[WildUtah]

Programmers have to compete with doctors, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, nurses, dentists, schoolteachers, and pharmacists when we buy a house or seek to influence decisions of the companies where we work. We have to compete with them in income, prestige, bargaining power, moral influence, and credibility with financiers. We have to pay the higher wage rates they have achieved when we need their services.

Unilateral disarmament has already led to a situation where 80,000 unregulated immigrants every year are competing with us while those regulated professions see few or none. We're not going to see them de-regulate in any of our lifetimes, because the theorems of economists don't persuade anyone -- except possibly computer programmers and we don't have any power or influence because we're not united to get any. So the best option is obviously to at least organize to get a fair shake. But so far there are few signs of that.