Sure it's downward pressure on US wages without the benefits of having an employer, but for third worlders, $15 USD must be mana from heaven.
Calling it a "Software Sweatshop" is a little hyperbolic.
Calling it a "Software Sweatshop" is a little hyperbolic.
For acceptable Indian developers this is normal wage. You get all the benefits of outsourcing from something like this as well as all the problems.
He's bought out many contracts through companies that were not doing so great. Over time the companies that he's servicing contracts for will understand the quality of code they are getting for their money and perhaps change their minds. I give it 10 years.
This model is waning. Eastern Europeans now flock to East Asia in swathes, and are way way more aware of global job market.
This also creates a factor of negative selection: talents leave right after graduation, and remaining labour force is not suited to "evolve" and progress without a guiding force.
If you can't utilize someone to their potential because of some political or social barrier, that's an absolute shame.
It is definitely mana from heaven, but the barriers can be somewhat high depending on the contractor's locale:
1) they need to be able to successfully navigate their own country's tax and self-employment paperwork and regulations;
2) they need enough up-front capital to purchase powerful-enough equipment to do the job in the first place; and
3) they need telecom infrastructure that presumably supports high-speed internet (i.e. faster than dial-up).
Lol, imagine as the farmers are in the fields, and merchants in the shops grinding away to make a few dollars a day. This remote dev is making a 10x multiple of their pay. Sweatshop? Ha.
They cost a tiny fraction of $15/hour so I don't see how this is a capital-constrained job for anyone.
The theoretically necessary self-employment paperwork is not going to be a meaningful barrier to action in most developing countries.
Right, this was the deal offered to Western factory workers: you, your family and your friends will be tossed on the scrapheap when the factory that employed most of the town goes offshore, but some people you’ve never met 10,000 miles away will be slightly better off, and some other people you’ve never met will enjoy slightly cheaper consumer products.
And people wonder why those people vote as they do.
When the West had an industrial culture, we could compete with inexpensive labor because we had superior skill concentration, logistics, and capital investment. If you're willing to pay a premium, do so. It was Consumer indifference that let it happen.
Everyone gets paid at a rate relative to their local cost of living, remember. Being “cheaper” offshore is merely an artefact of exchange rates and tariffs.
Because you're a human who's part of a society, not just a cog in a capitalist's machine. What you said makes sense, but only from a blinkered point of view that treats market forces as morality. You might as well turn it around and ask yourself why the person with skills from a poorer place shouldn't get the higher wage.
Why is it inherently moral for me to get a certain benefit vs someone else, why would that change depending on where I am or where they are, where I'm from or where they are from?
I personally prefer working with people I can have a high level discussion with and they deliver their portion with best practices, good communication, baked in. That's valuable. I believe it makes your work distinct from someone without those skills.
If it were all anonymous and I can make no distinction, you're equally valuable. There are cases where people from poorer places should and do get the higher wage.
Why shouldn't that person get the higher wage? That person is also part of a society.
Ideally, they should. The problem comes in when a capitalist plays a labor arbitrage game that causes economic damage to real people in his home area, just so he can pocket the difference in labor costs.
Questions like...
>>> If your work can't be differentiated from someone elses, why should you command a higher wage?
...are pretty much always asked from the perspective of a labor-buying capitalist looking to maximize her own profits, regardless of externalities. Those questions have an insidious pseudo-moral tone that holds up the capitalist's profit over other concerns, and that subtly paints a worker's desire to make a respectable local wage as selfish.
It's very rare to turn the question around (at least from a position of power) to challenge the capitalist's decision-making.
US farmers - ~$9.50 USD a month ~1850's Euro labourer -~$652.44 USD a month ~1850's
Silver value in USD: https://commodityhq.com/education/a-brief-2000-year-history-...
References -
US Labour Rate(Farmers - page 6): https://www.nber.org/chapters/c2486.pdf
Europe Labour Rates (Labourer - pages 6): https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/media/2150/allen-greatdiv.pdf