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Comment by azinman2 | Hacker News Reader

> The moderators from Kenya and other African countries were tasked from 2019 to 2023 with checking posts emanating from Africa and in their own languages but were paid eight times less than their counterparts in the US, according to the claim documents

Why would pay in different countries be equivalent? Pretty sure FB doesn’t even pay the same to their engineers depending on where in the US they are, let alone which country. Cost of living dramatically differs.

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Some products have factories in multiple countries. For example, Teslas are produced in both US and China. The cars produced in both countries are more or less identical in quality. But do you ever see that the market price of the product is different depending on the country of manufacture?

If the moderators in Kenya are providing the same quality labor as those from the US, why the difference in price of their labor?

I have a friend who worked for FAANG and had to temporarily move from US to Canada due to visa issues, while continuing to work for the same team. They were paid less in Canada. There is no justification for this except that the company has price setting power and uses it to exploit the sellers of labor.

A million things factor into market dynamics. I don’t know why this is such a shocking or foreign concept. Why is a waitress in Alabama paid less than in San Francisco for the same work? It’s a silly question because the answers are both obvious and complex.

The obvious answer being that corporations want to maximize profit from cheaper labor by extracting the same value at the lowest possible cost? Just because location has historically been the determining factor doesn't mean it has to continue this way though. I don't know why it is such a shocking or foreign concept that people would prefer to be paid according to the value they produce.

> Why would pay in different countries be equivalent?

Why 8 times less?

Because that’s the only reason why anyone would hire them. If you’ve ever worked with this kind of contract workforce they aren’t really worth it without massive cost-per-unit-work savings. I suppose one could argue it’s better that they be unemployed than work in this job but they always choose otherwise when given the choice.

Because people chose to take the jobs, so presumably they thought it was fair compensation compared to alternatives. Unless there's evidence they were coerced in some way?

Note that I'm equating all jobs here. No amount of compensation makes it worth seeing horrible things. They are separate variables.

No amount? So you wouldn't accept a job to moderate Facebook for a million dollars a day? If you would, then surely you would also do it for a lower number. There is an equilibrium point.

> So you wouldn't accept a job to moderate Facebook for a million dollars a day?

I would hope not.

Sorry, but I don't believe you. You could work for a month or two and retire. Or hell, just do it for one day and then return to your old job. That's a cool one mill in the bank.

My point is, job shittiness can be priced in.

> work for a month or two and retire --> This is a dream of many, but there exist a set of people that really like their job and have no intention to retire

> just do it for one day and then return to your old job. --> Cool mill in the bank and dreadful images in your head. Perhaps Apitman feels he has enough cash and wont be happier with a million (more?).

Also your point is true but lacks of Facebook interest to elevate that number. I guess it was more a theorical reflexion than an argument for concrete economie.

GDP per capita in Kenya is a little less than $2k. In the United States, it’s a bit over $81k.

Median US salary is about $59k. Gross national income (not an identical measure but close) in Kenya about $2.1k.

1/8th is disproportionately in favor of the contractors, relative to market.

Because prices are determined by supply and demand

The same is true for poverty and the poor that will work for any amount, the cheap labor the rich needs to make riches.

> Why would pay in different countries be equivalent?

Because it's exploitative otherwise. It's just exploiting the fact that they're imprisoned within borders.

It is also exploiting the fact that humans need food and shelter to live and money is used to acquire those things.

That's only exploitation if you combine it with fact of the enclosure of the commons and that all land and productive equipment on Earth is private or state property and that it's virtually impossible to just go farm or hunt for yourself without being fucked with anymore, let alone do anything more advanced without being shut down violently.

That's actually an interesting question. I would love to see some data on whether it really is impossible for the average person to live off the land if they wanted to.

An adjacent question is whether there are too many people on the planet for that to be an option anymore even if it were legal.

>An adjacent question is whether there are too many people on the planet for that to be an option anymore even if it were legal.

Do you mean for everyone to be hunter-gatherers? Yes, that would be impossible. If you mean for a smaller number then it depends on the number.

Yeah I think it would be interesting to know how far over the line we are.

Probably way, way over the line. Population sizes exploded after the agricultural revolution. I wouldn't be surprised if the maximum is like 0.1-1% of the current population. If we're talking about strictly eating what's available without any cultivation at all, nature is really inefficient at providing for us.

>the enclosure of the commons and that all land and productive equipment on Earth is private or state property and that it's virtually impossible to just go farm or hunt for yourself without being fucked with anymore, let alone do anything more advanced without being shut down violently.

How would land allocation work without "enclosure of the commons"? Does it just become a free-for-all? What happens if you want to use the land for grazing but someone else wants it for growing crops? "enclosure of the commons" conveniently solves all these issues by giving exclusive control to one person.

Elinor Ostrom covered this extensively in her Nobel Prize-winning work if you are genuinely interested. Enclosure of the commons is not the only solution to the problems.

Interesting perspective. I wonder if you yourself take part in the exploitation by purchasing things made/grown in poor countries due to cost.

vegans die of malnutrition.

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

If that's the case then there can also be no ethical employment, either, both for employer and for employee. So that would seem to average out to neutrality.

This is precisely the sort of situation where taking the average is an awful way to ignore injustice - the poor get much poorer and the rich get much richer but everything is ‘neutral’ on average.

“There is no ethical X under capitalism” is not license to stick our heads in the sand and continue to consume without a second thought for those who are being exploited. It’s a reminder that things need to change, not only in all the little tiny drop-in-a-bucket ways that individuals can afford to contribute.

Exactly. It means that we must continue to act ethically within the system that is the way it is now, which we must accept, while at the same time doing our best to change that system for the better. It's a "why not both" situation.

>This is precisely the sort of situation where taking the average is an awful way to ignore injustice - the poor get much poorer and the rich get much richer but everything is ‘neutral’ on average.

That has nothing to do with the ethics of capitalism, though. The poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer is not a foregone conclusion of a capitalist society, nor is it guaranteed not to happen in a non-capitalist society.

You haven't actually explained why it's bad, only slapped an evil sounding label on it. What's "exploitative" in this case and why is it morally wrong?

>they're imprisoned within borders

What's the implication of this then? That we remove all migration controls?

Of course. Not all at once, but gradually over time like the EU has begun to do. If capital and goods are free to move, then so must labor be. The labor market is very far from free if you think about it.

Paying local market rates is not exploitative.

Artificially creating local market rates by trapping people is.

In what sense were these local rates "created artificially"? Are you suggesting that these people are being forced to work agaisnt their will?

In the sense that I named twice above. ;)

Nah bro you’re misunderstanding me, because if the worker said "no" then the answer obviously is "no,”

But the thing is she's not gonna say "no", she would never say "no" because of the implication.

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