It's strange how action which has apparently helped to lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty is portrayed as a "scandal". There's clearly a big labor pool willing to work for lower pay than Americans. Give them a chance at a better life! If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
>It's strange how action which has apparently helped to lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty is portrayed as a "scandal".
Maybe because it was not intended to "lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty" but to "lower or keep the same american developer wages"?
As if those US business owners give a rats arse about getting "poor Indian workers out of poverty".
If those guys are so concerned about "poor Indians developers" how about paying them exactly the same as any American developer? It's not like they have a lower cost of living when they come to the US. So, do they consider them sub-human or something?
Or maybe they are more concerned for the "I can exploit their poorness relative to our domestic wage demands and screw me fellow country-men".
Oh, and it works both ways: next time some other country with cheaper wages than India developers a decent-ish IT education, those "poor Indian developers" would be dropped like dead weights in a race to the bottom...
>If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Capitalism is wonderful. A bunch of greedy business owners can act selfishly and thousands of poor Indians are lifted from poverty.
And yes, you are quite correct - once the Indian developers are no longer poor, capitalism will then attempt to lift others out of poverty. In fact, this is already happening - southeast Asia is the new "cheap" place, while India is becoming midrange on quality/cost.
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Note that as demonstrated by this thread, democracy will be far less effective at helping poor Indians/others than capitalism. A bunch of self-interested voters who talk about altruism while engaging in protectionism will do less to help the poor than even the worst bodyshop.
> Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Serious question - why patriotism for their country in preference to their state, country, city, continent, or planet? I've heard that Texas people don't like the rest of the USA. Perhaps they'd be more inclined to disallow out of state workers because their patriotism is applied at a different level than other Americans?
Or for that matter, while we are drawing arbitrary lines and applying economic protectionism, what's the intellectual argument against bringing back Jim Crow?
If one wants an economic "justification", I'm sure a quick google search can find articles a lot like this one - a quick stats dump with no controls showing that black people get paid less. Look at those greedy employers lowering wages by hiring black people!
Come on. The complaints are about the inegalitarian way market competition is used to drive down wages in specific sectors where workers are politically marginalized (tech rather than law, finance, medicine). People who suffer from this discrimination are not wrong to object to the selective commodification of their labour.
Additionally, the market-based alternative to H1-B is higher wages for domestic staff and expanded (and higher paying) contracting work abroad.
>what's the intellectual argument against bringing back Jim Crow?
Mostly that blacks have equal rights and are people too, so they should be paid the same. You know, like those Indians employers bring in so that can pay them less than American developers...
If they are all for equality and against "arbitrary lines", they can start by paying those immigrant workers the same...
>* Look at those greedy employers lowering wages by hiring black people!*
Only if one believed that black are somehow inferior would that be a logical conclusion.
In any other case, and assuming you're not racist, the problem is "paying less", not "paying black people", just in the case of Indian developers the problem is paying them less than Americans for work they do in the US.
And yeah, back in the day those Jim Crow employers also thought themselves very generous for giving those blacks a job. After all, like those "poor Indian developers", they would starve without it, so they would better appreciate it, even if it's smaller than what they'd pay whites...
Indians born in India are people too, yet people are advocating for economic protectionism against them. (Really, they are - I live in India, so if they weren't I'd be super lonely.)
You drew an arbitrary line at "patriotism" before. Why "patriotism (USA)" rather than "white nationalism" or "patriotism (CA)"? Just your personal preference?
Only if one believed that black are somehow inferior would that be a logical conclusion.
It's unclear to me how it would be a logical conclusion even if one did believe blacks are inferior on some dimension. Could you explain?
>So basically, only thing wrong with Jim Crow is that it is now unpopular? And if it becomes popular again, we should bring it back?
Why, has there been another measure of good in human history? (If one doesn't believe in any divine being handing down laws that is).
And I don't get the "moral high ground in hindsight" thing. If you lived in 1890, statistics say you'd most probably be all for Jim Crow too.
>Democracy is a pretty scary moral philosophy.
Better than the capitalism, which has no morals at all outside what society enforces upon it. If it could sell crack to small children or use people as slaves it would (and it does).
Where the main justification is the BS fabrication that "egotism works for the good of all in the end".
A possible measure of good is "does it harm people" but that ends up excluding everything, so add details like "does it harm people who are powerless to avoid that harm". You can decide right and wrong by yourself instead of just following the mob if you can work out some rules that aren't just a copy of current popular opinion. Popular opinion is actually a fairly poor go at it. It's mired in racism, patriotism, and similar tribal instincts which almost entirely encourage abuse of various classes of people.
Regarding capitalism, of course it needs controls, but on this subject, it's hard to see the harm in giving intelligent people opportunities that will benefit them. Sadly, popular opinion tells us that Indians deserve to be poor because they have the wrong parents (aka, citizens of a poor country).
I'm asking whether the popularity of a policy morally justifies it. I guess you think Jim Crow was morally justified.
Or to take a contemporary example, for reasons I don't understand Indians really seem to dislike Africans. I guess if we get Jim Krishna laws with popular support, you'll favor them also?
Better than the capitalism, which has no morals at all outside what society enforces upon it.
Yet capitalists view Indians and Africans as having "equal rights and are people too", unlike the protectionists.
>I'm asking whether the popularity of a policy morally justifies it. I guess you think Jim Crow was morally justified.
No, I think "morally justifies it" in the absolute sense (which you use it) is BS, since it assumes some pre-existing morality framework.
"Morally justified" only has sense in the "is it acceptable by the moral standards of a society/era". Of course, most people naively only take it to mean "is it acceptable by the standards of OUR society/era", which they consider as some absolute definition of morals.
Fact: for the people of time it WAS morally justified. Heck, slave owners themselves were respectable and celebrated members of society.
Owning slaves was just what one did if he could, just like for business owners today setting shop in impoverished areas not to offer the same wages as elsewhere but to take advantage of poverty to offer lower wages (as if those people are worth less) is "just what you do".
> If they are all for equality and against "arbitrary lines", they can start by paying those immigrant workers the same...
I agree, but it would have to come with granting an H1B to every applicant or having an open door immigration policy. Otherwise it's not paying them the same, it's "segregating" them to India where they have to suffer lower wages. Much like black people not being allowed to work in high paying jobs.
It's amazing that people can believe it's wrong to discriminate against race (accident of birth) while at the same time insist on discrimination against nationality (almost the same accident of birth).
Free market economics is often intentionally misunderstood because it doesn't fit into anyone's ideologies.
The left ignore the benefits of the free market, and pretend that there is a better system out there. They selfishly expect workers the developing world to respect the "right" of the Western middle class to high wages, as if magically other opportunities that don't involve competing with the Western middle class will arise.
The right want people to think that capitalism is magic, because they don't even want redistribution, which mainstream economists believe is something the market cannot do itself, and must be done by the government. The right want people to believe that all government intervention in the economy is equally bad, whether it is fixing the price of rent, providing medical services, or a negative income tax.
That said, I don't think H-1Bs are best used on average paid contractors. I know people earning a lot more money who missed out on the lottery. These people could have contributed a lot more to the economy.
EDIT: Added scare quotes around "right" in response to a comment.
> The right want people to think that capitalism is magic, because they don't even want redistribution, which mainstream economists believe is something the market cannot do itself, and must be done by the government.
The "government" is nothing but a collection of people who have used political acumen, and not technical or business skills, to gain control of a system.
They are really no different from the executives whom control various Fortune 500 companies, so in the long run, it seems unlikely that they will behave in a different matter, or ever put your wants and desires above theirs.
At least market-based systems, as described by Hayek, have some built in incentives to reward those in power to keep those without it happy.
I think you're wrong about the government. It has many caring and dedicated people, who want to make the nation, and the world, better. And I think most politicians truly believe in what they claim to stand for. So stating what the government should do is productive and important, because ultimately it guides what politicians do.
The ideology I support is free market economics with generous redistribution and government services. This has been put into practice in Australia, NZ, Canada, the UK and Scandinavia. The only serious deviation is in the concessions made to the labour union movement, but these have been lessening with time.
> It has many caring and dedicated people, who want to make the nation, and the world, better.
I am 50 yo, and have seen 100's of politicians come and go over my years, and I can count on one hand how many I believe have these values that you mention.
They all certainly try very, very hard to project this fiction, but time and time again, their actions have betrayed them.
My experience, guided by intelligence, tells me that most people who dedicate their lives to politics are megalomaniacs whom are only in it for the power and glory.
Their pay hinges on your belief that they care about you which is why they learn to act. Well acted kindness will always seem better than sincere kindness. Just look at movies if you don't believe me, the good actors there seem more living and real than your average joe on the street. And above all they wouldn't let others write their speeches if they were sincere.
I agree with most of the things you said, except on minor point, which I don't know is a wording issue or not: there is no "right to high wages", at best, it's a privileged.
