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Kind of like asking why those engineers still make +100x more than the workers at the factory in China that manufactures their computers and smartphones. It's

by yuvadam 12y ago

Kind of like asking why those engineers still make +100x more than the workers at the factory in China that manufactures their computers and smartphones. It's called capitalism and it thrives on inequality. Whoever can be exploited - will be.

zo1 12y ago
Because those engineers produce more value for their employers than the factory workers. It's not "inequality", it's just a cold, hard, fact no matter how much it makes us feel uneasy. I've seen this opinion a lot with individuals who don't understand that "creation" need not be linked to a physical product, or with manual labor. Now, if you'd get back to comparing apples to apples, we'd compare those same "engineers" with "engineers" in third-world countries. And then you have to go back and ask yourself WHY companies aren't just moving their operations to those countries so as to make a bigger "cut" from that cheap labor. Multitude of reasons can be chalked-off to for that. But one of them is government-enforced restrictions on immigration, free-trade and licensing. Both for skills, and of education. And when you get to that point, you realize that this "exploitation" you speak of would actually benefit those third-world engineers. And the entity preventing said "exploitation" from occurring is the "noble" government. The thing that everyone loves to never blame for problems, but always worships when it comes to solutions, even if the problems those solutions are for are caused by them in the first place.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  > Because those engineers produce more value for their employers than the factory workers. It's also a question of negotiating power.
  - zo1 11y ago
    That's definitely a component of it, yes. But why do they have more negotiating power? For the sake of argument, let's leave out the trail regarding levels of education/intelligence.

by yuvadam 12y ago

zo1 12y ago

Because those engineers produce more value for their employers than the factory workers. It's not "inequality", it's just a cold, hard, fact no matter how much it makes us feel uneasy. I've seen this opinion a lot with individuals who don't understand that "creation" need not be linked to a physical product, or with manual labor. Now, if you'd get back to comparing apples to apples, we'd compare those same "engineers" with "engineers" in third-world countries. And then you have to go back and ask yourself WHY companies aren't just moving their operations to those countries so as to make a bigger "cut" from that cheap labor. Multitude of reasons can be chalked-off to for that. But one of them is government-enforced restrictions on immigration, free-trade and licensing. Both for skills, and of education. And when you get to that point, you realize that this "exploitation" you speak of would actually benefit those third-world engineers. And the entity preventing said "exploitation" from occurring is the "noble" government. The thing that everyone loves to never blame for problems, but always worships when it comes to solutions, even if the problems those solutions are for are caused by them in the first place.

SamReidHughes 11y ago
> Because those engineers produce more value for their employers than the factory workers. It's also a question of negotiating power.
- zo1 11y ago
  That's definitely a component of it, yes. But why do they have more negotiating power? For the sake of argument, let's leave out the trail regarding levels of education/intelligence.