a guild to continue getting paid anything close to what they are worth. Forming such an organization will no doubt be very difficult due to the fact that many programmers exhibit a strong (and in many cases, misguided) belief in their own rugged individualism and in Silicon Valley's meritocracy. This belief wrongly leads some programmers to conclude that they don't need to protect themselves, thus leaving them open to collusion from their employers. For a cautionary tale about what happens when people miss out on the chance to organize when they really should, look no further than the Hollywood visual effects industry. They are the only major aspect of feature film production without organized labor, and consequently their work is routinely underpriced to the point of VFX studios going out of business as a matter of course during a film's production. The same thing could easily happen to typical Silicon Valley programming work. (In fact, it's already quite close to that situation when it comes to programming in the games industry.)
PakG1 13y ago
Your point stands, but your quoted passage isn't saying that these people shouldn't get the pay they deserve. It's simply saying that the optics aren't great, so sympathy will be hard to find, whatever reality and justice and so on may actually be.
nickonline 13y ago
All completely valid, to add to this, paying the correct supply/demand wage would result in ridiculously high salaries, this would then attract more graduates to study engineering, which in turn results in more engineers, which results in lower salaries eventually. Ultimately it would be a short term (<10 years?) profit for the people in short supply until the graduate engineers caught up to the demand. I wonder though if this would cause a huge brain drain on other parts of America.
- beagle90 13y ago
  If this did cause a brain drain then this would likely force other industries to raise salaries in order to compete; and so continues the circle of life.
auctiontheory 13y ago
"Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has the highest average wage in the country, ... It would be a mistake to think of these plaintiffs as an oppressed set of victims." In addition, I very much doubt Silicon Valley has the cost-of-living-adjusted highest average wage.
nerfhammer 13y ago
author has been bashing tech for years http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_streitfeld/ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s...
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
In addition, if engineers are actually earning high salaries through high productivity, an undersupply of engineers caused by wage suppression also suppresses technological progress and overall economic productivity, as well as suppressing aggregate demand by directing revenue away from labor towards capital gains. Everyone is taking an economic hit so that a few executives, VCs, and landlords can exploit (what the free market says is) one of the most highly productive fields around today.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mgkimsal 13y ago

doesn't it hurt all the ancillary people and industries and businesses that those people would have patronized with those higher salaries as well? isn't that the heart of conservative trickledown econ? or is it fine if your employer breaks laws to keep the money from ever entering your pocket, but it's evil if the government taxes it?

thesimpsons1022 13y ago
you forget conservative economics is about protecting corporations, not people. (except they consider corporations as people.)

xcntktn 13y ago

The passage you quoted is pretty much the same argument that gets thrown around whenever professional athletes go on strike. Yes, they are already very highly paid, but in the end they have essentially "earned" it by any reasonable definition of the word. As with the professional athlete situation, sometimes the only way to stop salaries from being artificially suppressed is to band together to stop it. This is what the recent class-action lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other big companies is about. If things get really bad, programmers may have to form a union or a guild to continue getting paid anything close to what they are worth. Forming such an organization will no doubt be very difficult due to the fact that many programmers exhibit a strong (and in many cases, misguided) belief in their own rugged individualism and in Silicon Valley's meritocracy. This belief wrongly leads some programmers to conclude that they don't need to protect themselves, thus leaving them open to collusion from their employers. For a cautionary tale about what happens when people miss out on the chance to organize when they really should, look no further than the Hollywood visual effects industry. They are the only major aspect of feature film production without organized labor, and consequently their work is routinely underpriced to the point of VFX studios going out of business as a matter of course during a film's production. The same thing could easily happen to typical Silicon Valley programming work. (In fact, it's already quite close to that situation when it comes to programming in the games industry.)

PakG1 13y ago

Your point stands, but your quoted passage isn't saying that these people shouldn't get the pay they deserve. It's simply saying that the optics aren't great, so sympathy will be hard to find, whatever reality and justice and so on may actually be.

nickonline 13y ago

All completely valid, to add to this, paying the correct supply/demand wage would result in ridiculously high salaries, this would then attract more graduates to study engineering, which in turn results in more engineers, which results in lower salaries eventually. Ultimately it would be a short term (<10 years?) profit for the people in short supply until the graduate engineers caught up to the demand. I wonder though if this would cause a huge brain drain on other parts of America.

beagle90 13y ago
If this did cause a brain drain then this would likely force other industries to raise salaries in order to compete; and so continues the circle of life.

auctiontheory 13y ago

nerfhammer 13y ago

author has been bashing tech for years http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_streitfeld/ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s...

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

In addition, if engineers are actually earning high salaries through high productivity, an undersupply of engineers caused by wage suppression also suppresses technological progress and overall economic productivity, as well as suppressing aggregate demand by directing revenue away from labor towards capital gains. Everyone is taking an economic hit so that a few executives, VCs, and landlords can exploit (what the free market says is) one of the most highly productive fields around today.