I Cringe When I Hear The Term "living Wage."

[Nihil Obstat]

Snip...

 honestly they shouldn't even need to work that much, look at all the energy slaves (machines) we have doing all this work for us.  people should certainly be able to freely work MORE so that they can get MORE, but the idea that they should need to work so much?  it's rather superfluous, and especially because all of that work is done to just get by, it's stagnating to humanity's future.

 

Notredame, I'm not sure raising the minimum wage to be a living wage in and of itself would work without some other drastic changes to the system.  I don't want to get into an in-depth argument about my specific economic system--(which is a form of distributism, Peschian solidarist economics, certain libertarian/anarcho strains, all constantly in flux because honestly I guarantee you I'll never be the one with all the answers)--

LD has some really interesting things to say about the concept of a post-economic society.

[NotreDame]

well you'd have to read through the whole Compendium on Social Doctrine, particularly when it talks about Family wages, and it has stuff in there about social welfare systems too... just that quote alone deals specifically with a subsistence wage.  the Rerum Novarum citation was to paragraph 131, I haven't cross-referenced it but I assumed the Vatican would get their citations right... if you're just using cntrl + F through Rerum perhaps there's a difference in translation at play.

 

Right, and rerum novarum has only 64 paragraphs... And I don't find the substance of the quote in encyclical anywhere.
 

[Aloysius]

hmm... apparently it's a reference to a page number in Acta Leonis XIII... don't know where to get a copy of the official Acts of Leo XIII, who knows if it's even in English... maybe we must write to the Vatican lol.

[Aloysius]

while there's no way this was the quote they were referencing, this lays out the same principle:

 

 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

 

he then goes on to say that ideally the state shouldn't have to interfere to make this happen, as ideally unions or guilds could so so, but that they should be protected by the state in their right to exist.

[NotreDame]

hmm... apparently it's a reference to a page number in Acta Leonis XIII... don't know where to get a copy of the official Acts of Leo XIII, who knows if it's even in English... maybe we must write to the Vatican lol.

 

No, I'm pretty sure it's referring to rerum novarum and that "Acta Leonis XIII" just means "by Leo the 13th"
 

[Aloysius]

curious what the 131 means, I actually think it must be a page number in Volume 11 of the official Pontificis Maximi Acta of Leo XIII... hmmm... either way, it says the same thing as Rerum Novarum 25, just doesn't use the actual word "subsistence" (and who knows what kind of translations were used/translated from, etc)

[NotreDame]

 though the more people are working for under a subsistence wage the more you have to make up for that through welfare systems... so it's generally a choice between higher minimum wage, or more available welfare assistance,

 

Well, this isn't a given at all.  Assuming the demand for labor is somewhat elastic, if the minimum wage gets raised above the prevailing wage in any market, jobs will be lost.  So were these heads of household, we'd have to run the math to see what the "gross assistance needed" would be.  (I made that term up.)

 

But since most people making minimum wage are young (under 25) and by and large never married, they aren't likely to end up on assistance whether they are working or laid off.  What they really need is something you outlined earlier, access to work, which is precisely what will be put at risk by raising a minimum wage above a prevailing wage.

 

This access to work is increasingly important in a knowledge economy where skills are at a premium and take time to develop.  This is the problem that Europe is facing now, where youth unemployment is through the roof (though it's not doing great here either.)

 

Anyway,  it's a big conversation.  I appreciate the posts.

[NotreDame]

curious what the 131 means, I actually think it must be a page number in Volume 11 of the official Pontificis Maximi Acta of Leo XIII... hmmm... either way, it says the same thing as Rerum Novarum 25, just doesn't use the actual word "subsistence" (and who knows what kind of translations were used/translated from, etc)

 

Well, let's be precise...  It doesn't say the same thing.  They are different.  Similar, but different.

 

I don't know why they couldn't get the citation right, but this is by bishops for the pope, not by the pope. 

 

And it's off-topic, but I'm not a big fan of the guy writing the opening letter to the compendium, since he protected and took bribes from the rapist and child molester Maciel.  

 

So I'll stick with actual papal encyclicals. 
 

[Aloysius]

hold on, just because Cardinal Angelo Sodano wrote that introduction doesn't mean the Compendium itself doesn't have the same level of authority as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is a compendium and it is merely compiling and transmitting the same teachings about social justice that the Church holds.  disparaging those teachings on the basis that Sodano was involved in the Council that was compiling it for John Paul II at the time is completely illegitimate.  

[Aloysius]

oh, and my apologies to Hasan for chasing him away by making the discussion about Catholic doctrine, but it's important to do so when Catholics are cringing at the term "living wage" when the Church holds that living wages are required by justice.

[NotreDame]

hold on, just because Cardinal Angelo Sodano wrote that introduction doesn't mean the Compendium itself doesn't have the same level of authority as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is a compendium and it is merely compiling and transmitting the same teachings about social justice that the Church holds.  disparaging those teachings on the basis that Sodano was involved in the Council that was compiling it for John Paul II at the time is completely illegitimate.  

 

Does this compendium have the same authority as the catechism?  I'm not sure it does.  A compendium is a summary, therefore it would seem to be fine to bypass it and go to the sources. 

 

And in terms of authority, if it can't even accurately quote and cite it's references which it is summarizing - and it could do neither on the one reference I followed up...  Well, let's just say I'm not surprised to Sodano's name on it.
 

[Aloysius]

I dunno if it's the same level as the Catechism or not, I always had the sense that it was, as both basically rest upon the authority of the teachings they transmit not on their own and are promoted similarly to an encyclical... it's at the very least at the level of encyclical.  And I very much doubt that this quote is not from Leo XIII, I think one would have to check the page number in Volume 11 of the Pontificis Maximi Acta of Leo XIII... they don't just say "Acta" to mean "by".  But either way the actual thing being said there has been re-iterated countless times across tons of Encyclicals since then.

 

In fact, looking at the citation for John Paul II's encyclical, it gives the volume and page number for the Acts of the Apostolic See for what it's citing in the exact same manner.  That is clearly the volume and page number for the Acts of Leo XIII... so one would have to check there to see where the quote is coming from.

[NotreDame]

I dunno if it's the same level as the Catechism or not, I always had the sense that it was, as both basically rest upon the authority of the teachings they transmit not on their own and are promoted similarly to an encyclical... it's at the very least at the level of encyclical.  And I very much doubt that this quote is not from Leo XIII, I think one would have to check the page number in Volume 11 of the Pontificis Maximi Acta of Leo XIII... they don't just say "Acta" to mean "by".  But either way the actual thing being said there has been re-iterated countless times across tons of Encyclicals since then.

 

Does someone else know the answer?  I'm pretty sure a compendium is not at the level of an encyclical.  It's also not clear that this compendium has a motu proprio as the compendium of the catechism did.

 

And maybe it isn't, but it sure looks like it is referencing rerum novarum.  Would anyone else know?

[Aloysius]

I think it is, but it is referencing the Latin text which is found in that volume (I checked and 131 in that volume is between the page numbers where Rerum Novarum is found).  I don't know which number it is, but I imagine there are a couple places, including at paragraph 45 there, in which it is possible that translating from the Latin to the English could have lost that exact wording.

 

as regards the level of authority of the Compendium, I can't really tell you the answer, I can tell you it is the best compilation for an overview of what all the multitudes of social encyclicals have been saying, but if you prefer all the individual sources good luck. 

[NotreDame]

thanks... 

 

I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful as a reference.  Just that I wouldn't trust the translation.  but if they aren't referencing paragraphs, but page numbers.. well, whose bright idea was that?