I think this can be fixed simply by measuring companies on employment they generate and median tax payed per employee apart from the corporate tax. If they fall behind on these metrics, their products should be taxed heavily. If companies don't agree, they lose access to the market which will allow for local responsible companies to emerge and compete.
I am just wondering if my thinking is simplistic or this is a problem our leadership does not want to solve this issue?
[1] http://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/bAgZIMlCQu8weSTF7j750L/Sig...
edit: grammer
The problem becomes when globalisation occurs, and those companies are no longer competitive against foreign car companies. The Australian government tried to bail out the automotive industry, twice, and it still collapsed. There are no longer any cars manufactured in Australia with Holden (GM), Ford and Toyota all leaving in recent years.
Yes, you can introduce metrics of number of employees (direct and indirect), tax paid per employee, etc etc. But consumers won't pay double just because the car created a job in their country.
If a global company is only selling imported product produced elsewhere shouldn't they be paying higher taxes which will make the play ground even. I don not think they would like to lose access to a market just because taxes are higher. After all they too need consumer to sell products too.
In current state globalization is able to produce cheap services by exploiting worker from both sides of globe developed and developing. You can see that in Amazon(developed) and Flipcart(India). In the trend continues purchasing power of masses will erode to a point of no return.
Secondly true costs are hidden so if a company is selling cheaper cars by not using proper waste and environment management. They are essentially discounting the future to provide cheap services today.
And you are right this is not possible without having a global governance with a long term view.
Not to nitpick but what you described is happening today. If companies are measured on all of the metric then I how do they escape. If they move their work to contracting firms, won't they also be evaluated on the same metrics.
You know a WHOLE LOT of people would rather make 500k a year than 300k even if it means their employees are damn near homeless and malnourished. See: any biz with min wage employees in the US.
Plus you're not bound by the same labor laws if you hire from overseas, only public outrage if the public ever finds out.
edit: that is to say, instead of thinking of it as "the price has adjusted", we can think of it as "greed is no longer constrained by the difficulty of overseas communication". Our laws can't contain greed, if we can just export it to where we have no jurisdiction.
Now I don't know the exact wording of minimum wage law, but I'm pretty sure if you hire an independent contractor through a 3rd party staffing company, let's say to clean houses. And then you set a fixed price on the service, say you will pay $20 for each house cleaned, knowing it takes 4 hours on average to clean a house. And then you let anyone who wants it take the job. This would be illegal.
So, I honestly don't know how mTurk is allowed to operate the way they do. American companies should not be able to hire American workers to perform labor at below minimum wage, just because they use an API to do it.
I'm willing to bet if someone was willing to spell it all out in front of the right AG or the right class action legal team that there would be significant settlements to be had.
To be covered by the Federal minimum wage, one must be a "covered nonexempt" employee. There are two ways in which an employee can be covered by the law: "enterprise coverage" and "individual coverage." [1]
Enterprise Coverage
Employees who work for certain businesses or organizations (or "enterprises") are
covered by the FLSA. These enterprises, which must have at least two employees, are:
(1) those that have an annual dollar volume of sales or business done of at least
$500,000
(2) hospitals, businesses providing medical or nursing care for residents, schools and
preschools, and government agencies
Individual Coverage
Even when there is no enterprise coverage, employees are protected by the FLSA if their
work regularly involves them in commerce between States ("interstate commerce"). The FLSA
covers individual workers who are "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for
commerce."
Examples of employees who are involved in interstate commerce include those who: produce
goods (such as a worker assembling components in a factory or a secretary typing letters
in an office) that will be sent out of state, regularly make telephone calls to persons
located in other States, handle records of interstate transactions, travel to other States
on their jobs, and do janitorial work in buildings where goods are produced for shipment
outside the State.
Or Turkers are covered under FLSA because their work involves commerce between states. Because their work itself is literally commerce between states on its face -- the writen work product is sent over the Internet -- I don't see how you weasel out of that one.
I don't see how Turkers could be exempt from FLSA, but IANAL.
there's a whole section of society that minimum wage laws simply don't apply to and everyone looks the other way while enjoying the benefits.
someone like bezos basically just enjoys complete non-accountability and even high praise and wealth for putting an api in front of literally everything he can think of, including illegal labor practices.
The same thing happens on freelancer sites. Jobs for pennies on the dollar of their worth are fought over by people barely making it in the US, and people who are enjoying a rather livable stream of income in other countries.
To me the answer is to tell yourself that it's not work but a hobby that happens to pay, and at least seek out work that pays minimum wage in your area, if that applies.
But easier said than done I'm sure.
"Places", or "countries" might have low minimum wage compared to US or even below the average of world. But no minimum wage at all seems unlikely.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...
I wonder if there is a 18+ check involved.
> To me the answer is to tell yourself that it's not work but a hobby that happens to pay, and at least seek out work that pays minimum wage in your area, if that applies.
But it isn't a hobby; it is paid; hence work.
From Wikipedia: "A Hobby is a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time."
The type of labour on Amazon Turk is extremely repetitive just like (physical) hard labour. The goal also isn't pleasure, and the income isn't a gift; it is part of one's income (I wonder if it is being tracked though).
I also find the name Amazon Turk offensive. I am aware that the word Turk has multiple meanings, but in a good part of the 90s in Europe cheap labour and Turkish people went hand in hand. It was the kind of labour the native Europeans didn't want to do (e.g. garbagemen), it paid very badly.
Now we are at the next step of globalisation and because the competition goes via the Internet the lowest common denominator becomes standard. Which is very bad for those who are unemployed, underskilled, homeless etc in higher civilized countries where the standard of living is higher, but so is things like rent. Heck, I wouldn't even be able to pay my rent with Amazon Turk.
> The same thing happens on freelancer sites. Jobs for pennies on the dollar of their worth are fought over by people barely making it in the US, and people who are enjoying a rather livable stream of income in other countries.
Yes, and fake freelance like Uber and MLM.
1. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/216770261246901...
Also, does your current setup have any problems (perhaps scaling)?
If the answers are no, yes, no then I'd not change a thing.
Otherwise perhaps look at using Turk for labeling and your working crew as reviewers. It may only take a small number of badly labeled images to cost more than you save.
Also, the whole thing makes me think of the original plot of The Matrix - the one where humans are used as co-processors rather than very inefficient organic batteries. The Wachowskis stated that at the time they thought people wouldn't understand the former, so they went with the latter. Today I can absolutely picture farms of people born in pods living in virtual reality where everyone has the equivalent of an AMT job and nobody finds it weird that you're paid to solve made-up problems because duh, everyone does that. Maybe at first 80% of people would work in some sort of management job so the machines can learn how to manage people and then gradually displace them.
I believe this same kind of pathological behavior is what's causing people (like described in the article) to stick with AMT jobs.
I wish I knew a way to break this vicious cycle :(
Is anyone predicting when various jobs will fall to AI? I here about the 3 million truck drivers a lot. However I think some groups like radiologists are still underestimating the speed at which reading x-rays will become mostly a job of double checking computer interpretations.