Living Wages: Moral and Practical

Continuing my series of blog posts on Catholic social teaching, here is another section of Rerum Novarum:

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 [i.e., workingmen's unions and mutual aid societies], 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.

46. If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income. Nature itself would urge him to this. We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

47. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into two classes separated by a wide chasm. On the one side there is the party which holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its grasp the whole of labor and trade; which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is not without influence even in the administration of the commonwealth. On the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sick and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life. These three important benefits, however, can be reckoned on only provided that a man's means be not drained and exhausted by excessive taxation. The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.

In other words, it is both a moral imperative and a practical benefit to the State and society to promote wages that are sufficient for a decent family life and the accumulation of savings for all, though not by means of excessive taxation. Today, the Democrats wish to reduce inequality of income and wealth by means of excessive taxation, but this violates the natural right to private property and also increases hatred between the classes. But too many Republicans do not believe in the "dictate of natural justice" that an employer who fails to pay a diligent full time worker enough to be able to frugally support a family commits a grave injustice. Furthermore, they do not champion a frugal lifestyle and personal savings, preferring instead ever more consumption as "proof" of a healthy economy and driver of increasing wealth for those who already own capital.

Mike Huckabee stands apart from both parties on this issue. He isn't afraid to chide executives for raking in 500 times the income of their low-level workers, and outsourcing good-paying jobs overseas. This type of behavior is immoral. But neither does Huckabee advocate a confiscatory tax on the wealthy to change this situation. Instead, he supports a complete overhaul of our tax system (and health care system) to make our domestic businesses more competitive in the global economy, naturally creating more good-paying jobs. Moreover, he proposes that taxes should be based on consumption, increasing the incentives to be hard-working and frugal, since neither work nor savings would be taxed, but excessive spending would be. Huckabee's tax proposal even includes a "prebate" to make sure that all families would not be taxed on the bare essentials of spending--only on spending that goes above the level of necessity.

I would also note that Rerum Novarum suggests workingmen's unions as a preferable alternative to direct State intervention into unfair treatment of employees by employers. However, Pope Leo XIII recognized even then that many unions are not what they ought to be:

Now, there is a good deal of evidence in favor of the opinion that many of these societies are in the hands of secret leaders, and are managed on principles ill - according with Christianity and the public well-being; and that they do their utmost to get within their grasp the whole field of labor, and force working men either to join them or to starve. Under these circumstances Christian working men must do one of two things: either join associations in which their religion will be exposed to peril, or form associations among themselves and unite their forces so as to shake off courageously the yoke of so unrighteous and intolerable an oppression. No one who does not wish to expose man's chief good to extreme risk will for a moment hesitate to say that the second alternative should by all means be adopted.
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[Many workers] cannot but perceive that their grasping employers too often treat them with great inhumanity and hardly care for them outside the profit their labor brings; and if they belong to any union, it is probably one in which there exists, instead of charity and love, that intestine strife which ever accompanies poverty when unresigned and unsustained by religion. Broken in spirit and worn down in body, how many of them would gladly free themselves from such galling bondage! But human respect, or the dread of starvation, makes them tremble to take the step. To such as these Catholic associations are of incalculable service, by helping them out of their difficulties, inviting them to companionship and receiving the returning wanderers to a haven where they may securely find repose.

Unfortunately, the Christian unions that Pope Leo XIII called for more than a century ago have never materialized. Nevertheless, Huckabee also understands the forces that drive workers to join unions, even if the unions are terribly flawed and often support causes against our Christian beliefs (such as abortion). This is why Huckabee is willing to talk to union members where other Republicans shun them, and warns that unions will resurge unless wages and economic security for workers are strengthened.

Mike Huckabee is right on the mark: living wages are a moral matter, and good for the strength of the nation as well. But the right way to achieve this is not to "soak the rich" with ever more taxes, but to aim directly at boosting wages and encouraging savings.