logoalt Hacker News

satvikpendemlast Sunday at 3:40 PM3 repliesview on HN

If your local economy pays you $0.001/day instead, then congratulations, you now make 10x more than everyone else. It doesn't matter how much a dollar is worth elsewhere in the world, because purchasing power parity exists. It's like me being mad that on a hypothetical Mars people make a million dollars a day, that does not affect me whatsoever.


Replies

GTPlast Sunday at 4:21 PM

Let's make a concrete example. I'm from Italy, currently living abroad. The salary I was getting where I am now, was almost double what I was offered in my home country. We're told that the cost of living in Italy is also lower than other EU countries. While this is true, it isn't half of the rest of the EU.

I'm now in a situation where I could go back to Italy, but the above is one of the reasons that makes me doubt wheter it would be a good outcome or not.

This is to answer your point about purchasing power. With an Italian salary (considering the same tech job), my purchasing power there would still be lower than my purchasing power here with a local salary.

show 1 reply
ceejayozlast Sunday at 3:43 PM

> If your local economy pays you $0.001/day instead, then congratulations, you now make 10x more than everyone else.

Sure. The kapos at concentration camps got better food and treatment, too.

That doesn't make it a fair, happy, or good arrangement.

show 1 reply
miyojilast Sunday at 3:48 PM

This isn't the question.

The question is how much value do they add? If it's more than the money they're making, the people paying them are stealing. You don't like this because it makes it impossible to make money as a capitalist, but that's the entire argument. Making money as a capitalist is always unethical, because it necessarily involves stealing the value of someone else's labor.

Just because you can pay someone $1 to do something that makes you $10 doesn't mean it's ethical. It isn't, ever.

show 1 reply