You are richer if you can afford more goods and better goods. But not all goods will necessarily change price in the same direction. Its entirely possible that you can become richer, but that food prices grow faster than your new income. (For example, imagine that your income doubles, that food prices also double, but prices of other things drop so that inflation remains zero. You can afford more non-food stuff, and the same amount of food, so you are richer overall. This could happen even if food prices had gone up faster than your income.)
I think a (slightly cartoony) real life example is servants. Rich people today are richer than rich people in Victorian times, but fewer rich people today (in developed countries) can afford to have servants. This is because the price of hiring servants has gone up faster than the incomes of these rich people. So it is possible for people to get richer overall, while at the same time some specific goods or services become less accessible.
Maybe a more obvious example is rent (or housing in general). A modern computer programmer in Silicon valley could well be paying a larger percentage of their income on housing than a medieval peasant. But, they can afford more of other things than that peasant could.
I think a (slightly cartoony) real life example is servants. Rich people today are richer than rich people in Victorian times, but fewer rich people today (in developed countries) can afford to have servants.
It’s not really a question of developed countries. Singapore is a developed country and it’s much cheaper to hire servants over there.
Western ideas of equality and migration policy are what’s making servants more expensive.
I think even if you open up Western countries, there are more productive areas where labour can be absorbed rather than household work.
Servants in Singapore are probably are a result of Singapore’s migration policy. Let’s say a developed country had a lax migration policy that allowed people to just come and setup a business, work or study or do nothing.
Then this would allow people to take risks such upskilling themselves and moving into more productive sectors of the economy in a similar fashion to the native population. Current migration policies tend to be restrictive as they tie down individuals to a specific job.
Switching jobs, upskilling yourself or starting a business becomes really hard without breaking immigration laws. Thus, condemning workers to the low productive jobs that they first got when they came into the country.
The ability to do nothing assumes welfare policy for migrants. Singapore allows migration but doesn’t provide welfare for the migrants which enables low wage labor like household work to happen.
The migrants might be better of than in their home country and the person who’s employing them has a cheap servant.
On the other hand, Western countries don’t want those relations so they don’t have migration without welfare that would lead to that.
The ability to do nothing assumes welfare policy for migrants
How? It might be better to be homeless in US than having a house in Afghanistan. Job visa restrictions don’t allow you to be homeless.
I simply mean allowing people to stay in a country when they are in-between jobs or looking for other jobs. Most countries only give you a fixed period like 30-days to find similar work, otherwise you are asked to leave.
If there were no job-specific restrictions, people can save up money for a time period or work in another job / employer other than the one stated on your visa.
The migrants might be better of than in their home country and the person who’s employing them has a cheap servant.
Not arguing against this. But the migrant can’t for example take out a loan and start a business due to visa restrictions or move to more productive parts of the economy.
I think you are slightly muddling your phrases.
You are richer if you can afford more goods and better goods. But not all goods will necessarily change price in the same direction. Its entirely possible that you can become richer, but that food prices grow faster than your new income. (For example, imagine that your income doubles, that food prices also double, but prices of other things drop so that inflation remains zero. You can afford more non-food stuff, and the same amount of food, so you are richer overall. This could happen even if food prices had gone up faster than your income.)
I think a (slightly cartoony) real life example is servants. Rich people today are richer than rich people in Victorian times, but fewer rich people today (in developed countries) can afford to have servants. This is because the price of hiring servants has gone up faster than the incomes of these rich people. So it is possible for people to get richer overall, while at the same time some specific goods or services become less accessible.
Maybe a more obvious example is rent (or housing in general). A modern computer programmer in Silicon valley could well be paying a larger percentage of their income on housing than a medieval peasant. But, they can afford more of other things than that peasant could.
It’s not really a question of developed countries. Singapore is a developed country and it’s much cheaper to hire servants over there.
Western ideas of equality and migration policy are what’s making servants more expensive.
I think even if you open up Western countries, there are more productive areas where labour can be absorbed rather than household work.
Servants in Singapore are probably are a result of Singapore’s migration policy. Let’s say a developed country had a lax migration policy that allowed people to just come and setup a business, work or study or do nothing.
Then this would allow people to take risks such upskilling themselves and moving into more productive sectors of the economy in a similar fashion to the native population. Current migration policies tend to be restrictive as they tie down individuals to a specific job.
Switching jobs, upskilling yourself or starting a business becomes really hard without breaking immigration laws. Thus, condemning workers to the low productive jobs that they first got when they came into the country.
The ability to do nothing assumes welfare policy for migrants. Singapore allows migration but doesn’t provide welfare for the migrants which enables low wage labor like household work to happen.
The migrants might be better of than in their home country and the person who’s employing them has a cheap servant.
On the other hand, Western countries don’t want those relations so they don’t have migration without welfare that would lead to that.
How? It might be better to be homeless in US than having a house in Afghanistan. Job visa restrictions don’t allow you to be homeless.
I simply mean allowing people to stay in a country when they are in-between jobs or looking for other jobs. Most countries only give you a fixed period like 30-days to find similar work, otherwise you are asked to leave.
If there were no job-specific restrictions, people can save up money for a time period or work in another job / employer other than the one stated on your visa.
Not arguing against this. But the migrant can’t for example take out a loan and start a business due to visa restrictions or move to more productive parts of the economy.
See this as an example: https://www.reddit.com/r/h1b/comments/1l1lcwq/moving_to_india_after_15_years/