[yummyfajitas]

I'm a little amazed at the tone of this article.

People rent a home, and then exploit the democratic process in a beggar-thy-potential-neighbors strategy. They use things like rent control and other anti-migrant policies (e.g. anti-Google bus policies in SF, anti-Hijab laws in France) to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

Because her wealthy uncles lost their job, and had a small drop in their standard of living, "Andrea" wants to screw over a bunch of desperately poor people a world away.

Unlike "Andrea", our elites behave far better. Populists try to protect their favored ethnic groups - witness Shiv Sena trying to pass laws preventing non-Marathis from driving taxis, or "tech bros" entering SF. In contrast, I've never heard a white banker complaining about allowing a Marathi to be the CEO of Citi. Elite institutions - think of banking or tech - tend to be truly global enterprises, open to anyone who can demonstrate the requisite ability.

Somehow the author doesn't draw the obvious conclusion: that our elites are honest, moral and principled individuals, while our masses are selfish, tribal and greedy people out to beggar their neighbors. For good policy making the conclusion is that we should try and increase the power of the elite.

[reddytowns]

"Tech bros" don't like their jobs outsourced to India. That's comparable to your examples, yet they are mostly upper class.

In addition, people are concerned about things that effect themselves. The elites don't care about the neighborhoods they don't live in, or the jobs they don't have to compete for.

But they do care about profit, and about getting richer. In all of the examples you gave, that motivation would work just as well as being "principled" as to explaining their allegiance to the opposite side of the issues as to that of the lower class.

If the world ends up 99.99% of us are either starving or doing jobs such as building a carbon fiber toilet for some rich guy's yacht, simply because the elite "own" everything, the world would be a worse off place, wouldn't you agree?

And, IMO, that's what will occur if we strip away all laws meant to protect the little guy.

[yummyfajitas]

I've never actually met a tech bro who objected except on HN. Everyone I've met has been fine with economic competition from people unlike them. But I could be wrong - do you have evidence that tech is even remotely as protectionist as the trump/Bernie voting masses?

The local elites don't need to compete for CEO jobs with Satya Nadella or Sunder Pichai? That's news to me.

[rtcensored]

The people you are talking about are either your coworkers or those you've met in a workplace related environment, correct? Management wants to do the best things as quickly and cheaply as possible, and anyone who speaks out about it publicly or to their coworkers would be doing harm to their career.

The same is true in any industry. On the factory floor, workers who complain loudly about immigrants working side by side them at the workplace will get them fired.

The same people who you think are all for globalization of the workforce, may also be part of the "trump/Bernie voting masses" behind closed doors.

As for the CEO jobs, there isn't a large group of voters that identify with candidates. I mean, this is getting kind of silly. Do I really need to explain why someone competing for a CEO job with an immigrant can't look to the political process to help them?

And anyway, even if I'm wrong and tech workers are for the race to the bottom, you are quibbling about minor things while ignoring my main point. Do you really think there is morality in denying the lower class a voice to help change the situation they are in? Are the laws shat out by our ancestors so great we cannot change them, even though the result turned out not to be so good? Is it like a board game, in that if you lose, it's unfair to complain because you should have been able to deduce what would happen from the beginning?

What, exactly, do you mean when you refer to the elite as "honest, moral and principled individuals" in your parent post?

[yummyfajitas]

By honest, moral and principled, I mean they don't try to exploit politics to screw over their neighbors. They just compete economically. Kind of like the article claims, and mg experience agrees with.

Some people also didn't want to get into a race to the bottom with negros. I think it's perfectly moral to deny lower class whites the right to change their situation by harming the competition.

[douche]

Nobody really cares about neighborhoods that they don't live in, so I don't see why that makes elites particularly terrible people.

I cringe when I see my customers outsource their IT to India, but that is mostly because it immediately makes my life much more difficult. There are fantastic Indian engineers and sysadmins, but they aren't the ones working the grunt jobs at these cut-rate outsourcing firms...

[reddytowns]

I'm not arguing they are terrible people. I'm arguing they are people, and like everyone else they are for their own interests. The point is that people, regardless whether their ethics are similar to the average person or not, that have too much power, can be dangerous to the world as a whole if not kept in check.

If we allow them to run roughshod over everyone else, we will be worse off because of it.

[guard-of-terra]

"screw over a bunch of desperately poor people a world away"

We don't owe them very much, we don't have jurisdiction over them and we certainly can't help them all.

For any value of we.

Maybe it's better to create jobs "a world away"? If it's a genuine concern.

[majewsky]

> Elite institutions - think of banking or tech - tend to be truly global enterprises, open to anyone who can demonstrate the requisite ability.

So you're saying that people of color and women just aren't fit to rule the world? The ethnic and gender distribution among elite managers etc. is certainly not representative.

[yummyfajitas]

The top 5 tech companies according to a quick Google search -> fortune article are apple, HP, IBM, Amazon and Microsoft. 2 CEOs are people of color (bezos and nacelle) one is gay and one a woman.

It's true that Asians are overrepresented in tech. I believe this is, in fact, because more Asians are fit for the job. Do you disagree? Why do you think Asians are overrepresented, and what do you think should be done about it?

[icebraining]

Bezos is a person of color?

[yummyfajitas]

Hispanic is color, right?

[dragonwriter]

> Hispanic is color, right?

Hispanics are typically within the scope of what is referred to by "people of color", sure, but I've never heard that Bezos identifies as Hispanic or has Hispanic ancestry (a stepfather is not an ancestor...)

[icebraining]

I suppose, as weird as that sounds to a descendant of Spaniards, but Ted Jorgensen is not Hispanic, as far as I can tell.