[lxxxvi]

> culturally there isn't an equivalent of caste that would make sense for a white person to act on

Sure there is. People from English-speaking countries & Western Europeans vs "Eastern Europeans" and Latinos.

Ignoring for a moment that using the term "Eastern Europe" is itself hugely problematic, though usually because of ignorance not racism, I have worked in one and heard of several examples where there were huge discrepancies in salaries (much more than CoL-related), raises, promotions etc. between native English speakers and people from the CEE region.

There's absolutely a "caste" system among white people in tech. North Americans, UK, NZ, and AUS first, western Europe second, everyone else fifth.

[raxxorraxor]

I cannot really confirm that within Europe where I live at least. Using Eastern Europe isn't problematic either. It doesn't have negative connotations where I live, it simply refers to the country of origin. Southern Europe perhaps, but that isn't really meant too seriously and more referring to fiscal policies.

Companies pay their workers the lowest wage they can get away with. In some regions the wage level is smaller so people tend to accept lower wages. Unfair of course if they live and work in the same place but also not really discrimination. They have to demand more.

I doubt this is comparable to castes in these cases.

[lxxxvi]

> I cannot really confirm that within Europe where I live at least

Brexit literally happened because of among other reasons too many "Eastern Europeans". Germans have zero qualms about using phrases like "Barely stolen, already in Poland"...

> Using Eastern Europe isn't problematic either. It doesn't have negative connotations where I live, it simply refers to the country of origin

If you can give me a concise definition of "Eastern Europe" that doesn't have a bunch of asterisks and doesn't use effectively colonial groupings (i.e. when the USSR occupied/puppeted countries usually considered EE) I'll concede this one. But I doubt that you can give me such a definition.

> Companies pay their workers the lowest wage they can get away with. In some regions the wage level is smaller so people tend to accept lower wages. Unfair of course if they live and work in the same place but also not really discrimination. They have to demand more.

I know how capitalism works. But when you see someone with 10 years of experience quit because they couldn't get beyond $x regardless of what they did and how much they asked for more get replaced with someone with 3 years of experience making 150% of x for 50% of the same job... The difference being the former was Polish and the latter an American living in Romania (i.e. with an even lower CoL than Poland)...

Does it seem incredible, considering companies should optimize for profit? Absolutely. But I've seen it happen with my own eyes and I've seen the work of both.

[user_named]

At least the north Americans think so.