Those industries don't pay well to anyone involved but are a global benefit. Such a strange world we live in.
I have no idea what the case was in this specific industry in India. But in many developing countries, first world companies collaborate with government and pay off private muscle to make it impossible for workers to organize and earn anything in that middle ground.
(I do not mean to imply that you deny this possibility. But there are many on HN who uncritically believe that if workers take a job, it is therefore a fair wage taken voluntarily.)
Reminds me of the Libertarian Police Department (https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...):
> "Do we have any leads?”
> “Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
> “Easy, chief,” I said. “-Any- rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
> He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
That's what labour market competition between employers (or employment opportunities, because people can strike out on their own) is for.
More and stiffer competition is better.
> (I do not mean to imply that you deny this possibility. But there are many on HN who uncritically believe that if workers take a job, it is therefore a fair wage taken voluntarily.)
I don't know what definition of 'fair' you want to use here. It's taken voluntarily in some sense. But so is the choice between starving vs cannibalism, if you have no other options. So that's not a very useful distinction.
If you want to help people, you not to improve their options, make sure that better options can be provided. That's very different from outlawing bad options, and just the opposite. (Ie giving the would-be cannibal access to some bread is actually helpful. Just banning cannibalism on the lifeboat only leads to starvation, if there are no other options.)
Conditions in the ship breaking industry will improve as other industries compete for workers with them.
For comparison, have a look at the working conditions of eg nannies in England today vs 800 years ago. They do essentially the same job, but get paid so much more in real terms. And not out of any generosity by their employers.
(You can pick many other professions, too.)
We know from the history of enclosure that the starvation was an intentional strategy to compel people into wage work. There were guides to how to do enclosure that advised lords against planting fruit trees, because the peasants would eat the fruit from the trees and therefore not want to engage in work.
The rich often pay 0% tax but we're still doing nothing about it. We'll never do anything about it.
That's extortion...
A dentist requiring payment before preforming surgery didn’t cause your tooth decay and they have no obligation to help you. Same deal here, someone offering a job is offering the possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship, but that’s as far as it goes.
> A dentist ... have no obligation to help you.
btw, this is region dependent. Medical services are just businesses in the US, but doctors are obligated to provide emergency cares by law in many regions.
No that’s an issue directly caused by a 3rd party. Hunger is imposed not by an individual but by biology.
> doctors are obligated to provide emergency cares by law in many regions.
There’s some confusion around what is the responsibility of an emergency room and individuals, but UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, etc don’t require doctors to act in an emergency. The US requires emergency rooms to protect treatment in an actual emergency but not everything qualifies. https://www.acep.org/life-as-a-physician/ethics--legal/emtal....
Every country is different but few require doctors to act in an Emergency and non for general care, it’s basically a handful of European countries and Australia. Even then it’s a minimal level of treatment.
Maybe extortion isn't the right word, but it's certainly not voluntary exchange either.
So what food do you expect to be freely available?
Anyway a voluntary exchange doesn’t mean equal leverage for all parties. I’m not going to negotiate a windows license with Microsoft it’s take it or leave it. Which is the hart of a voluntary exchange, either party can walk away without one party forcing their will on the other.
Predators evolve to exploit and kill those with abundance, and humans are expert predators. A vast portion of the civilized world it seems, was built directly from slavery and warfare. Slavery is very profitable, and wage slavery is alive today.
The simplistic example of food-scarcity is Reductio ad absurdum, to use the language of a top-line predator tribe from long ago.
Nature is brutal. Starvation is one of the most common ways for animals to die, though still behind being eaten. Humanity has largely improved upon this natural state as even being enslaved beats being consumed alive.
There's nothing strange about it just as there's nothing strange about cobalt mining conditions in Democratic Republic of Congo: exploitative trade agreements, political corruption, and apathy.
Is it bad when a lion kills another animal? In a way yes, it's extra death that could be preventable, in another way it's what it is. Is it strange or bad if a human is born dumber than average? What about if a human is born more narcissistic than average and does bad things?
It leaves open the possibility of you the writer also being wrong, so it comes across as humbly sharing an opinion.
> Some people use the phrase, naturalistic fallacy or appeal to nature, in a different sense, to characterize inferences of the form "Something is natural; therefore, it is morally acceptable"
> Again, it is what it is, there's no moral attachment to my comment.
and
> "Something is natural; therefore, it is morally acceptable"
And by definition, 50% of babies are.
It is an attempt to switch the roles between what the conventional, familiar, and safe what is unconventional, weird, and strange.
Paying workers according to "benefit" is not tried and true. It has real challenges and problems.
It's pretty clear that are are trying to manipulate readers through your suggestive use of "strange". You're not actually confused by it - you're trying to suggest something about labor laws or pay or something without actually making a point, through the use of suggestive language. People do not talk like that unless they're adding a subtext.