Hacker News Reader

Comment by causi | Hacker News Reader

Four years ago, despite possessing a per capita wealth level comparable to Western Europe

How long are we going to pretend that native citizens are the only people that count in countries where half the population is foreign slave-labor?

View on HN

Population and per-capita income figures typically include non-citizens too.

it says nothing about inequalities or the way people live. it can mean some privileged saudis have largely higher income than the average european.

And? Saudi Arabia's Gini coefficient is about the same as Mexico. And not particularly worse compared to Turkey or the USA.

As long as our society is built on fossil energy bought from the slave owners

All civilizations from Ancient Egypt to Western Europe were built on slave labour. Ever heard of colonialism? Where do you think your Nike shoes and Apple iPhones and Starbucks coffee are produced? You think Westerners don't live off the labours of Asians and Africans on dirt poor wages?

First of all: nothing of that, even if applying, does not counter criticism of ongoing slavery.

> You think Westerners don't live off the labours of Asians and Africans on dirt poor wages?

That is far less bad than outright slavery.

> Where do you think your Nike shoes and Apple iPhones and Starbucks coffee are produced?

I do not own or owned or used any of this products and in general try to avoid such products.

> Ever heard of colonialism?

Yeah, my country was victim of it. (hilariously, there were attempt to engage in it - interrupted by getting colonised)

> All civilizations from Ancient Egypt to Western Europe were built on slave labour.

Not all of them (OK, serfdom and feudalism was really really bad but has not reached full-blown slavery).

While you're right to a degree this relationship is still beneficial to those laborers in Asia at least to some level. Due to western investment their living conditions generally have improved quite significantly to what it was in the past.

Just look at China now and 30-40 years ago. Especially when you compare it to countries which didn't become manufacturing hubs like India and some other others in the region (and especially Africa).

> this relationship is still beneficial to those laborers in Asia at least

I can’t take any opinion about Western saviours seriously.

Western currencies are over valued and propped up by colonial structures and theft.

Western societies exist off the back of outsourced labor - nearly equivalent to slavery, but sure let’s act like it’s /way/ better, since they’re not “owned” anymore.

> Western societies exist off the back of outsourced labor - nearly equivalent to slavery, but sure let’s act like it’s /way/ better, since they’re not “owned” anymore.

conflating this two is absurd (my current freelancing contract is also outsourced labor, allowing me to earn about 5 times average wage or 15 times minimum wage and is not slavery in any way)

some of outsourced labor is bad, but not because it is outsourced labor

Most outsourced labor is bad, all /manual/ labor is bad - it’s outsourced because the non-west are seen as grunt slaves.

Please don’t be disingenuous - I’m not talking about IT desk jobs and you know that.

Not all manual outsourced labor is bad.

Also, you can have IT desk jobs with horrific condition for workers.

None of that changes the fact that all manual labor is outsourced for profit/control, and not benevolence like OP implied.

Whataboutism.

Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962...

In law, yes. In practice, your destiny is between the lips of your “sponsor”. They can demand anything from you, like monthly payments, to keep sponsoring you. Basically, the foreigners have no power and the system extremely heavily favors Saudis over everyone else.

Are foreigners free to leave their "sponsor"?

To leave the country, you need an exit visa which requires the consent of your employer or sponsor.

So, no.

Personally I would never take the risk of taking employment in an autocratic country that requires an exit visa. They could pay me annual seven figures, but it makes no difference because they'd be able to extract whatever they want from me as a condition of departure. Imagine being held in a cell at the Riyadh airport until you wire them all the money in your foreign bank accounts. Nothing at all stops them from doing that.

If you don't believe this could happen to Western expats, read this story about KPMG employees in Saudi Arabia:

https://www.ft.com/content/45f2eda8-9219-4aa5-9434-277d74ea1...

'Several former employees suspected they were under some form of surveillance by KPMG Saudi Arabia while working in the kingdom. One says he was followed by a car whenever he left his compound while exit negotiations were ongoing. He says he had safety concerns “every day” during this period “and any time I stepped out of the security of the compound”.

'Another former employee only agreed to speak to the FT from a hotel landline while travelling in Europe in case their mobile phone was being monitored. “As you know we are being watched in Saudi,” the person said.

'A third former employee says that when he finally left Saudi Arabia for good, he deliberately took a circuitous route via Bahrain so as to avoid being tracked or blocked from leaving by the firm or its government contacts. He compared the behaviour of KPMG Saudi Arabia’s leadership and the fear it instils in employees to the John Grisham novel The Firm, a thriller in which a lawyer becomes entangled in a corporate plot. “I was in fear for my own safety,” he says. “I would not have taken my young family to the Middle East had I known. [That fear] just should not exist today.”

Still though, most of those people come to the gulf countries voluntarily. Not that it justifies the abuse, however I presume they are still escaping an environment that's not much better. Or at least the meager allows them to escape it to some degree. What else would expect that new people keep coming to those states?

So it seems a bit better than slavery, more like wage slavery many immigrants to North America faced during the 19th century. Of course the migrants workers in Saudi Arabia and gulf states are certainly aware that they will never will be integrated into the local society unlike the European immigrants.

They made some changes to their kafala system last year that makes it a possibility without needing employer's consent, but under very specific circumstances that don't apply to majority of workers.

For example one of those rules is a full year of employment, but non-skilled workers rarely stay that long to begin with.

Perfect example of doing something that counts as "progress" while not actually changing anything.

no they take away your passport.

Wow 1962 seems ridiculously late, for abolishing slavery. But it checks out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com