What wage is just?

  • Thread starter Thread starter YourNameHere
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
And you accept that it your opinion is compatible with Catholic teaching? I cannot see how. If you want to fix the problem through wage laws, that is obviously an option in a democratic society. But if the law does not suffice to provide a minimum wage in a given circumstance, you feel the employer is still morally allowed to pay the insufficient wage until the law is fixed?

BTW, what is ASP?

ETA: are there other areas of moral theology where you believe that human laws take precedent over Catholic moral teaching? For example with regards to marriage, our legal laws only provide requirements such as free consent and no non-legal marriages are in existence: so its okay to ignore Church teaching on requiring an annulment, or getting married by proper form?
 
Last edited:
In a perfect world Catholic Social Teachings would be the rule of the land. We don’t live in a Catholic land. We live in a secular United States of America

As wages increase, so do prices. It would be unjust to demand increase in wages that would make a loaf of bread cost $10.
 
vz71 said:
Why are you limiting yourself?
Click to expand...
Why are you limiting me?
TheLittleLady said:
My opinion is that the state defines a minimum wage. If the employer wishes to pay more, then, the worker ought be able to negotiate for more. It does not make an employer un-just if they cannot afford to pay more than the mandated minimum.
Click to expand...
Just saying straight up I don’t disagree with you. I would like to add however is asymmetrical information in wage negotiation is grossly common. People don’t share what they make so it’s hard for an employee to ask for a fair rate.

It’s part of the reason we have gaps in wages between different employees. Yes, you can argue that everyone doesn’t have the same skill or value but if you don’t know what the average earner… well earns in any field it’s very easy for companies to railroad people into sub-par wages.

which is exactly why we have a minimum wage to start with to prevent people from being lowballed to the point they lose money for working.

Which still happens by the way. American internships are a horrible example of this.
 
Last edited:
Sadly, America has turned into a place where just wages, just compensation, justice at all in the marketplace is simply a myth.
 
I am just having a hard time understanding the idea that with an issue of personal moral acts, we can just follow the legal law even if it does not meet the criteria for what the Church defines as moral and still be without sin.
 
There are many laws in the US that do not meet the Catholic Church’s definition of “just”.

We can and should, according to our station in life, work to change those laws. We need also to exercise prudence that in making a law (let’s say $20 per hour is determined to be a “just wage”) that it does not then cause more people to fall into desperate poverty because of the drastic increase in prices, decrease in job openings, etc.
 
TheLittleLady said:
As wages increase, so do prices. It would be unjust to demand increase in wages that would make a loaf of bread cost $10.
Click to expand...
That is a slippery slope argument. It was used by many capitalists in the late 1890s and early 1900s to justify very low wages. They loudly denounced Henry Ford with that argument when he decided to pay his workers more. It has been proven to not be true. One can make the case that a higher wage will increase the incentive to employ less people, that is true on a micro-economic level (it has, so far, not been true at a macro level to a great extent). But it is also why your argument fails on a macro-economic level. It assumes there is no cost elasticity.
 
And the “let’s pay everyone $20 per hour” assumes all people are godly
 
A red herring argument with respect to the thread. And a straw-man argument with respect to my positions.
 
Last edited:
tafan2 said:
That has to start with understanding the problem. To my knowledge, there is only one institution that gives good guidelines on this question, the Catholic Church. I think we should start by understanding what the Church says.
Click to expand...
This highlights another problem.
Laws simply do not lend themselves to the nuance that Catholic teaching excels in.

As a result, any law at all appears to subvert teaching.
 
Anrakyr said:
Why are you limiting me?
Click to expand...
I have no idea how to address this.
Anrakyr said:
In order to work in this market you have to have a college education…
Click to expand...
Anrakyr said:
Then get a robot to do it. My time is worth money.
Click to expand...
Anrakyr said:
Concept; how about you cut costs to include a fair wage and if you can’t expand because you can’t hire more workers maybe just maybe ya shouldn’t.
Click to expand...
Anrakyr said:
In order to get a job more then the average ditch digger you need a trade often needs a degree; electrical, plumbing, welding, computer anything.
Click to expand...
You are limiting yourself in both attitude towards employers as well as inflating the cost of real experience and skills.

People can work hard, acquire skills and experience, and succeed.
Crippling debt is always an option…but so is shooting yourself in the foot.
 
vz71 said:
Crippling debt is always an option…but so is shooting yourself in the foot.
Click to expand...
Beats a dead end factory job that’s going to be automated any minute now anyway leaving me right back where I started. Lest with a degree I can make things a robot and computer can’t.
 
Anrakyr said:
Beats a dead end factory job that’s going to be automated any minute now anyway leaving me right back where I started. Lest with a degree I can make things a robot and computer can’t.
Click to expand...
Two weeks ago, I paid a plumber $200.00 for 15 minutes worth of work.
He mentioned he had six more calls that day.
He also noted that he was going to be busy for the next few weeks with all of the frozen pipes and people in the South not knowing how to handle their plumbing in cold weather.
The combination was raking in obscene amounts of money for his business.
Given the feast or famine nature of small businesses, he was devising ways to make the money last and expand the business.

So…I have a plumber on call. Whose business is doing very well. With no college education and very little formal training.
How do you suppose this happened?
 
vz71 said:
Picking up a marketable skill and running with it is illegal where you live?
Click to expand...
Most things require permits which require an educated professional to perform. Using your plumber example you can end up invalidating someone’s house insurance without proper education even if you did a flawless job and you’d be extremely liable if you didn’t.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top