I Cringe When I Hear The Term "living Wage."

[4588686]

oh, and my apologies to Hasan for chasing him away by making the discussion about Catholic doctrine, but it's important to do so when Catholics are cringing at the term "living wage" when the Church holds that living wages are required by justice.

 

 

I'm good.

[Pliny]

I need to understand what is meant by "injustice" in this context. If I get lost in the woods and cannot find enough food and water and eventually starve to death, is that an injustice?

[Aloysius]

Justice is a social concept... so it's unjust for someone to lead you into the woods to starve, or to refuse to try to rescue you if it at all within their means... but you just getting lost i the woods isnt unjust in itself.

[NotreDame]

I need to understand what is meant by "injustice" in this context. If I get lost in the woods and cannot find enough food and water and eventually starve to death, is that an injustice?

 

It makes a lot more sense in the context of rerum novarum than when quoted by the compendium:

45. Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice. In these and similar questions, however - such as, for example, the hours of labor in different trades, the sanitary precautions to be observed in factories and workshops, etc. - in order to supersede undue interference on the part of the State, especially as circumstances, times, and localities differ so widely, it is advisable that recourse be had to societies or boards such as We shall mention presently, or to some other mode of safeguarding the interests of the wage-earners; the State being appealed to, should circumstances require, for its sanction and protection.


 

[Aloysius]

If you dont like the wording in the compendium, you will hate the wording in the encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

[NotreDame]

If you dont like the wording in the compendium, you will hate the wording in the encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

 

It's not a matter of liking or not liking.  It's a question of whether what is written is clear, accurate, and precise. 
 

Edit:  Which is the relevant encyclical from benedict?  I'm guessing the one from JPII is centesimus annus?

Edited February 12, 2014 by NotreDame

[Aloysius]

 Laborem Exercens from John Paul II also... basically what I've said about systems being unjust if there are people who work but do not receive a wage that they (and their family) can subsist on is detailed in this encyclical.  then Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate.

 

from Laborem Exercens 19: 

 

 

It should also be noted that the justice of a socioeconomic system and, in each case, its just functioning, deserve in the final analysis to be evaluated by the way in which man's work is properly remunerated in the system. Here we return once more to the first principle of the whole ethical and social order, namely, the principle of the common use of goods. In every system, regardless of the fundamental relationships within it between capital and labour, wages, that is to say remuneration for work, are still a practical means whereby the vast majority of people can have access to those goods which are intended for common use: both the goods of nature and manufactured goods. Both kinds of goods become accessible to the worker through the wage which he receives as remuneration for his work. Hence, in every case, a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socioeconomic system and, in any case, of checking that it is functioning justly. It is not the only means of checking, but it is a particularly important one and, in a sense, the key means.

This means of checking concerns above all the family. Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. Such remuneration can be given either through what is called a family wage-that is, a single salary given to the head of the family fot his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the other spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the home-or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families. These grants should correspond to the actual needs, that is, to the number of dependents for as long as they are not in a position to assume proper responsibility for their own lives.

[mortify ii]

Free market economics is not synonymous with Catholicism. The fact that some Catholics adhere to the former is an unfortunate by product of union between the Church and so called right-wing/conservative/republican factions in order to preserve proper moral and social teachings.

 

For all you conservative party Catholics, keep in mind that defrauding the laboring and not providing a just wage is ALSO a SIN that cries out to heaven, and not merely sodomy.

[NotreDame]

Free market economics is not synonymous with Catholicism. The fact that some Catholics adhere to the former is an unfortunate by product of union between the Church and so called right-wing/conservative/republican factions in order to preserve proper moral and social teachings.

 

For all you conservative party Catholics, keep in mind that defrauding the laboring and not providing a just wage is ALSO a SIN that cries out to heaven, and not merely sodomy.

 

Mortify, respectfully, I don't think that conservative, free-market, tea-party (or whatever label is appropriate) individuals believe exactly what you think they believe. 

 

I mean, I'm reading both encyclicals by JPII and they read fairly conservative from my point of view. 
 

[NotreDame]

Free market economics is not synonymous with Catholicism. The fact that some Catholics adhere to the former is an unfortunate by product of union between the Church and so called right-wing/conservative/republican factions in order to preserve proper moral and social teachings.

 

For all you conservative party Catholics, keep in mind that defrauding the laboring and not providing a just wage is ALSO a SIN that cries out to heaven, and not merely sodomy.

 

And as for as defrauding a wage being a sin, that's quite clearly here in Rerum Novarum and in many places in the bible:

 

20. Of these duties, the following bind the proletarian and the worker: fully and faithfully to perform the work which has been freely and equitably agreed upon; never to injure the property, nor to outrage the person, of an employer; never to resort to violence in defending their own cause, nor to engage in riot or disorder; and to havenothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful promises of great results, and excite foolish hopes which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss. The following duties bind the wealthy owner and the employer: not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character. They are reminded that, according to natural reason and Christian philosophy, working for gain is creditable, not shameful, to a man, since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers - that is truly shameful and inhuman. Again justice demands that, in dealing with the working man, religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind. Hence, the employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his religious duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family, or to squander his earnings. Furthermore, the employer must never tax his work people beyond their strength, or employ them in work unsuited to their sex and age. His great and principal duty is to give every one what is just. Doubtless, before deciding whether wages axe fair, many things have to be considered; but wealthy owners and all masters of labor should be mindful of this - that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one's      profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven. "Behold, the hire of the laborers... which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."(6) Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from cutting down the workmen's earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred. Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves to keep under all strife and all its causes?

 

But in terms of "not providing a just wage" being a sin, what exactly does that mean to you and what are you basing that on?

[Slappo]

The problem I have with living wage is that it is in no way really defined.

 

What about someone who has a $100,000 savings account and wants to take an astute un-paid intership in DC to gain awesome experience for a great career move in 2 years. He has the financial ability to support himself during the two year internship with no real harm to his financial situation. He wants to do the work, he doesn't mind getting monetary compensation as he sees the work experience as more valuable than money at this point in his life... Why should it be wrong? Heck, the internship might not even be valuable to the employer as it is a learning type position. The effort that goes into the employer training the intern over 2 years just barely pays off by the work the intern is able to accomplish. In other words... there is no reason for the employer to have the intern except as a training opportunity and possible recruitment technique once the intern is trained.

 

I see absolutely zero problems with this. The idea of a living wage would say this is unjust as the intern is not being paid to support his annual necessary expenses for living...

[NotreDame]

The problem I have with living wage is that it is in no way really defined.

 

[...]

 

I see absolutely zero problems with this. The idea of a living wage would say this is unjust as the intern is not being paid to support his annual necessary expenses for living...

 

Actually, if the living wage isn't really defined (and I more or less agree with you here) then what is in bold can't be true.  I would say that's some peoples' idea of what a living wage is, but it's not clear that's the context for the use of the term in papal encyclicals.

 

 

[arfink]

Intentionally negotiating for less pay because you don't need it is very different from being forced to accept less pay than you need. Labor laws are generally only written with the second case in mind, from what I can see. Those who wish to work for less will never want for work, let me assure you. Those who need to make more money, on the other hand, tend to have a very hard time. Defending the abolishing of minimum wage for those who wish to work for less doesn't make much sense to me, as alternative arrangements are already available.

[Aloysius]

the idea of a living wage does not say that is unjust... at least not a Catholic idea of a living wage, which is often referred to as a "subsistence wage" or a "family wage"... the point is that if someone is working they must be capable of providing for their subsistence.  to hire someone at less than the wage that would be required for them to meet their subsistence obligations is unjust... though generally we might say that the system in which that can happen is unjust rather than specifically the employer himself doing something sinful or unjust (though he could be doing so, he is not necessarily doing so, especially if he himself is just trying to fulfill his obligations and provide for the well being of his family and cannot afford to pay more than that... but a system in which jobs that would pay people less than they are capable of subsisting on are the only things available to some people is definitively unjust)

 

living wage/subsistence wage/family wage is defined.  just because there's not a universal number for it doesn't mean that it is not.  one could dehumanize the whole thing and complain about whether the living wage included modern technological comfort, or one could take the Popes and the social magisterium for what they actually say and recognize that a living wage is based upon the basic duties (and therefore rights to the means by which they can fulfill those duties, in thomistic terms, as the Popes since Leo XIII have applied the term) of people as well as their inherent dignity as an end in and of themselves, and not as something that can be morally used by others as a means to an end.

[Aloysius]

Notre Dame, I do understand the motivation and thought processes by which one reads such social teachings through conservative blinders... I once engaged in the same kinds of things myself.  But generally any honest reading of these encyclicals cannot sustain the proposition that they're "mostly conservative" in the neoliberal/libertarian/US conservative economic sense...as they are decidedly against such ideas.  Try not to minimize the parts you don't like and maximize the parts you do, and it'll come into clearer focus the things that the Popes are trying to say here.