Live in housekeepers are very common indeed in Singapore. However, majority of Singapore lives in Housing Development Board flats that do not have any separate entrance into kitchen.
I've yet to uncover a case of literal slavery like TFA though. One could argue the workers aren't getting paid enough and I'd agree, but the workers are getting paid.
It was very, very common before that tho. We shouldn't forget so to not repeat.
However, they were paid (I have no idea whether it was a good wage, or not), and had pretty decent quarters (in Morocco). My parents were pretty kind, fairly liberal, people. I would be quite surprised (and shocked) if they took advantage of the servants. I know that my mother made damn sure that I had respect for poor folks.
The downside is that they get no benefits.
Practically-speaking, inequality is insidious because it enables violations of rights and unjust denial of opportunity even when poverty has been eradicated. Cold comfort, to the middle-class family of people mowed down by a rich motorist who faces negligible jail time because the money they can spend on a lawyer is outside the scope of what the legal system is built to handle.
Inequality has no moral characteristics. It is not "insidious." The fact that disparate effort and disparate circumstance lead to disparate outcomes is just that; a simple cold fact.
That some people use their power or wealth to take advantage of others is a moral issue. But again, this is orthogonal to disparity of outcome. Or do you claim poor people never steal from other poor people, or that rich people never steal from other rich people?
Envy is not the basis of poverty, need is.
Your post is proof of the insidiousness of inequality. It allows for outcomes to be warped by the presence or lack of aggregated capital, without presenting a direct attack on outcomes. As long as you are able to limit the contextual scope, you are able to claim a "just world", even when clear injustice is extant.
It is then important to insist that the scope stay broad enough to involve all related implications.
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." This suggests that there is a functional relationship between the size of power imbalances and the amount of corruption that exists. It is not that some people use their power or wealth to take advantage of others; it is that inordinate power and wealth ensures that abuses will occur.
That is not in evidence. You may be thinking of inflationary pressures causing the poverty income level to be adjusted upward. This is not a result of income inequality. It is a result of supply and demand.
> "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
That is an aphorism, not a universal truth, and holds zero moral weight. You may be judged as corrupt by what you do, not by what you have.
> ...inordinate power and wealth ensures that abuses will occur.
No. This is envy as evidence. It doesn't work that way. Your use of the word "inordinate" is also meaningless from an economic or policy stance. Who decides what is inordinate? What qualifies a level as inordinate?
There is only one equilibrium state with full equality: vacuum. In an economic sense this is where zero exchange of value occurs. It is system-death.
In a just world, you keep what you earn. You reap what you sow. When someone powerful steps out of line you punish them. If they do not, there is no reason to punish them. Pre-punishment because "they probably will" is propaganda from the dictator. We don't want that.
Consider that you just haven't found something useful for me to do.
If it's too much for you, I guess you could stop. If wouldn't be your fault if I couldn't keep things together.
>This is not a result of income inequality. It is a result of supply and demand.
Incorrect. Inequality increases the pool of wealth with which "haves" may bid up the prices of commodities, real property, and services. And they do, effectively increasing demand. Transitively, inequality drives inflation, i.e., local conditions.
>That is an aphorism, not a universal truth
You might want to revisit the definition of "aphorism". (It generally includes the word "truth".)
>You may be judged as corrupt by what you do, not by what you have.
And have another: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Implicit is that you will hammer nails. Property is intrinsically tied with action. Held power is to be wielded, even when it's not warranted; the only way not to is to give it up.
>This is envy as evidence.
I would love to understand this obsession with envy among the elite. If I take your gun and immediately throw it into the ocean, was that envy?
It's funny to me that you deride a "system-zero" world and then immediately champion a "just world". They're the same thing. And though you may believe in it, I never said I did.
The practical solution to a world with increasing (wealth) inequality is to decrease it. It will never reach zero. That's not the point. It's to affect the balance of power so that when someone powerful steps out of line, it is possible to punish them; so that things earned can be kept (and so that he definition of "earn" may be reasonable itself); so that we're not forced to consider the farce of referring to a reaction to someone's previously-accumulated wealth as "pre-punishment."
>What qualifies a level as inordinate?
One could say that it's relative.
Impossible if there's competition between producers and it's at world scale.
> What if some people are just bad at doing things for themselves?
Tyrannies begin with those kind of ideas.
And inflation is a General increase in prices, not the increase of a specific good.
That's a goalpost move if I've ever seen it. Maybe a No True Scotsman fallacy, too.
Geography confers varying conditions at world scale. Hence, "local" is the window. And producers create cartels unless regulated; wealth accrues to itself, capital returns more than labor. Piketty.
>Tyrannies begin with those kind of ideas.
You can't see me but I'm rolling my eyes.
Pretending to know better than other people what that other people should choose our want - and imposing it - is tyrannical.
>if it doesn't work don't blame capitalism, blame governments
Corporate capture is why government can't function in this regard.
>Pretending to know better than other people what that other people should choose our want - and imposing it - is tyrannical.
No one has to pretend, they can just prove it. That's not tyranny, it's reason.
Do you believe that the same government people that is influenced by lobbying is going to vote to close the ways in which corporations give them money to control their decisions? How could that happen?
> No one has to pretend, they can just prove it. That's not tyranny, it's reason.
Tyrants believe that they know what's reasonable for the people to do with their lives, and as is often there case a lot of people don't agree with them, so then they use force to coerce people to do what they will.
There's no reasonable way to prove how people must live.
I just told you.
>Tyrants believe that they know what's reasonable for the people to do with their lives, and as is often there case a lot of people don't agree with them, so then they use force to coerce people to do what they will.
All of that is true. And it has no bearing here, because we're not talking about tyranny. A society that redistributes wealth because the redistribution of wealth has been proven to promote a healthier society (along objective metrics) is not suffering from tyranny, no matter how much you, personally, feel like you've been wronged. That sense may very well be disordered. A million people shouldn't have to suffer because one person is aggrieved that his advantages were stripped. In this case, your aviation is a confession, and you're the one promoting tyranny.
What I also believe is that reducing poverty is a much better goal than redistributing wealth. Redistributing wealth can be a valid strategy for reducing poverty.
That the justice can be persuaded in a certain direction with money is a weakness of the system. I don't think you would consider equal and just that every person could influence justice. The problem is the justice system.
>That the justice can be persuaded in a certain direction with money is a weakness of the system
It's a weakness of any system with overbearing inequality. Equal societies don't face this issue to the same extent because those wronged can mount an equal defense or offense as those doing the wrong, at which point righteousness should prevail.
Even with wealth equality, as long as there's scarcity, some people would try to gain advantages over others with means different than money: e.g advantageous connections with others, deception, etc. There's corruption among poor people, and rich people also steal from other rich people.
An utopic idea of equality blocks the capacity of observing how things work.
He says, without citation.
>Even with wealth equality, as long as there's scarcity, some people would try to gain advantages over others with means different than money
No one says that wealth equality leads to an absolutely equal society; that's a straw man. What is incontrovertibly true, and empirically proven to be so, is that societies that are more equal in terms of wealth are less unequal socially, and see fewer negative outcomes that can be attributed to any disparity that does exist, wealth or otherwise. This is because we are talking about effects directly downstream of resource allocation, and monetary wealth is the primary way resources are denominated. Maybe if commodities were priced directly in Twitter follower count or bench press, you'd have a point.
The poor and rich are not equally corrupt (again, something shown empirically).
> The poor and rich are not equally corrupt
He said, without citation. Also it seems you don't know much about poor people.
You should use one.
>He said, without citation. Also it seems you don't know much about poor people.
It is a structural impossibility for a poor person to be as absolutely corrupt from an extrinsic viewpoint as a rich person, as much as it is a physical impossibility for an ant to be as absolutely strong as a bear. You're conflating some measure of (subjective) inner morality with actual effects in the real world.
Happy World Cup.
In the same way there are poor persons who cause a lot of suffering to others without being rich.
As the number of poor persons is bigger than the number of rich people, the accumulated potential for good or evil they have, adding their individual evil or good, is probably bigger than the good or evil potential of rich people
Ghandi was not poor. He was a trained lawyer with experience working abroad who adopted some practices in solidarity with people who were actually suffering in poverty. Just because he wasn't a millionaire doesn't mean that he hadn't accrued significant social capital, and the influence over economic capital that this represented. His capacity for good was rooted in this dual capital access; he did not necessarily have a similar capacity for evil, because social capital is not fungible in the same way that economic capital is.
But without either form of capital, one's reach is commensurately shortened, so no, such a poor person does not have the same capability to "cause a lot of suffering" as someone who is rich.
>As the number of poor persons is bigger than the number of rich people, the accumulated potential for good or evil they have, adding their individual evil or good, is probably bigger than the good or evil potential of rich people
Astonishingly, wealth inequality has ballooned to the point that the holdings of the top percent or so so dwarf that of the rest of the planet that it overcomes the population disparity.
Those servants will be richer in a few decades but will still be in that situation.
These are all examples of inequality.
>There's is poor people who exploit other poor people. Poor people that sends children to work for example. Only the rich can use power for evil?
Rich people have greater reach to do evil commensurate with their wealth. It is a matter of such a degree that it becomes a qualitative difference.
>And it's impossible for the smarter one to lend intelligence to another, and to the stronger one to give muscles to the weaker one.
Did you think before you wrote this?
It would be better to just admit that you're wrong.
In a hierarchical organization like a government there will be different power levels.
So, there are inequalities you cannot level. And you suggest that reducing wealth inequality will make the world better. I don't know, I still believe that aiming at reducing poverty is a better goal.
Why? Because without poverty people won't suffer because of survival needs. And without inequality you don't guarantee that there's no poverty.
To me, only a very envious person would put equality over reducing poverty.
>And you suggest that reducing wealth inequality will make the world better. I don't know, I still believe that aiming at reducing poverty is a better goal.
They're the same thing. You only refuse to see it because you expect your personal wealth to fall. You jealously guard a dysfunctional status quo for illogical and selfish reasons.
That's you opinion and is not an absolute fact. At least you can see that it's debatable:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/19/poverty-...
And your suppositions about my motives are wrong.
Edit: my motives are that I simply believe that they are not the same, just that.
That reducing wealth inequality makes a more fair and prosperous world for the vast majority of people is about as much of an opinion as saying that reducing pollutant exposure reduces cancer risk.
And if you claim that those are "simply" your motives, you're not speaking in good faith.
Consider that the URSS and Cuba were about redistributing wealth and it didn't end well there.
And yes, those were simply my motives, I also would like everyone to be happy and capable of attending to their basic needs in the world.
Another big factor is the victim simply not knowing any better. Not being able to read might have helped with that (and I'd guess she probably wasn't allowed a phone, to keep her isolated from outside).
Point is there's a lot of space between "whips & chains" and "paying below minimum wage". Unfortunately some people are really good at exploiting that space.
Education and a society's culture are certainly important too.
> Education and a society's culture are certainly important too.
Agreed.
That's a good example. Curtailing voter rights is another. And then there's money -> influence on media.
The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere.
The hallmark of developing or underdeveloped countries is precisely the staggering levels of inequality.
Not everyone is poor in a developing/underdeveloped country. Quite a few people there live lives that would make upper middle classes in developed countries blush. Life "just" sucks for the majority of people there.
Nope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
Developed-but-very-unequal, and less-developed-but-more-equal are a thing.
Also, I have my own standard (https://xkcd.com/927/):
Do you prefer perfect equality in poverty, or some inequality and some wealth, a mixture of coexisting inequality and wealth.
Would you say USA is a developed country, considering for example Los Angeles slums? And there's a bigger inequality between Elon musk and a well paid software developer than between a poor person in a developing country and a rich politician from that country.
I'm not saying anything (directly). We have definitions for these things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
According to any way we currently categorize developed countries, the US is one of them.
- "The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere."
- "they go together" (poverty and inequality).
- The US is a developed country.
- The US has a great wealth inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
What you say implies contradictions.
There's is poor people who exploit other poor people. Poor people that sends children to work for example. Only the rich can exploit? You are not using the definition of exploitation from the dictionaries. A stronger or armed person has a power differential with a weaker person. A smarter and less smart person too.
So, exploitation doesn't seem to be related exclusively to wealth inequality. It's a moral thing, not a matter of wealth differences.
A simple narrative of "us-good VS them-bad" is reductionistic.
For the owner or the servant?
Unlike when you use an app, for the most part, because we're not psychopaths, living with someone every day for months or years causes us to feel a great affinity and care towards them.
I live in a developing country. Some people treat their live-in staff badly. But for many others, this is not the case.
Imagine you are a high-earner and hard worker and so you and your wife get a live-in nanny to assist with childrearing duties. Often, two or three decades later, the live-in nanny is ready to retire, but your children (whom you love) have come to see her as a member of the family, or even as a second mother. Surely you also do. How can you live with someone for 20-30 years and not care about them? You might thus often take care of her for the rest of her life, even though she has her own savings.
(No, I do not have live-in house staff. But I've had the same maid for 7 years and she knows she can come to me if she needs anything.)
How one treats someone else is probably mostly just a reflection of the individual. But it's harder to disregard someone's humanity when they live in your house and you've know them for years.
Yet, the end result is still quite similar to slavery. Why do you suppose the servants stay, instead of living a life of their own? I think you’ll find the answer there.
Are you saying if they were simply paid slightly more money and forced to seek their own food and shelter in whatever abject conditions they could afford, like minimum-wage and rural workers in most first-world countries, they would be better off? Or do you have more insightful suggestions? “Pay more” is always the easy answer people go with, especially while not wanting to pay more for anything, so I’m excited to hear a fresh and unique take on poverty.