Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Catholic social teaching on Living Wage
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The living wage is a concept central to the Catholic Social Teaching tradition beginning with the foundational document, Rerum Novarum, a papal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII issued in 1891 to combat the excesses of both laissez-faire capitalism on the one hand and communism on the other. In this letter, Pope Leo affirms the right to private property while insisting on the role of the state to require a living wage. The means of production were considered by the pope to be both private property requiring state protection and a dimension of the common good requiring state regulation.
Pope Leo first described a living wage in such terms as could be generalised for application in nations throughout the world. Rerum Novarum touched off legislative reform movements throughout the world eliminating child labor, reducing the work week, and establishing minimum wages.
- "If a worker receives a wage sufficiently large to enable him to provide comfortably for himself, his wife and his children, he will, if prudent, gladly strive to practice thrift; and the result will be, as nature itself seems to counsel, that after expenditures are deducted there will remain something over and above through which he can come into the possession of a little wealth. We have seen, in fact, that the whole question under consideration cannot be settled effectually unless it is assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property."
- "Wealthy owners of the means of production and employers must never forget that both divine and human law forbid them to squeeze the poor and wretched for the sake of gain or to profit from the helplessness of others."
- "As regards protection of this world’s good, the first task is to save the wretched workers from the brutality of those who make use of human beings as mere instruments for the unrestrained acquisition of wealth."
- "Care must be taken, therefore, not to lengthen the working day beyond a man’s capacity. How much time there must be for rest depends upon the type of work, the circumstances of time and place and, particularly, the health of the workers."
In Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI clarifies Rerum Novarum by warning that, in seeking to protect the worker from exploitation, society must not exploit the employer. "...The wealthy class violates (the common good) no less, when, as if free from care on account of its wealth, it thinks it the right order of things for it to get everything and the worker nothing, than does the...working class when, angered deeply at outraged justice and too ready to assert wrongly the one right it is conscious of, it demands for itself everything as if produced by its own hands, and attacks and seeks to abolish, therefore, all property and returns or incomes, of whatever kind they are or whatever the function they perform in human society, that have not been obtained by labor, and for no other reason save that they are of such a nature."
This post was written by: Franklin Manuel
Franklin Manuel is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Twitter
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