If that’s what you are really calling for, then why is this the first I’ve read it in your posts?
Because you were looking for something else? Really, it’s essentially what I’ve been advocating all along. You just presumed otherwise.
I responded to Jennifer that putting caps on income (she recommended $50-100k/year) removes incentive and hurts economies. You agreed with her. Explain to me how caps on income would not be over involvement by the government.
No, I took issue with your comment:
- Taking away incentive destroys an economy. If the possibility of making more money does not exist, people won’t choose to excel. Why should they? They also won’t invest their money into a business which creates jobs.
Mine was not a concrete concurrance with jennifer’s proposal, but a rhetocal hypothosis that we might be a better society were we to get away from the Calvinistic idea that the reason to excel (or the need to “move up”) is primarily for the profit of “getting ahead” and essential to proove yourself within society. I’d truly like to return to a more Catholic vision where vocation, family, and the nature of things for their own intrinsic good is the more important thing. I honestly believe that this former mentality is bad for America and humankind. And I believe enough in people that they can and will function in better ways than that, even absent monetary gain incentives, if need be. In fact, I still see it in immigrant communities (particularly among the hispanic populations these days). Alas, as immigrants Americanize, and “climb the ladder” towards nice, suburban life, they often leave behind these positive cultural commitments for what gets perceived to be “the good life”.
Like Jennifer, your heart is in the right place, but I don’t think you have a good grasp on macroeconomics.
I think we merely disagree on the “inevitibility” of how macroeconomics work and can be shaped.
As a Catholic, I believe in following the teaching of the Church. If you can show me anywhere in the Catechism where my understandings, as laid out in this thread, is contrary to the Church, please do so.
I’m quite confident that you are sincerely trying to do the right thing. And I applaud you for that. I wouldn’t even suggest that an opposition to the minimum wage law is, in theory, opposed to Catholic teaching. Nor do I argue that increases in wages will cause changes in the business climate. Where I take umbrage is with the idea that some forms of work are “not worth the wage”. If you remove the human person from the picture entirely and view the economy in an amoral vacuum, this may be accurate. But we, as Catholics, may not do that. The human being is not to be seen a a mere means of production to an end of profit. Rather, he is the subject at the core of industry. “Work was made for man, not man for work,” as Pope John Paul said. Must we struggle within the real world challenges of an economic climate to make this our central accomplishment. Well, yes. But we can not dismiss the principle towards which we ought be working.
Much of our American attitudes concerning work and economy are based more in a Calvinistic ideal which causes us to lose track of the (Catholic understanding concerning) essence of work, the human person, and vocation, along with the orientation of all of these towards family and the upbuilding of cultures. As such, we emphasize achievement and the individual above all. Theologically, this comes from the Calvinistic concept of “chosenness” whereby you will be shown blessings on earth as a sign of your fidelity. Such led to the obcession with precision and time in countries like Germany, and “getting ahead” to show to all that you are indeed one of the elect. In our culture, this has translated itself into a form of materialism, where the more goodies you have and the better off you are, the more it illustrates to your fellow man that you are a good person who has done right. And for those who have not achieved as much as have you, well certainly they just have not done right (theologically are to be included among the unsaved).
Now there’s certainly nothing wrong (indeed it is a good thing) with advancing economically or having incentive to do so. But the ideas which have been promoted by many in this thread really do at their base tend towards a Calvinistic rather than a Catholic worldview when promoted in the way that they are.
And, to get us back towards minimun wage, I would argue that there is a basic level of respect (and financial earnings) for the worker which is foundational upon which the discussion should start which helps to prove this commitment of Catholic sensibility out. As I alluded to in my concert hall/sports stadium analogy, there’s nothing wrong with a gradation in seating at the table, but everyone ought to have a place to eat.
penWindow(‘cr/2425.htm’)
The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.207 Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market."208 Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.
