
Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality - discocrisco
https://theconversation.com/remote-work-worsens-inequality-by-mostly-helping-high-income-earners-136160
======
dang
All: this article deserves a better discussion than it's gotten so far. It's a
rare thing: a new angle on one of the absolutely most-discussed topics here.
That's interesting, regardless of where our reactions all land on
agree/disagree, like/dislike, us/them and so on.

If you're going to add comments to this thread, can you please engage with the
specifics of the article?

~~~
qu4ku
This article got its central point not only wrong but patently wrong.

Remote work puts downward pressure on the highest salaries [think
globalisation but on a smaller scale — poor countries are main beneficiaries
of globalisation]. People with a low amount of opportunities will have more
opportunities [upward pressure] and the highest earners will need to compete
with higher number of people [downward pressure].

It literally decreases inequality.

The article points out that there is a difference in earnings and higher-
earning jobs can be done remotely more often, which is not that valuable
insight itself but it is meaningless in the context of inequality. People that
have jobs that can't be done remotely are 'constant' in this equation — their
situation won't change meaningfully.

~~~
int_19h
Why is it meaningless in the context of inequality? Inequality is a relative
measure, so if higher-paying jobs become more lucrative, while lower-paying
remain the same, inequality has increased.

You can argue that inequality stemming from that doesn't actually matter,
because nobody is worse off - but that's a different argument from whether
remote work creates inequality or not.

~~~
qu4ku
But that is not what is going to happen. Jobs that can't be done remotely will
be +/\- constant — that's a simplification as there will be some second-order
consequences like movements in real estate prices in both directions. Jobs
that can be done remotely will become less lucrative [reasons above]. [There
may be some second-order consequences like the unlocking of innovation, but
that's speculative and hard to estimate economic impact here].

I have a personal, sad and rather extreme theory — anything that can be done
remotely will be commoditized. But that's another story.

------
oneiftwo
Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work
requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to
perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of
the population.

It doesn't make sense to expect all jobs to have all the same benefits and
privelegdes. Even if we pretend that all humans are fundamentally equal in
ability, inequality will always exist, so long as humans are free to make
choices in a world of finite resources and time.

Moreso, inequality is not intrinsically bad, for it is a great motivator for
the kind of innovation that raises the common floor, which is the more
important measure.

If you're able to eat, drink, and shelter during a global pandemic, while your
entire country is on lockdown, and your economy has crawled to a standstill,
then you're in a pretty good place.

~~~
Avicebron
I really can't understand this mindset, it views the system that we have as
fundamentally meritocratic and that only hard work matters. This is
demonstrably false with a cursory review of how our (the US) education system,
economy, and geographic distributions reward and punish people.

~~~
eanzenberg
This idea is false. Intra-generational mobility in the US is quite strong.
Half of people in the 1% are not in the 1% a decade later. About 50% of people
move up 1 quintile from their starting quintile of income. I don’t have stats
on how this compares to EU or other countries, but this shows a majority
American people can move between income quantiles in their lifetime.

[1] [https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/inside-the-
vault/spr...](https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/inside-the-
vault/spring-2010/us-income-inequality-its-not-so-bad)

~~~
fancyfish
This. The US has an abnormally high social mobility, even compared to the EU.
You have a better chance of moving to the top 1% here than anywhere else. I'm
a Tier 1 FAANG engineer and worked very hard to get here, coming from a middle
income family. By first studying hard and building projects to get into a Tier
1 university.

Tier 1 top-talent engineers are just worth multiples more than lower talent
people and deserve to reap from their hard work and expertise. It's unfair to
me and other FAANGs to say we don't deserve our lifestyle and are silver
spoon.

~~~
int_19h
It can be better than EU while still being dismal. Although I'd love to see
some _stats_ (not anecdotes) showing that it's better on the whole, because
that's certainly not the case for those I know of.

More importantly, measuring it as a single number for the entire country hides
a lot of nuance that matters. It's rarely constant across the spectrum, and
those at the bottom of it usually see far less social mobility than those
higher up. US is pretty good at social mobility for middle class specifically,
but really bad for those below that.

Regarding the "silver spoon" bit - why do you take a complaint about
inequality to mean that _you_ should be earning less? The way I see it, others
should be earning more, and have quality of life closer to mine. And they
would, if all that money wasn't collected as economic rent by their employers
(in case of small businesses, the chain goes a bit further up, but there's
always somebody skimming of wealth generated by other people at the end of
it).

------
sandworm101
>> "Benefits not available to low-income workers"

A more accurate statement would be "Benefits not available to low-income
_jobs_ "

There are plenty of jobs that simply cannot be done remotely. The more
physical the job, the less it can be done remotely. A meat packer at a meat
packing plant cannot work from home. A construction worker cannot build houses
from a desk. (I'd add nursing, but a large amount of those jobs is paperwork
that often can be done remotely.) And there are some very highly-paid jobs
that cannot be done from home. Pilots cannot pilot from home (of the few that
still have jobs). Surgeons cannot cut. Mechanics cannot turn their wrenches
from afar.

And all the IT people. Some of them can login remotely to diagnose network and
service problems, but someone always has to have hands on hardware. There is
yet to be a robot that can replace a failed cooling fan on a law firm's NAS
device. Some, many, of these people are in fact making trips to _other peoples
' homes_ to service the equipment that allows them to work at home.

~~~
Nasrudith
Even more accurate is "most low income jobs" call centers aren't exactly high
income.

Anyway technically the physical jobs can be done remotely if latency isn't a
concern but if it is sufficient to remote work the question usually becomes
"Why not do the last 10% and fully automate it?"

~~~
sandworm101
>> Anyway technically the physical jobs can be done remotely if latency isn't
a concern

We all talk about robots, but I have yet to see ANY robot remotely capable of
the simplest jobs. At my work, an exaust fan failed overnight. Replacing it is
a simple task: a few screws and some basic wiring. Latency isn't the issue.
There are no robots with the dexterity to even consider such a job. I'd be
amazed if one exists that is capable of navigating the ladders and corners
needed to get to the fan. (Flying isn't an option. We are near an airport.)

~~~
andrey_utkin
What you describe is not a "simplest job", definitely not for a robot, but
also for an unskilled labour.

I see the way to handle this sort of situation is to embrace "whole node
replacement" tactic. I suppose this is already happening in some cases.
"Repair robots" is one possible way to accomplish that, but it's not the only
way, and in most cases not the cheapest available way.

For example, if a fan has failed in your work laptop, you don't call the
technician to fix it in place, you request a replacement laptop and post your
failed laptop to your IT support facility.

~~~
nradov
Node replacement isn't generally a practical option with large machinery or
commercial facilities. And even where it could be possible, robots won't be up
to the job for many decades. Show me a robot that can extract a badly rusted
bolt.

~~~
sandworm101
Show me a robot that can FIND a rusty bolt. The act of cleaning, of scrubbing
away the dust and dirt from a work area, is beyond AI at the moment. If that
rusty bolt has been painted over it might as well not exist.

~~~
mrunkel
The robot doesn’t need to see it if it has the plans in it’s head.

~~~
NortySpock
Does the planned schematic reflect the reality of the installation?

Does the wiring diagram show how the cable bends under its own tension?

~~~
pnutjam
Yes, current infrastructure is not designed for automated maintenance, I'm
dealing with that in the software world. It will take more time to retrofit
the physical world, but it will happen. If things are remote, they get
documented better then onsite people running around with their asses on fire.

------
sokoloff
One thing that I find curious about the initial chart of data from Canadian
workers (percent who worked some hours at home by income group) is that while
the trend is clearly more hours worked at home with more income, I'm not so
sure that's an unambiguously good thing.

"Are you able to work an entire day of your 40-hour workweek from home?" is a
very different question from "Are you able to work your 45th through 60th hour
of work from your home?"

Pre-pandemic, if I'd been asked whether I could work some of my scheduled
hours from home, I'd have answered "yes, absolutely" despite _additionally_
spending 40-50 hours per week in the office.

Sometimes, I think it would be refreshing to do something like airline pilot
where I'd probably enjoy the job overall but that it was pretty clear there's
no expectation that I'd fly an airliner in my non-work time.

~~~
jedberg
> Sometimes, I think it would be refreshing to do something like airline pilot
> where I'd probably enjoy the job overall but that it was pretty clear
> there's no expectation that I'd fly an airliner in my non-work time.

Yeah, I've only had jobs that can be done anywhere, which is both good and
bad. It gives me flexibility but also expectations.

Sometimes I envy my dentist friends. They make great money, but when they
leave at 5:30pm, they are done for the day. Even their continuing education is
scheduled into their in-office work day, as one of their benefits. On the flip
side, they have to be in that office every day from 8:30 to 5:30. There is
very little flexibility.

~~~
Frondo
I sometimes -- well, I used to, heh -- share an office with a labor rep (i.e.
someone who works for a union). I sometimes over hear their calls, and one of
the last conversations I overheard before the pandemic really stuck with me.

In reference to some kind of changing circumstance that was going to compel
their rank and file to spend more time doing some work-related task, the labor
rep said, "They're entitled to their time" with a kind of finality I envy.

Absolutely no wiggle room around the question of, "should they be paid for
every minute they spend on the clock for someone else's business." The
ubiquity of salaried work really gets me sometimes.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
That's a very common situation in a shipyard. It always makes me a little
envious to know that the trades get paid every single minute here and often
work 6 days a week. I do some work items that require a start 2 hours after
sunset. The pay is the same 40 hours or 60 hours. You can guess how many
engineering hours are post-40....

~~~
sokoloff
OTOH, would you rather be paid for every single minute at $40/hour and time-
and-a-half for hours over 40 per week, or paid $3000/wk no matter how many
hours you actually work? There are tradeoffs on both sides.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
I have never once been able to leave my salaried job without reaching 40 hours
while still receiving the same pay.

~~~
sokoloff
Conversely, I’ve never once had to punch a time clock at any of my salaried
positions.

None of my employers would ever be able to tell the difference between 38, 39,
40, or 41 hours in any given week (nor has any given any indication they'd
care even if I _told them_ the difference).

~~~
rwmurrayVT
I have worked primarily for the prime contractor on Department of Navy work.
Either at a prime ship repair yard or an AIT. They take time cards very
seriously. I'd suspect you might get some wiggle room in the public
realm/software, but as someone mentioned below I'd prefer my time/money trade
to be explicitly laid out.

------
intopieces
It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look
at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same
socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a
leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the
knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to
make sure people who have the ability to succeed aren't sidelined because of
it. Seriously, some of these remedies should be fairly uncontroversial here:

-Giving people computers

-Making sure people have access to broadband

-Looking at industries with low income workers and seeing if the governments can nudge them into the WFH model, so they can start to realize some of the positive outcomes that presents, which in some cases would be _far more valuable to low-income workers_. Imagine if a single mother working for $20k a year at an office could do that work from home?

This topic is ripe for inventive ways to use technology to raise up
individuals who have been traditionally left out. But for some reason the
6-fig crowd is reacting negative to a headline that uses the term
"socioeconomic inequality."

~~~
bsder
> -Giving people computers

> -Making sure people have access to broadband

There should be a Rural Broadbandification Project set into motion so
everybody gets fiber. This also has the advantage that it requires lots of
labor like digging ditches.

It also has the advantage that it would allow some of these high earners to
move from turbo-high cost of living areas to much lower ones.

~~~
ghaff
Everyone probably doesn’t need fiber to their homes. Good 5G access without
onerous caps is probably a reasonable alternative.

~~~
bsder
Tech has been stymied by the fact that bandwidth has been constrained at
10Mbps or less for 2 decades. My 10 year old computer is more than powerful
enough to handle any networking in the last decade. Without that impetus,
there is nothing driving computers forward.

Every time we jump in consumer bandwidth by an order of magnitude, we launch
some new technology that we couldn't even dream of before.

------
juped
The most interesting part (to me) is not touched on in the article - if
expensive jobs can be done remotely from Gary, Indiana, they're not going to
go to Gary natives who are currently underemployed, but to the same small
crowd of well-off people who are just going to _move_ to Gary, driving prices
there up. I think this is the inequality that is interesting and matters.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
But Gary, Indiana has a lot more room. In addition, the new well-off people
will need coffee, and cars, and groceries, and be able to pay for them. This
will rejuvenate other jobs. With more people with money who can now afford
tickets and buy merchandise, maybe more bands will start playing in Gary,
Indiana, improving the music scene. With more people with more disposable
income, maybe some of them will be interested in local artwork. Now artists
can move and live in Gary, Indiana.

In addition, well-off people are interested in making sure their kids get a
good education. So maybe they start pushing the city to improve public
education. In addition, the increased home values and increased businesses are
likely to result in greater increase in tax revenue, allowing more money to go
to education.

And the nice part is that Gary, Indiana got these benefits without having to
try to bribe a large corporation to open an office with tax giveaways.

You may or may not have more inequality, but I would argue that the people in
Gary would be better off.

~~~
taurath
How is it different than trickle down economics? Won’t those coffee shops just
be starbucks and grocery stores be Whole Foods and all the profit from them
returned to shareholders?

~~~
missedthecue
"Trickle down economics" is just an internet slur for supply side economics.
It certainly can work out well. A job at Whole Foods would pay a currently
unemployed resident of Gary, Indiana a good amount more than he is making at
present.

~~~
mcntsh
That's a pretty limited perspective. Economic growth doesn't benefit every
business and every individual proportionally.

I know people in the Bay Area who are worse off now than they were in first
dotcom burst because while software engineers might make 300% now of what they
made in 2002, an auto mechanic doesn't. For many, wage growth didn't even keep
up with the cost of living.

------
ashtonkem
The suggestion that governments can close the remote working gap is not very
well thought out. A large percentage of low income work is service work that
requires physical presence. You can’t make the typical burger joint remote
friendly without automating all the jobs away.

~~~
bzb3
They are miserable people who want to make things worse for remote workers
because if everybody can't have something then nobody can.

~~~
commandlinefan
... even if letting the people who can work remotely do so is a net win
overall for everybody when you consider the reduced environmental impact.

~~~
ashtonkem
And if continued forever, reduced pressure on high housing costs, which
currently hit lower income earners very hard.

~~~
bradlys
That’s purely a regulation issue. We could easily have more affordable housing
by increasing supply. If you move people from one area to another without
changing supply, you’re just gonna cause issues in the next area.

~~~
realbarack
But if the "one area" is one of ~10 expensive cities and the "another" is 100s
of smaller cities, suburbs and large towns, it's much easier to build to meet
the change.

~~~
bradlys
Theoretically but that’s just a burueacratic hurdle. Struggling towns would
likely build if they knew people would come in but could get stonewalled by
local people too. (Don’t let in them city slickers!)

The issue is regulation. And I think it’d be better if we just allowed for
taller buildings in some of these areas rather than sprawling out everything.
Many people don’t want a SFH with a little yard and are happy with an
apartment.

------
hirundo
Since there is no limit on the ceiling, but there is a limit to the floor,
things that increase economic opportunity tend to decrease equality. Things
that reduce economic opportunity tend to increase equality.

See e.g. Steven Pinker:

"...the most effective ways of reducing inequality are epidemics, massive
wars, violent revolutions and state collapse."

[https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/twenty-questions-
steven-p...](https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/twenty-questions-steven-
pinker/)

~~~
ashtonkem
I always argue caution about revolution to help the poor, as there are plenty
of examples where revolution killed as many poor people as it did aristocrats.

Possibly the least flame war worthy example is the French Revolution. While
the popular image is of the great terror killing off nobles, the reality is
that most of the killings in Paris were either politicians or unfortunate
merchants who refused to sell their goods at state mandated prices (at a loss)
and were denounced.

And that’s not even including the 160,000 mostly poor soldiers killed in the
Vendée after peasants revolted against forced conscription, nor the extra
40,000 civilians killed in the brutal reprisals after the war was over.

And the kicker? Not only did France eventually get a different king, but most
nobles were able re-buy their old estates, and the government even went deeper
into debt to compensate various nobles for their confiscated land.

~~~
BurningFrog
I'd say it's very hard to find _any_ violent revolutions that improved a
society. It's pretty much a long line of tragedies.

I count throwing out a foreign oppressor, like the American revolution or the
Czech "velvet revolution" as a separate category. Those can be good.

~~~
HaloZero
Vietnam gained independence from France, might not be much better but I would
say colonialism in general follows this. Or would that fall under "violent
revolutions that throwing out a foreign oppressor".

~~~
BurningFrog
Yeah, I don't count sending the French home as the kind of revolution I talk
about.

If the decades of war and communism that followed were an improvement can be
debated, but it's a quite separate issue.

------
ipnon
Would it be similar to say "factories worsen inequality by mostly helping
high-income earners" (consider England during the Industrial Revolution)? New
technology increases our productivity.

~~~
Supermancho
Historically, that's what happened. The average wage went down because less
training was required despite more people being employed. Revenues went way
up, quickly.

~~~
sokoloff
Many (now) mass-produced goods also became much cheaper than when they were
artisanally hand-crafted.

~~~
ipnon
Further, the extent to which material quality of life has improved since the
industrial revolution implies that the drop in prices has exceeded the drop in
wages by orders of magnitude.

------
downerending
Looking at it just now, this appears to be the money quote:

 _Given its potential benefits, telecommuting is an attractive option to many.
Studies have shown a substantial number of workers would even agree to a lower
salary for a job that would allow them to work from home. The appeal of remote
work can be especially strong during times of crisis, but also exists under
more normal circumstances.

The ongoing crisis therefore amplifies inequalities when it comes to financial
and work-life balance benefits._

This seems to be saying that workers often prefer remote work, and perhaps
even more so at present. But, they're trading salary away for a work
environment they prefer, which (by definition) lowers their monetary
compensation, which is bad.

Not sure what to make of that.

~~~
macinjosh
These sort of people see every trade-off or compromise a person might make in
life as systemic oppression. If someone decides they don’t mind earning less
if they get to work from home that’s their decision! No one is making them do
this.

No one goes to the car dealership expecting the premium trim for the standard
trim price. This is no different. Like it or not we sell our time, attention,
and effort in exchange for money. Different types and manner of work are worth
different amounts.

Our culture (sans pandemic) has begun to place more value on their life than
their work so they make choices like this. It is a good thing to let me people
do what works best for them.

~~~
downerending
I agree that most of the time, people should be regarded as the final experts
on what is best for them. In that context, do-gooders swooping in to "help"
can seem rather presumptive.

That said, sometimes we as a society _do_ need to "swoop in". The obvious
cases would be things like loan sharks, dealers of highly addictive drugs,
etc. Right now remote work doesn't seem like one of those cases.

------
vharuck
I wonder how much money would be saved by governments encouraging remote work.
Less road repairs and widening highways for commuters, less concentration of
consumer spending in cities that double in population during daytime.

My small city's trying to revitalize itself, but the small number of well-
paying jobs is starving new businesses of customers.

The problem is, my small city would only benefit if it can convince _outside_
corps to offer remote. But what leverage would my city have?

------
aSplash0fDerp
I have yet to hear the phrase "making city money while living in the country",
but we should see an uptick in personal utopias as the 21st century workforce
matures in this new era.

In the age of logistics, it is not inconceivable that manufacturing labor will
also have the opportunity to have autonomous vehicles deliver the inventory
needed to support the livelihood of residents such as garment workers and
others with WFH options.

"Work on Demand" has probably been accelerated by decades and would be a more
viable option than many of the UBI proposals floating around to reverse mass
unemployment in the long-term.

All it takes is one IKEA set to start a chain reaction. Send it to worker 1 to
assemble, worker 2 to disassemble and worker 3 to refurb/repackage and send it
out again.

I say that in jest, but they could have the white collar, blue collar and
t-shirt (creatives) workers all on a positive financial trajectory at the same
time if they manage the next wave of innovation and any real or manufactured
crises well.

------
papaver-somnamb
Alright, narrower spreads in economic inequality appears to connote greater
overall happiness in the measured society. Perhaps attributable to the
averaging and not representative of the outliers, or demonstrable of modality,
but that might be a separate argument. Northern European countries are famed
for ranking near the top. The degree to which a society is advanced can be
measured in part by how it treats its most disadvantaged members. And in the
long run, we help ourselves by helping each other.

But (playing the devil's advocate here) I'm interested in equalizing
opportunity, not in equal outcome and artificial fairness.

If this notion is ridiculous, would somebody care to enlighten / disillusion?

~~~
Avicebron
Because structurally one cannot do the first without doing the latter. If I
have 100bn, my leverage over the people who help generated that is
disproportionate.

I can set up a self perpetuating lobby to government to make laws that make
generations stuck in a cyclical system of poverty. Thus it's easier to exploit
and make more money. Rinse. Repeat.

By better maintaining a relatively tight "artificial fairness" it prevents the
system from falling into one of the two extremes - everyone poor and
struggling and one extremely powerful elite and the serfs.

------
Havoc
I can definitely see this. I barely missed a beat while a couple months like
this presumably wiped out a ton of 3 month rainy day funds out there.

------
rmrfstar
This is more evidence that the market clearing price for labor is irrational
and inefficient.

Most workers are not compensated for (a) the surplus value they generate, or
(b) the risk they bear in work activities.

This article goes to point (b). Point (a) is evident in [1], and is far more
problematic as it leads to consolidated control over resources (physical and
the ability to direct the daily activities of others).

[1]
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909)

~~~
ativzzz
I would argue that market rationality and efficiency described in economics
textbooks does not exist, nor has ever existed.

~~~
smabie
Then it should be pretty easy to make a ton of money in the market, no? What's
great about finance is that if you believe there are persistent inefficiencies
in the market, you can put your money where you mouth is and exploit them. As
market participants might tell you though, the market is much more efficient
than you might expect.

But let's talk more about the efficient market hypothesis (EMH). Many have the
misunderstanding that EMH is some sort of axiom that people actually believe.
No one actually believes it to be literally true, but without EMH as a guiding
principle, modern finance could not exist. The actions of many market
participants creates the mostly/sometimes efficient market we have today.

Put another way, in order for a market to be efficient, it needs participants
who are arbitraging away the inefficiency. But because they are profiting off
the (temporary) inefficiency, clearly the market isn't efficient!

------
godelski
It seems that for the most part these jobs require: low technical skill,
physical presence, and low amounts of flexibility. These also seem like the
types of jobs where a longer work week leads to more productivity, in that
more "widgets" are produced (length of the work week is another hot topic here
on HN). But these also seem like the jobs that are more vulnerable to
automation.

I'll give some examples. I'm seeing entire movie theaters remove the box
office and use touch screens. This can reduce the number of needed staff by
20%. We see similar things at grocery stores (a single person can man 6+
registers, just needing to check an ID, which this can probably be automated
soon). Clothing sales are moving online to places like Amazon. Etc.

So how do we create a more fair economy? One where everyone has the
opportunity to rise into jobs that they want? Get the education they need for
that job? Do we let X% of the population just not be productive but still get
a basic income? What's that do for mental health? Do we create meaningless
jobs that are just jobs for the sake of a job? What's that do for mental
health? How do we provide equal opportunities (not equal outcomes) for
everyone? More importantly, how do we develop that kind of culture?

~~~
monadic2
> So how do we create a more fair economy?

Well the easiest way would be to forbid private capital.

~~~
svieira
That's an easy way to create a different kind of unfair economy, but not a way
(by itself) to create a fair one. If there is no private capital there is no
private ownership. If there is no private ownership then you're back in _The
Republic_ ignoring the fact that Aristotle already pointed out the crucial
flaw in that desire - people care more for what is their own than for what is
held in common

> For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed
> upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common
> interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For
> besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty
> which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are
> often less useful than a few. Each citizen will have a thousand sons who
> will not be his sons individually but anybody will be equally the son of
> anybody, and will therefore be neglected by all alike.

[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.2.two.html)

Or perhaps you're looking for the angels that Madison writes about in
Federalist #51 to distribute all capital fairly without assigning ownership of
any of it to those to whom it is distributed?

> It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be
> necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government
> itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were
> angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
> neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In
> framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
> difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the
> governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

[https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp)

~~~
monadic2
I would imagine the societies we have well documented are better cases for
exploring abolishing private property than Aristotle—decent at constructing
ontologies, not exactly a sociologist.

I place my heart in writers far more relevant to today than Madison, of all
people—the federal government has never looked so sick, the non-representation
of our politicians so obvious. I agree that government is fallible; the answer
to that is not to revert to locke (or, more likely, a thin veneer of locke
over malthus and hobbes).

~~~
godelski
This comment did not add to your argument. It can be summarized as "I like
different philosophers than you" and misses the point. I'll remind you that
one's ideas should be based on the merit of those ideas and not where they lie
in history or along a political spectrum. Also, to have a discussion you need
to bring something more than "I'm right, you're wrong, your guys are old."
Otherwise you will continue to not be taken seriously.

------
code_duck
Is there some sort of advantage to high income workers being forced to drive
to an office every day?

~~~
NortySpock
They buy lunch downtown?

~~~
code_duck
Is that really it though?

------
csense
TFARE (The Following Are Roughly Equivalent):

\- (a) Jobs that can be done over the Internet

\- (b) Jobs that require specialized education and/or high general
intelligence (so not everyone can do them)

\- (c) Jobs that pay high salaries

Proof: (a) <-> (b) because both of these describe jobs dealing with
information-like stuff (writing, websites, software). (b) <-> (c) by law of
supply and demand. QED

Question is, what's our society going to do with the masses of people who
_just aren 't capable_ of doing the kind of job many of us have?

------
mister_hn
The whole thing is biased.

If the so called "low-income workers" don't have this benefit (imagine:
workers on system relevant jobs such as medicine, bakery, logistics, grocery),
it means they deserve a higher pay than the actual one they receive.

These jobs are equally-if-not-more-relevant than jobs in other fields and must
not be always labelled as "poor jobs".

Not all the jobs require a computer in this world. The ones who have to stay
on place must receive a higher raise.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
Can someone help me understand this? The thesis is that remote work is making
inequality worse, but all they show is an association between working remote
and income. Where's the thesis coming from? Even if it was a causal
association, with more remote work causing higher incomes, that seems like a
good thing.

~~~
rob2312
> The higher a person’s salary, the most likely they are to be able to work
> from home

and

> employees unable to work from home, such as restaurant servers, personal
> trainers or manufacturing workers, may be laid off temporarily or
> permanently, a burden that seems to be falling disproportionately on low-
> income workers.

People with higher salaries are more likely to be able to still work, whereas
people with lower salaries in different sectors are far more likely to have
been laid off due to the physical nature of the job. Hence poor people have
been disproportionately hit, increasing income inequality.

------
SergeAx
What? On the contrary, remote work levels inequality by allowing workers from
low-income regions to take high-income remote positions.

------
buboard
this is a poorly thought article and full of strawmen

Inequality between White collar work and blue collar work has existed for
centuries and there is no evidence that remote work is making it either better
or worse. Their interpretation of their graph is a strawman: office work is
obviously easier to remotize.

Inequality stems from supply/demand . There are non-remote workers on the high
end of the spectrum (doctors, athletes etc) and there is a vast crowd of low
paid workers that work remotely (freelancers, support phone centers etc). The
fact that globalization increasing inequality is not news but, if anything, it
affects remote workers more.

Remote workers are also facing inequality, e.g. they are paid less if they
live outside the bay area.

If anything, by reducing the disparities in cost of living and housing
everywhere, remote work is probably helping to reduce overall inequality. It
will also move businesses (and their blue collar workers) away from traffic-
heavy city centers and closer to where the remote workers are (their homes).

Remote work can also be more costly in many ways: e.g. heating and A/C for
houses is costlier than heating a shared office building during work hours.
Personally, i spend more on food because i have no office cafeteria nearby.
The benefits are mostly in quality of life and in having control of your life.

------
0x8BADF00D
> The possibility of working remotely isn’t available to everyone, with one
> Canadian study estimating that only 44 per cent of jobs are compatible with
> telecommuting. Remote work is particularly common among university
> graduates, managers and professionals, but its practice also depends on the
> sector and the nature of the job. Finance, for example, compared to
> manufacturing, is more suitable to remote work. Consequently, many workers
> are deprived of an alternative that allows them to continue working during
> crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is due to a couple of different things. Our system for organizing
production is outdated. The joint stock corporation is an outdated system. We
need something more akin to DAOs. Then employees will be as equally empowered.

Additionally, the fiat monetary system encourages parasitism and inefficiency.
With sound money, everyone can benefit. Unlike the current monetary system we
have in place.

Cryptocurrency is a poor store of value, but I think is valuable in denoting
ownership of something. If you’re given tokens in a DAO, it should be a token
or coin that denotes ownership rather than a store of value. This way those
who take on the lion’s share of risk, whether they are early investors or
employees, will be rewarded the most. It also flattens the management
structure substantially. Not much room in a DAO for parasites. Because you
need to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

In summary, this inequality stems from outdated systems that need to be
replaced. As I’ve stated in many previous comments, capitalism is the purest
filter with which to perceive reality. There is no bullshit allowed. DAOs >
corporations, crypto > stock ownership agreement.

------
marcrosoft
The word inequality is an oxymoron. If you were to wave a magic wand and
redistribute wealth you would by definition make inequality because you would
transfer wealth from those who create more value to those who don’t. Your end
result would be “inequality”.

------
99chrisbard
Twitter encourages wfh. Let's do as much as we can from home.

------
taneq
All economic activity is a source of socioeconomic inequality.

------
mesozoic
Seems like it'd do the opposite.

------
fragmede
It's a highly _political_ angle though, and the dynamics of HN (both the
culture, but also the technology here - threaded with a simple up/down vote
and a low engagement reply mechanism) don't handle those sort of discussions
well.

There are three levels on which to have an honest disagreement. Other than 0)
plain misunderstanding (which I'm not counting), there's 1) a difference in
philosophy, a 2) difference in information, and 3) difference in
interpretation of said information. (Eg two people observing an interaction;
one person could say it was rudely handled, and the other could say that it
was totally fine.)

In having a text input free-for-all, all 3 of those disagreements happen at
once, as well as the 0th, plain misunderstanding.

I've noticed that perceived or projected disagreement over fundamental
philosophy seems to drive low-value threads (Eg "Covid-19's just like the
flu."), with responses that are very, very hard to read charitably, dead
comments, and snarky/throwaway/drive-by replies.

There are half-baked experiments I wish I could run in order to fix it (like
comment required to downvote; or downvoting requires a reason, eg: "-1;
unnecessarily insulting." or "-1; trolling"), but; this isn't my forum to run
those experiments on.

Ultimately what I'm saying though is moderating this forum must be tiresome
work sometimes, so thank you, Dang for the work you do trying to promote
thoughtful discussion, especially during these unprecedented times. Especially
since being a moderator doesn't scale!

~~~
dang
Political discussions can't ever be very high-quality when they're open to
literally anyone who wants to create an account. All it takes is enough
activation energy to start flaming. But there are still many topics here with
political overlap
([https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20political%20overlap&sort=byDate&type=comment))
that it doesn't make sense, or wouldn't work, to exclude.

Thanks for the kind words about moderation.

(We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158853))

------
mosselman
Disclaimer: I have just read the title of the article, looked at the first
chart within it and read your comment.

Your comment could basically be copy-pasted in any popular thread on HN and
seem relevant. Much like a horoscope. Why don't you engage with the specifics
of the article yourself so that we have an example of what properly engaging
with the specifics entails?

In fact, I'd find it interesting to read why you believe that others haven't.

~~~
dang
It's not true that all HN threads are like that, though it can be fun to make
general claims about that. In reality there's a lot of variation in thread
quality, and also in article quality. This is a case where the thread/article
quality seemed particularly low; hence I posted that admonition. Funnily
enough there was an inverse case at the same time
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23159028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23159028)).

(I detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158853))

------
y-c-o-m-b
This is a dangerous title and I hate it because the implication is remote work
= bad. These stupid titles are what people (e.g. Marissa Mayer) refer to as
evidence when trying to enforce non-telecommute cultures.

The article itself is good and raises some serious questions worth discussing
and even encourages finding ways to allow remote work for lower-income jobs,
so I would have preferred "Remote work and solving inequality" or even "Remote
work and inequality" as a title.

I really wish "journalists" would stop writing opinionated and click-bait
titles like this because it's really damaging to those of us that have
livelihoods built around these things. If you're trying to bring attention to
inequality so we can better the lives of more people then that's great, but
don't do it at the expense of destroying other lives. I'm seeing more and more
articles attacking remote work like this and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a
little anxious.

------
baron816
This is a pretty awful, clickbaity title. The implication is that remote work
is _bad_ for low-income earners, but that’s not the case. Inequality isn’t bad
by itself. If some people are doing better without others being impacted, how
could that be bad?

~~~
marcusverus
Inequality is only bad for low-income earners if you've been convinced that
the economy is a zero-sum game. Nobody actually _believes_ this, it just makes
good copy for purposes of rabble-rousing.

If you think that wealth inequality is, itself, a bad thing, then ask yourself
a simple question: If you create a software company that employs 200 employees
making a median income of 125K, is that a good thing? But how can it be, when
it has exacerbated wealth inequality?

In my humble opinion, inequality is bad only in the minds of people who want
to fund their political wishlists with other people's money, and need to spin
a narrative where _not_ taking other people's money is morally wrong.

~~~
TFYS
Inequality itself is bad for many reasons. It creates a rift between people,
causing feelings of envy and unfairness, increasing crime. It concentrates
powers into fewer hands, and concentration of power rarely results in
something good for the general population.

------
pdubs1
I taught myself IT skills while sleeping in a tent.

If anyone wants it bad enough, they can also teach themselves IT skills.

No need to bring classism into it-- Once someone teaches their self IT skills
(while living homelessly, as I did), apparently suddenly they're part of a
separate class? How ironic.

------
downerending
I'm waiting for _Nuclear Winter improves inequality by eliminating high-income
earners_.

------
barrenko
There are no equals.

------
x3blah
Are farmers considered to be "working from home"?

~~~
r1nkgrl
A lot of farmers live many miles away from the properties they farm in. Modern
farming is very different in America than it was 100+ years ago.

~~~
x3blah
The article is about Canada not America.

------
go13
I'm afraid of these socialist trends and statements.

Hopefully, there will not be any new "revolution" where 'low-income' will vote
for some populist who will make everyone "equal".

And by "everyone" they normally mean middle/upper middle class because ultra-
wealthy people operate in a bit different world than the rest of people.

AND:

Can't low earners take those high-earners who work remotely (programmers, for
example) as an example and follow their path rather than complain about
inequality? I had a mate who was a good example for me at some point which
allowed me to progress in life. What would happen if i metaphorically i asked
the government to get part of his salary to help me to be "equal"? Is this
discovered life path not a valuable resource and example?

~~~
shlom22
The West will go full communism, and it will make life better for all of us -
no more rent, work or paying for groceries and everything will be taken care
of so we can be creative in our time

~~~
AnimalMuppet
If you think that the groceries are going to continue to show up on shelves in
a world where nobody has to work, reality is going to hand you a very nasty
surprise. If we're going to give stuff to everybody, _somebody has to make the
stuff_. Merely redistributing money isn't going to solve that problem.

~~~
go13
i thought it was sarcasm, but apparently, based on downvotes, HN is full of
left-leaning comrades.

~~~
non-entity
Yes the incredibly libertarian leaning, created by a VC, site is full of
leftists.

~~~
go13
exactly, this is what surprises me! :)

------
jokit
There is no situation where those with more resources don't have more
resources. The best we can achieve is that each rightfully earns their
resources.

------
yters
Laptops and smart phones are everywhere these days, regardless of income
level, so accessing remote work is not a problem. I think the only reason
remote work might hurt low income people is due to lack of business owners
taking advantage of available remote workers.

~~~
war1025
I know that I want remote workers stocking my shelves, driving my buses, and
building things in my factories...

Access to technology is not the issue. Low income jobs are as a general rule
more physical than higher paying jobs. You can't remotely do physical labor.

~~~
commandlinefan
You're being sarcastic, but humans controlling robots from a distance has
actually been tried before, and was promisingly successful:
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/11/26/national/cafe-o...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/11/26/national/cafe-
opens-robot-waiters-remotely-controlled-people-disabilities/#.XrsaixNKg00).

~~~
yters
I am not being sarcastic! The threshold for human controlled robots is much
lower than fully autonomous robots.

------
renewiltord
Equality is not a thing I ever care to have a society optimized for.

If you give me a planet, I don't care that everyone else has a galaxy. Simply
optimize for the leading edge and the rest will get dragged along.

~~~
dopu
Right, this is why the US GDP has grown by a factor of 20 in the past half
century while adjusted average hourly wages haven't budged. What a frightfully
naive point of view.

~~~
renewiltord
Life for the below-middle-class is _way_ better than before. Maternal
mortality, infant mortality, calories consumed, appliances in the home, life
expectancy all trending in the right direction. Life now for the average
American is stupendously better than half a century ago. Over the last twenty
years (over which the ATUS was active), time spent sleeping, time spent on
leisure, and percent of people engaged in sports and recreation each day are
also trending well.

I don't care if I make a dollar and you make a billion if one dollar will
provide for my entire life, and if that life is pleasant in an absolute sense.

Equality is a false god.

~~~
Avicebron
Why is it a false god? "QoL Trending in the right direction" seems to be a
very myopic way to view the world. When it's clear concentration of wealth has
slowly eroded the dignity of many peoples lives, encouraging them to work
longer and longer hours in jobs with less benefits "gigs/contracts" while
being jerked around by increasingly powerful and untouchable classes of
people.

I've experienced this phenomenon very prominently in the life sciences
industry where short term precarious contracts are handed out to lower income
lab workers. Recently it has become more obvious as all of management has
moved to remotely monitoring and dictating the worker's day to day activities
while becoming increasingly out of touch with the realities of the people
doing the actual work. This is real and also representative.

When there is a culture of respect and dignity of all members of a society
sharing similar goals, this sort of thing doesn't happen. Exploitation isn't
expedited. Wages and equality are a form of that respect.

It's not a false god when it performs a function of cultural cohesiveness, you
could argue that is what a god does..

Final note: Keeping you're livestock healthy doesn't alleviate them from being
livestock.

~~~
renewiltord
All societies that primarily aimed at equality have harmed their members. All
societies that have aimed at top-quartile growth have their bottom-quartile
more prosperous than those who've aimed at minimizing Gini.

Empirically, it has not led to happy people.

~~~
Avicebron
Well doesn't that counteract pleasantness in an absolute sense? I would argue
there has never truly been a society aimed at equality on a large scale. I
don't consider the implementation of communism to have been truly aimed at
equality and certainly didn't end that way.

~~~
renewiltord
In a POSIWID sense, systems that claim to be equality systems are actually
aiming at Gini 1. Therefore, my priors on the outcomes likely if I am to go
along with an equality-optimizer are high that I will end up a serf and near
zero that I will end up equal participant in the commune.

My priors on the outcomes likely if I am to go along with a top-line optimizer
are high that he will make out like a bandit, I will make out like a bandit's
brother's mechanic, and low that he will eat me.

Merely empirically, optimizing for happiness of the bottom quartile, I should
never choose the guy who claims to be an equality-optimizer. America is
prosperous and peaceful and a veritable font of innovation. Her poorest are
wealthy. Her hungriest are satiated. It's working. I'm going to double down.
And double down again. It's going to keep working.

~~~
Avicebron
Wouldn't it be Gini 0?

~~~
renewiltord
No, that's the point. Everyone claiming to minimize Gini gets Gini 1, so in a
POSIWID sense, the system that claims to minimize Gini is aiming at maximizing
Gini.

~~~
Avicebron
Citation?

~~~
renewiltord
Probably not going to look for one, sorry. You may prefix "From what I can
see" wherever necessary should you wish to soften the claims.

~~~
Avicebron
I happily offer you a birth on Skid Row LA.

~~~
renewiltord
Better than where I started out. Rewind me to childhood and I'll take the
trade.

------
bagacrap
"Governments should encourage the adoption of telecommuting by employers where
it’s possible but not yet implemented. They could, for instance, provide
information to organizations about how it works."

This seems a bit delusional. Who actually believes the government knows how to
run a business? If you think remote work should be encouraged by the
government, all they need to do is use taxes/tax breaks to incentivize it.

