Reply to post: Re: "Apart from the fact that the cost of living is higher in Silicon Valley than Bangladesh."

Google security engineer says she was fired for daring to remind Googlers they do indeed have labor rights

DavCrav

Re: "Apart from the fact that the cost of living is higher in Silicon Valley than Bangladesh."

"Just because the SillyCon Valley worker is paid too much. Pay them as much as in Bangladesh and the cost of living in SillyCon Valley will drop too."

No, it's because workers in the developed world are much more productive, so they are paid a lot more on a global scale. However, in order to not have all retail workers starve to death, they are paid more than people who are similarly productive in Bangladesh. Of course, to pay the local baker, who is nowhere near productive enough to justify this wage, enough to live, the cost of loaves of bread has to increase.

Thus a rise in the cost of living is a way to redistribute the increased productivity gains that the more productive parts of society have produced, if the tax system is not managing it.

You really don't want to pay all people the same throughout the world for the same job. There would be no good way to redistribute income then, and the resulting inequality would make today look like communism.

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