Hacker News Reader

Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

The reason for inequality is that people are not equal. The work they do produce is not equal in value. More people can do a janitor's job, and/or do without a janitor, so the value of a janitor's work is less. More supply, elastic demand, means lower price point.

Through technology, some people are able to produce much more than others, so inequality is inevitable unless there is a balancing force (aka taxation).

View on HN

Indeed, the value of keeping toilets sanitary is far greater than that of creating the next web app.

"This work is essential to the health of the population, but because of something to do with marginal economics and supply and demand and weak labor laws and class power and reserve supply of labor, I don't have to pay a proper wage, or even treat them like human beings!"

I'd say most web app developers can keep the toilets sanitary, if needed, with little training.

Nature doesn't have a "proper" wage. The temporary moat of other countries being destroyed by ww2 and less efficient travel and lack of computers meant labor supply was constructed. The situation has now changed so there is more supply of labor (similar to when women came into the work force). You can't fight supply and demand, the people with lower quality of life (in developing countries) will work for less than the richer ones, so their product is cheaper, and in the marketplace people will buy cheaper products (as evident in our situation today).

Value can be defined as how much people are willing to pay for it. Based on that, some webapps are worth more.

I think it's useful to remember that the work of one webapp developer can positively affect the lives of millions of people. Tech yields a counterintuitive amount of leverage.

Diamonds are also more expensive than water. But of course water is more valuable than diamonds.

Price is not about total value provided to society but about the marginal value of one more diamond, 1 more gallon of water, 1 more janitor or 1 more programmer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value

Mimnimum wages, mandatory health insurance / vacation, ...

All the things every country in the world does except one.

In Soviet Russia you get even more. Not kidding. Do you want to move there?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Maybe he is referring to the fact that the Soviet bloc also gave you a job and a flat to live in.

Exactly: they give you stuff, only to have the impression you have something and someone cares. Actually, nobody does not, the citizen is just a milk cow.

Are you trying to claim the United States doesn't have those?

Because it currently has 2 of those (minimum wage and a health insurance mandate) at the federal level.

The United States have both of those implemented in exactly the wrong way: the minimum wage is livable nowhere, and there is still people without health insurance in the US today.

Minimum wage is hardly livable anywhere in the western world so that has nothing to do with US. Show me any country in Europe where living in minimum wage means anything else than poverty in all but name.

Your first paragraph, on supply and demand, is fairly accurate, but to say that "some people are able to produce much more than others" is oversimplifying.

Consider a fast food restaurant with one cleaner, two people at the tills, three people in the kitchen, and one manager. Remove any of them and the lines will become too long, the place will become unacceptably dirty, etc. However, none of the employees is "producing" more than any other.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used individuals, but in my opinion, it's easy to see that a team of engineers automating a factory produce, via their machines, much more than thousands of the factory workers who were doing rote work day after day.

The people that developed email and whatnot produced more than the people who deliver mail, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com