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Comment by guerrilla | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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