Hi gang,

I've seen a rise of South Americans from third world economies, appearing in WAM content.

Do we know how much they are receiving, relative to the retail price?

Dystopian to see them get pied for pennies on the dollar

UMD should be better than that

I kinda like the idea of poor women doing my bidding.

Looking on Salary Explorer it seems the average pay in Argentina is the equivalent of about £400 a month ($500). In contrast the UK average wage is about £2,400 a month.

However this is going to be a bit like the cheap clothes argument, if rich countries stop buying cheap, low-wage clothes from developing countries' factories, all those workers end up unemployed, which doesn't really help. Making the most of cheap labour elsewhere is a production technique as old as capitalism, it's unlikely to end any time soon.

I understand where you are coming from.

I can't and don't want to speak for anyone else, but for me, I try very very hard not to exploit anyone as it would go against all my principles and beliefs. Whether my models are UK or South American based I try and strike the sweet spot whereby everyone gets a fair wage, but I am also able to earn enough to then continue to be able to give more work.

It's worked well so far and I have been able to give substantive amounts of work, which I hope is a positive thing. I have no interest in building anything on the back of exploiting other people, no matter in what country, but rather try and build a model where everyone benefits.

I would love to earn an average UK wage

Spot on. According to the Equality Trust, the top 1% of earners in the UK receive a total of 13% of the total income.
The worse off 20% receive only 8% between them.
The top 20% have average incomes over £69,000 per year.
The worse off 20% have incomes under £13,000 per year.

The low paid include carers. Any one of us may need full time care, one day. Perhaps confined to bed, doubly incontinent. What do we think that carers deserve to be paid?
Peter.I

Added comment; many thanks to the person who tidied up my "quote" marker. I tried several times to get it right, but I couldn't get the dark coloured border in the right place! Thanks!

Older -- the slaves who built the pyramids weren't paid much, either.

Yeah what you're describing is literally imperialism but just in WAM format. Wages haves been decreasing worldwide for a while now as crisis in capitalism have steadily gotten worse and worse to a point its near obvious things are coming to a head (which is why the wages of whiteness as Du Bois puts it is becoming more and more valuable to lower paid white workers these days).

The kind of economic exploitation of South Americans these days has its roots in the birth of neo-liberalism (which currently governs most of the economies of the West) in Chile during Pinochet's coup. Since then and the mass slaughter and genocidal wars in the 70s and 80s in Guatemala, Argentina and damn near every country in the hemisphere, IMF and World Bank shitkicking has set up a core-periphery relationship between Euro-America and the rest of the planet.

So people get paid shit for hard work cos any time they try and resist that the CIA come swooping in with a hand picked Fascist to crush any sort of resistance. The Cocaine Coup and the Argentinian Dirty War are but a few examples of this.

If you're interested in this sort of stuff thats not coming from the mouth of a slightly drunk 22 year old then I can recommend some readings.

The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins
Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality - JosCarlos Mariegui
Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America - J. Patrice McSherry
Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism - Greg Gandin

Or film wise, The Battle of Chile by Patricio Guzm