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Socrates92
Guest
Now that is interesting. I more or less assumed min wage laws were almost universal in the developed world.
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Do you speak of a head of household trying to raise the family on minimum or on a teenager saving money for a car?
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LilyM
Guest
Did anyone hold a gun to the heads of any of these business owners and insist on their being so foolhardy as to mortgage their houses on something as risky as a business? And be in no doubt, given how many businesses, both large and small, fail, it is a risky endeavour to stake the family home on a business.
Or to engage in s 80 hour weeks with no compensation?
To approach business in such a way strikes me as something similar to a cross between choosing to betting the family farm on the craps tables at Vegas and choosing to have and raise a couple of children. The first does not seem to be deserving of praise or remuneration, although if you are lucky and smart you may receive it. And the second - well, if it is foolish to have children without also having the means to support them. I would say the same applies to hiring workers without also having the means to pay them a living wage.
In relation to how businesses treat employees - it was a shockingly short time ago that most employers (and I use the term loosely) placed so little value on some forms of work (and some workers) that they felt entitled to treat some of their workers as literal chattel slaves. None of this, of course, had anything to do with the fair value of the work provided. Let alone the inherent dignity of the worker or their right to life, which surely includes the right to be able to obtain the means of living without having to spend 10 or 15 hours a day, including Sundays, at the proverbial grindstone.
And the situation was not remedied by people en masse having a divine epiphany. It required decades of hard work, a Civil War in the US, and multiple rounds of legislation, most of which was hotly contested. With the end result that plenty of employers are still doing everything they can - including moving jobs offshore - to pay as little as possible to their employees.
I can go on further about the greed of business owners which at times goes well beyond possibly immoral practices to the downright illegal - Enron, Fannie Mae, Theranos and so on. Those are the well-publicised tip of the iceberg.
Look, I am not pretending that employees are saints. But neither are business owners.
Nor am I suggesting $17 an hour minimum wages. But there is a middle ground - as I said, Australia combines a $12 an hour minimum wage with $4.50 Big Macs.
As for your rant against Europe - trust me, the feeling is completely mutual.
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Padres1969
Guest
Head of household. As minimum wage was meant for when it was created.
Do you have documentation that the minimum wage was intended to support a family?
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LilyM
Guest
How do you reconcile the fact that Rerum Novarum says the exact opposite?
"43. … Wages, as we are told, are regulated by free consent, and therefore the employer, when he pays what was agreed upon, has done his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond. The only way, it is said, in which injustice might occur would be if the master refused to pay the whole of the wages, or if the workman should not complete the work undertaken; in such cases the public authority should intervene, to see that each obtains his due, but not under any other circumstances.
- To this kind of argument a fair-minded man will not easily or entirely assent; it is not complete, for there are important considerations which it leaves out of account altogether…" (my emphases)
Please be more clear.
I do not see a contradiction with paying an employee the agreed upon wage.
And the majority of small business owners today are guilty of the same?
If not, then why are you bringing up the irrelevant?
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LilyM
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Read the quotes from Rerum Novarum underneath - para 43 talks about the commonly held conception (expressed by dracarys) that employers owe workers nothing more than what is agreed upon between them.LilyM:
Please be more clear.
I do not see a contradiction with paying an employee the agreed upon wage.
Para 44 says that such a notion is “not complete” and leaves “important considerations” out of the equation - in other words that mere agreement may not be sufficient to ensure that an employer is adequately fulfilling his moral obligations to the worker.
If an agreed upon wage is fair and just, fine. Some aren’t. So the mere fact that an employer and employee agreed to a wage is not the end of the story.
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LilyM
Guest
This has nothing to do with the majority really . The majority of people don’t commit murder, or most other crimes, but we need laws on the books to deal with those (thankfully rare) cases where a person does.LilyM:
And the majority of small business owners today are guilty of the same?
If not, then why are you bringing up the irrelevant?
The majority of employers are doubtless fine upstanding people - so are the majority of workers. Yet I see some contempt for workers expressed in this thread, as if they somehow have less than full human dignity or human rights, including the right to earn enough to live without having to sacrifice an insane amount of their time and energy to do it. And as if the employer’s idea of the value of their labour to himself or herself is the be-all and end-all of what they should be paying.
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Padres1969
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Do you have reason to believe that the business owners speaking in this thread so not pay a fair and just wage?
I could easily argue that this thread started this line of thinking by placing business owners on the defensive.
The title is "what wage is just’
But rather then argue over what exactly would constitute a just wage we are claiming, in blanket terms, business owners are morally lacking for paying what they can for the work provided.
Some here are even claiming small businesses should be shut down if their payroll is insufficient to provide for a family. Not for an instance considering what precisely a just wage is. Just running on some idea that the job does not pay what they think it should.
And best of all, it all appears to be armchair quarterbacking from people that do not know how a business operates.
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Padres1969
Guest
“The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Others have argued that the primary purpose was to aid the lowest paid of the nation’s working population, those who lacked sufficient bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum subsistence wage.”
This does not describe what you claim.
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Dracarys
Guest
Well than you have no work ethic. It is the risk taking entrepreneurs who create companies, jobs, and innovation. Iknow people like you will never understand this.
Yeah, but if China, Russia, or North Korea ever challenges your country you will come whining and pleading to the good old USA.
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Dracarys
Guest
I have lost a little respect for you. You claimed that the standard of living and such is much higher in Denmark than the US. Yet your eating canned chicken and carrot mush. Have you ever been to America? Last week we went to a Thai restaurant (I am addicted to Thai) and I had Pad Prick, and my wife had curried chicken. The total bill was $14. The next day we went to a steakhouse where I had an incredibly delicious New York strip steak, with sides of potato, vegetables, and salad. My wife had prime rib. Our bill was around $40. I can go to a local fast food place called Taco Bell and get a grand burrito, two soft tacos for around $8 or less. Hamburgers range from $2 to $4. with a side of fries. Let’s be honest, eating is one of the main joys in life. We don’t just eat for sustenance it is supposed to be a pleasure. There is no way you can do that in a country where hamburgers cost $15. If your worried I may get a little to pudgy eating some of this my gym membership is $10 a month.
I think you in Denmark have foolishly backed yourself into a corner with all your entitlements, high wages, etc. You and other European countries are an example of what NOT to do.
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Dracarys
Guest
I have said it many times neither the pope nor the church sets wages. IT IS THE FREE MARKET THAT DOES THIS. If a catholic business owner decided to pay even his most menial workers $17 an hour he would be buried by his competition. That is real life my friend.
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_Ruby
Guest
This is really a ridiculous amount of projection on your behalf.leonhardprintz:
I have lost a little respect for you. You claimed that the standard of living and such is much higher in Denmark than the US. Yet your eating canned chicken and carrot mush.
I think you in Denmark have foolishly backed yourself into a corner with all your entitlements, high wages, etc. You and other European countries are an example of what NOT to do.
Why on earth would you assume someone who has cheap food bills is eating ‘canned chicken and carrot mush’??
If fresh produce so rare in America that it carries a premium cost? Why else would you assume Danes are scratching a food existence just because they can eat cheaply?
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