[krapp]

>As in, their business doesn't even generate enough revenue to afford hiring the kind of people who can keep it running?

Even businesses which generate enough revenue to be able to afford higher salaries don't want to pay more for labor. They want to pay less for more.

[alexanderstears]

And workers seek higher salaries. Through both entities acting in their self-interest, the market discovers an equilibrium.

[WalterSear]

Until the entity with more power starts bending the rules of them game in their favour.

[Godel_unicode]

I always find this an interesting argument; while company foo has more power than a random job seeker, they certainly don't have more power than all the other companies seeking that employee. In order for companies to wield their supposed salary-depressing power there would have to be massive collusion. For an example of how (in)effective that is, look how much salaries increased while Apple Google et al were colluding.

I think this is more simple: units of production are less obviously attributable to FTE count or difference in skill in software than in other fields. Therefore, management is less sure how much developer they actually need to purchase.

[WalterSear]

Companies are certainly beholden to the market: one of the ways the power asymmetry is unfolding is in their successful manipulation of H1 visa legislation.

None of this is all-or-nothing. Companies use their power over the individual applicants as a response to the vagaries of the market. However, the basic logic divide and conquer ing means that they always have more power than individuals selling their services to them.

[alexanderstears]

Even the H1 program pits corporate interests against each other. The biggest companies have to enter the same lottery as WIPRO Jr. DBAs.

[tristor]

There has been exactly this type of collusion in the past and I would argue it's still ongoing, just better covered up. http://fortune.com/2015/09/03/koh-anti-poach-order/

[eli_gottlieb]

Until the class which does all the work decides to get rid of our parasites.

[WalterSear]

Except they won't/can't. And the parasites are actually working very hard.

They just get inordinately rewarded for their work, because most of their work involves maintaining the status quo, with them on top. It's their families that don't work.

Moreover, so far the only thing revolution has been good for is shuffling the parasites. I strongly suspect there are biological reasons behind our feudal support of strongmen.

[KGIII]

Historically, that hasn't been very successful. Purges never seem to be a good solution.

[alexanderstears]

If the market clears that's the equilibrium.

[WalterSear]

If the market is free, eventually it gets sold. In this case, that means legislating artificial surplus in the form of increased H1 visas.

[alexanderstears]

Even then the market clears. The equilibrium under H1 is different than without H1 but there's still an equilibrium.

[WalterSear]

I'm not sure what your point is: that it is the preferable state of affairs simply because it has found stability?