Minimum Wage Laws

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='30 October 2009 - 03:00 PM' timestamp='1256925632' post='1993957']
when a father has another child, an employer certainly ought to offer him either more work or a raise or some combination of the two so that he is able to afford to. well, assuming that father already made ONLY a living wage. if he already made more than a living wage then his next child just kind of takes a bit more of his profit margin from his wage, huh? the point is that every individual has a minimum number, and the minimum number for fathers of many children is a higher number than the minimum number for fathers of few children. when they have more children, their minimum goes up.

yeah... all government is coercion (and thus apparently 'violent' which equals 'communist' ) and the 'man' is going to ruin everything with his stupid laws that keep us from making our own contracts however we like them (even though clearly the employers hold all the cards in most situations of employment and without some type of laws to stop them wages would degenerate into quite subhuman standards because employees would have to agree to them since there wouldn't be other possibilities... all the 'unskilled' masses would be at the mercy of the powerful and rich)... oh it's ever so violent when the big bad government threatens fines and such or even... gasp! the horror!-imprisonment!... against people if they employ unfair employment practices and don't pay people what their work is worth. don't those people know they could just stick it to any unjust employer and quit... I mean, they and their family might starve rather than being malnourished by unjustly low wages... but at least they'd prove that their contract was voluntary!

the fact is that the 'voluntary' contract only counts when workers have high degrees of skill and are thus in high demand and really have their own bargaining chips. on the lower end of the ladder, which is where Christians should be most concerned with because of Christ's presence in the impoverished, the voluntary part means 'i'll pay you what i want to pay you, if you don't like it you can starve to death'
[/quote]Al,
This is nonsensical. A couple must exercise their intellect and discern if they can afford another child, but the employer must give him a raise? What about the rights of the business owner?

In a free market, people do have bargaining power, otherwise EVERYONE would be getting minimum wage right now. Why do I hire people off the street for $10 and hour and insurance and McDonalds doesn't? Employers are people too. Businesses have other empoyees. What about their right to get merited increases?

To characterize all or even most employers/business as completely self centered is inaccurate and really unfair.

Let's examine your last example and contrast it with one of Jesus' parables. Remember the story of the Orchard owner who hired laborers to harvest. Some he hired in the morning, some he hired at noon, some in the afternoon. At the end of the day, he paid them all the same. Jesus did not use that example to teach that everyman is OWED a days wage, but the fact that the Orchard owner can negotiate and pay is agreed upon. What he pays one is not related to what he agrees to pay another. Both parties are free. If that was so wrong and so unjust, I think Jesus would have used a different example.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='30 October 2009 - 02:00 PM' timestamp='1256925632' post='1993957']
when a father has another child, an employer certainly ought to offer him either more work or a raise or some combination of the two so that he is able to afford to. well, assuming that father already made ONLY a living wage. if he already made more than a living wage then his next child just kind of takes a bit more of his profit margin from his wage, huh? the point is that every individual has a minimum number, and the minimum number for fathers of many children is a higher number than the minimum number for fathers of few children. when they have more children, their minimum goes up.[/quote]

All right. Let us take a hypothetical. A man employs 10 married, male janitors, as contractors. According to you, the employer is obliged to pay them all enough to buy a home and support their wives. Five of the men and their wives have a child every other year. The market demand does not support the employer giving a raise to each of those men. Is it an injustice if he does not pay them more, if they have a "right" to more money? Is it an injustice if he is forced to lay some of them off or go bankrupt? Would it be better for them all to be employed for less money, or for some of them to be completely jobless?

Your implied cariacture of Joe Businessowner as an avaricious fellow whose sole driving force is the bottom line is quite unrealistic, quite unjust and very uncharitable. The laborer is worthy of his hire, but that works both ways. A good business owner knows that happy workers mean productive workers. A good business owner knows that if the employee works hard and the profit derived from his labor allows it, he should pay him accordingly. Business owners who are cheap and greedy very often go under, because they drive away the productive workers, leaving them with an incompetent staff, from the bottom ranks on up the chain of promotion. The most long-suffering, most obsequious bad worker gets promoted, and helps to eventually bring down the whole business through their collective inefficiency and poor quality work. As the saying goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. But by the same token, you don't give sirloin steak to monkeys. As it is, the vast majority of business owners are honest, decent human beings, whether you acknowledge that or not.

[quote] yeah... all government is coercion[/quote]

This is not the case. However, all states, insofar as they are states, are coercive.

[quote](and thus apparently 'violent' which equals 'communist')[/quote]

Communism's motto was "from each according to his ability to each according to his need." It's a fine motto. I agree with its message. However, Communists and distributists feel they have the right to use violence to make it happen. I have no problem with one hundred per cent voluntary socialism, as is found in monasteries.

[quote]and the 'man' is going to ruin everything with his stupid laws that keep us from making our own contracts however we like them (even though clearly the employers hold all the cards in most situations of employment and without some type of laws to stop them wages would degenerate into quite subhuman standards because employees would have to agree to them since there wouldn't be other possibilities... all the 'unskilled' masses would be at the mercy of the powerful and rich)[/quote]

An almost perfect description of how the State works. But it is not at all a good description of the free market, an environment in which, by definition, no one believes anyone has any [i]right[/i] to force other people to buy their products or work for them.

[quote]oh it's ever so violent when the big bad government threatens fines and such or even... gasp! the horror!-imprisonment!... against people if they employ unfair employment practices and don't pay people what their work is worth.[/quote]

The State has no capability to determine an objective material value of labor. The value of labor in material terms is ultimately subjective. An experiment of your ideas, taken to their full and logical ends, was tried in Russia, from 1917 to 1991.

[quote]don't those people know they could just stick it to any unjust employer and quit... I mean, they and their family might starve rather than being malnourished by unjustly low wages... but at least they'd prove that their contract was voluntary![/quote]

You have a very poor understanding of the free market. It does not starve people. State intervention starves people. Between around 1890 and 1912, millions of people poured into the United State from all over the world. Wages dropped dramatically. Was it "unjust" that employers could not employ everyone without dropping wages? Is it better to have 30% unemployment, or 100% employment at a lower wage? In any case, the labor pool suddenly became huge, and there were not enough ways to process unutilized resources. There was a lack of factories to accomodate the workers. (Is it "unjust" when 10 drops of red food coloring are perfectly capable of turning one gallon of water pink, but fail to turn five gallons of water pink? It is physically impossible. Economic laws are such. Human valuation determines an economy.) Here is a fact that may be surprising about those years of hardship: in that period, the real per capita income was rising 11% per year. People were getting more out of their labor.

People came over here with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and retired in comfortable homes. That was not accomplished through violence.

You don't seem to realize that before the industrial revolution made possible by capitalism, most people lived in buildings with dirt floors. With horrible sanitation. America is quite probably the only country in which the poor people are fat and have cell phones.

[quote]the fact is that the 'voluntary' contract only counts when workers have high degrees of skill and are thus in high demand and really have their own bargaining chips. on the lower end of the ladder, which is where Christians should be most concerned with because of Christ's presence in the impoverished, the voluntary part means 'i'll pay you what i want to pay you, if you don't like it you can starve to death'
[/quote]

Again, you do not understand the free market. You perceive and are rightly angered by the results of State interventionism and corporatism. In the free market, when people at the lower end of the ladder continue to stay there, it is an indication that they are either unreliable, horrible, lazy and incompetent workers, or they should be institutionalized. I used to work with many such people. They really thought they should show up late for work, routinely call in "sick," do as little work as possible, then complain about their pay. Productive, reliable people get promoted. Those who are incapable of being promoted through no fault of their own can and should receive charity. However, charity does not flow from the barrel of a gun.

Poverty is primarily caused by the State. 90% of the time, charity (real charity, not violent redistributism) should operate to pull people back onto their feet. It is a short term solution. 10% of the time, if someone is a cripple, insane, or otherwise incapable of supporting himself, charity can morally be given to him all his life.

I don't know if you've seen poverty. I have been to some of the poorest countries in the world. Squalor is ubiquitous in the most heavily State-dominated regions, and hardly to be seen wherever a free market exists.


~Sternhauser

Edited October 30, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Anomaly' date='30 October 2009 - 12:56 PM' timestamp='1256929015' post='1994000']
Al,
This is nonsensical. A couple must exercise their intellect and discern if they can afford another child, but the employer must give him a raise? What about the rights of the business owner?[/quote]
I agree. If an employer [b]must[/b] give an employee a raise whenever his family grows, it follows that the employer should have a say in the matter of family growth, and perhaps even a veto on whether or not an employee has another child.

[dairygirl4u2c]

"your gloom and doom predictions of what happens when we follow anything else other than sacrosanct (classical) liberal economics is actually kind of funny."

they're showing themselves that they're going to do what it takes to insist on the wage laws being a bad thing, despite all the evidence and reality that shows differently. they reason themselves into the ground (like an ostrich with his head in the sand) to ratioalize preconceived positions that dont even make sense from a christian or economic perspective, that's all this debate is really showing.

Edited October 30, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='30 October 2009 - 02:35 PM' timestamp='1256931318' post='1994023']
"your gloom and doom predictions of what happens when we follow anything else other than sacrosanct (classical) liberal economics is actually kind of funny."

they're showing themselves that they're going to do what it takes to insist on the wage laws being a bad thing, despite all the evidence and reality that shows differently. they reason themselves into the ground to ratioalize preconceived positions that dont even make sense from a christian perspective, that's all this debate is really showing.
[/quote]
I find your assumptions of certain members' characters rather offensive.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

Aloysius:

You talk about my "doom and gloom" predictions yet fail to see how self-defeating your own policies are. Even if we were to accept your belief that a "living wage" is a "right," the best way to bring it about for as many people as possible would be through free and voluntary exchange. It wasn't guilds, licenses, charters, and price controls that increased standard of living from the 10th century to where it is today but free market exchange. These things hindered it. It was during the economically liberal 19th century that the Industrial Revolution lifted the bulk of population out of peasanthood and the middle class expanded like never before in all of human history. This is why the population exploded at that time.

Furthermore, top-down forceful imposition of rules and control, no matter how "local" and "traditional" that force is, breeds dissent and social conflict. People aren't animals that you can just herd around or objects to arrange in whatever patterns seem most pleasing to you. They are independent Wills, each with his own ideas, preferences, and opinions, and unless each one accedes to this authority you wish to impose, the more you try to impose it, the more you will destroy the natural order in your own community. There is [i]no such thing[/i] as peace in a community of force and control. And you are also naive if you think that even your own chosen rulers will not abuse their power. Rulers have wills of their own too, after all, and they will grow it in ways that you had not foreseen and do not consent to. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

But no one holds on to power forever. Once enough of the population stops tolerating your controls, they will overthrow you (or whatever ruler you imagine you'll be supporting) and seize the apparatus of power you created and impose it on [i]you[/i] in ways not to your liking. Indeed, is this not exactly what's happened? I'm sure you blame those villainous protestant rebels and Enlightenment revolutionaries for messed everything up, but it was faithful Catholic popes and bishops who messed things when they first chose to try to use the apparatus of power to impose their wills on other wills. And it was in this way that the Church became corrupt and seen, not as an institution of peace but of oppression. So they threw it out and replaced it with rulers of their own.

I already presented you a much more efficient, less destructive, less dangerous, and less violent way to realize your ideal, through voluntary governance. In a truly free society, people are free to choose to get together in whatever groups they like and live according to whatever rules they choose and submit themselves whatever rulers they wish. They just can't impose them others. This you could do much more easily, and you wouldn't have to worry about being overthrown because only the willing would be members, and you wouldn't have to worry about your rulers abusing their power because people could leave the group if they did. But you won't accept that; you insist that you must somehow impose those rules and those rulers on those of us who don't accept them. Are you surprised that we resist so vehemently? Are you surprised when some other people, with different ideals and values, get a hold of the apparatus of power and use it to impose those ideals and values on you?

Let me ask, are you okay with the idea of a voluntary communist society? In other words, if some committed communists choose to pool all property in common, live on a commune or whatever, would you tolerate that or do you think that some people need to be sent in to forcibly break it up? If so, why? If not, then why won't you tolerate people who wish to live in a voluntary free market society? Especially since, as I said, we'd tolerate your distributist/corporative group, so long as it didn't try to impose itself on us. Why won't you give us the same freedom to live according to our consciences that we are willing to give to you?

[quote name='Aloysius' date='30 October 2009 - 03:37 AM' timestamp='1256884659' post='1993806']
property is not an absolute right. it is certainly a right, but the Church never held it as an absolute right; Fr. McNabb explains the real Catholic understanding of property rights quite well here: http://distributist.blogspot.com/2007/02/fr-mcnabb-speaks-on-rights-and-property.html[/quote]

You're conception of rights is just illogical. You say you got it from St. Thomas Aquinas. I don't know...I haven't read the passage, but I have a suspicion that you're misinterpreting what he said. But I could be wrong; if so, I disagree with him on this, just like I disagree with him on the execution of heretics.

In any case, let's see how your interpretation of rights works out...Well, we all have the [i]moral obligation[/i] to help the poor and destitute. This is not the same as a [i]legal obligation[/i]. It is not a matter of justice that we help the poor, but a matter of mercy. The difference is that justice (legal obligations) involve an individuals' natural boundaries (rights, "dominion") and the [i]legal[/i] obligation of not trespassing those boundaries. It's a legal obligation because, if I do trespass your boundaries, you are morally and legally allowed to retaliate against me. Whereas mercy (moral obligations) involves doing acts above and beyond mere requirements of justice. Acts of mercy, clemency, charity are not required by [i]justice[/i]; they are spiritual requirements for us as Christians. They are matters only judged by God, whereas matters of justice are judged according to the law of man. Are we agreed on this?

Furthermore, such a moral obligation can't be a legal obligation, since this would defeat its spiritual purpose. Charity can't be forced. It must be given freely, as a gratuitous act of mercy. To say otherwise, is to turn matters of mercy into matters of justice, which means that there can no longer be true acts of mercy.

But you argue that I have a the legal right to acquire whatever I need to fulfill my moral obligations. Effectually, this is saying that [i]others[/i] (Who? Employers? Neighbors? Taxpayers?) have the [i]legal[/i] obligation to ensure that I fulfill my [i]moral[/i] obligations, right? Well, we all have a moral obligation to help the poor so far as we are able. However, some people are not able are not able to fulfill this moral obligation--poor people. Presumably, this means that some other people are [i]legally[/i] obligated to provide these poor people with the means to fulfill it. This would mean providing them with some mode of living--a home, food, perhaps a job--plus enough left over to fulfill their moral obligation to freely give to other poor people. But wait a minute! But what then becomes of the previous [i]moral[/i] obligation to help the poor? Effectually is has become a legal obligation, a matter of justice, negative it as a moral obligation, a matter of mercy.

In short, if you say that everyone has the legal obligation to help everyone else fulfill their moral obligations, this effectually turns everyone's moral obligations into everyone's legal obligations. What then becomes of moral obligations? What then becomes of voluntary acts of virtue? They can't effectively be practiced except in the sense that [i]not[/i] robbing your neighbor's house is an voluntary act of virtue.

No one has the right to [i]impede[/i] your means of fulfilling your moral obligation, but that does not mean anyone has the legal obligation to provide you with such means. There is a difference. I don't have the right to take away your ability to help the poor by unlawfully taking your property, but I don't have to give you any of my property so you can give it to the poor (why not just give it to the poor directly?).

My conception of rights is rooted in natural authority, what is sometimes called "self-ownership" (though I don't particularly care for the phrase). It is logical that we have a right over our own minds since we [i]are[/i] our own minds. This right is sovereign and indeed absolute, in that no other human being has any claim whatsoever over our minds (I'm not talking about God. That's a different issue. I'm talking specifically about the individual vis a vis other humans). As an extension of that it is also logical that we possess an absolute, sovereign right over our bodies vis a vis other humans, since our minds control and occupy our bodies. No one else has any claim to it. And as a further extension we also have right over those resources that our bodies have taken control of through first occupancy and use, just as our mind occupies our body. This is our "property." This right, too, is absolute and sovereign since no other human being has any claim to these resources, as no other human being has taken control over these resources through first occupancy and use (if they had, then it would be [i]their[/i] property, not ours).

[quote]one cannot do unjust things with one's property.[/quote]

Only if one uses it to commit an act of aggression.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='30 October 2009 - 04:35 PM' timestamp='1256931318' post='1994023']
"your gloom and doom predictions of what happens when we follow anything else other than sacrosanct (classical) liberal economics is actually kind of funny."

they're showing themselves that they're going to do what it takes to insist on the wage laws being a bad thing, despite all the evidence and reality that shows differently. they reason themselves into the ground (like an ostrich with his head in the sand) to ratioalize preconceived positions that dont even make sense from a christian or economic perspective, that's all this debate is really showing.
[/quote]Dairy,
You may be right that my position doesn't make sense from a christian perspective, I've been told that by many christians. However, I feel my position is respectful to human dignity, self responsibility, and just. That is why I gladly don't call myself a christian. I flatly reject as un-realistic and fundamentaly unjust what most people claim is the 'christian' perspective.

I do beg to differ it doesn't make sense from an economic perspective. The really big difference is minimum wage supporters think workers are trapped. Those opposed to minimum wage believe workers are responsible for their productivity and should be free to market their skills and develop their skills and economic value, growing the economy for all. That freedom in markets is why the US grew as it has, and other areas have lagged behind.

Edited October 30, 2009 by Anomaly

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='Anomaly' date='30 October 2009 - 05:42 PM' timestamp='1256935372' post='1994053']You may be right that my position doesn't make sense from a christian perspective, I've been told that by many christians. However, I feel my position is respectful to human dignity, self responsibility, and just. That is why I gladly don't call myself a christian. I flatly reject as un-realistic and fundamentaly unjust what most people claim is the 'christian' perspective.[/quote]

No, it makes perfect sense from a Christian perspective. I would be very interested in hearing where Christ preached aggression against thy neighbor. If anything, he was a near-pacifist. I would also like to know which Ecumenical Council anathematized voluntary trade in favor of the Marxian theory of "exploitation."

Edited October 30, 2009 by King's Rook's Pawn

[Anomaly]

[quote name='King's Rook's Pawn' date='30 October 2009 - 06:02 PM' timestamp='1256936545' post='1994063']
No, it makes perfect sense from a Christian perspective. I would be very interested in hearing where Christ preached aggression against they neighbor. If anything, he was a near-pacifist. I would also like to know which Ecumenical Council anathematized voluntary trade in favor of the Marxian theory of "exploitation."
[/quote]I was going to generalize and make a prediction of the response I expect. But I guess I'll just wait for it and not be so judgmental.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i do see the merit in the argument made recently about how the 'lowest of skills' people would be foreclosed of jobs. the employers just hire people with decent skills. if we had no minimum, they could probably find a job doing menial things. i think there could be, and i think there are, exceptions to the minimum laws though. it's not that we shoudl argue no minimum just because of this rarer phenomenon.

and i think another argument is that in certain areas of the country, like some random small town, the person might not be able to find a job where he otherwise could. i suppose this isn't too just to make him move when the no reqauirement situation wouldn't make him move, or more accurately scrapped by. but if he couldn't find a job that could let him live normally albeit without much, as the requirement seeks to ensure, he'd almost surely have to move anyway, unless he scrapped by.

these are the only formidable argument that i see contra the requirements, and only recently has anyone argued it (i just argued the last paragraph just now)- the rest of the arguments are baseless as real arguments for why the requirement shouldnt exist. by far and away, these are small exceptions of people falling through the cracks. i bet we could devise ways of catching these loopholes. whether the government is competent enough to, is another question, and sadly is often a very real consideration of a question.

[Aloysius]

we have the right to have the means necessary to fulfill our obligations. your leaps of logic lept over a couple key parts of that... first you somehow interpreted that to mean that we must be legally forced to fulfill our moral obligations. not at all what I said; in the context of the rights I'm talking about, that would mean legally forcing everyone to work. I do not advocate that, if people don't work to fulfill their obligations they're not breaking legal obligations but moral ones. second you lept over "have the means necessary"; we have the right to the means necessary to fulfill our moral obligations. the state must protect our rights and ensure that we are easily able to have the means necessary to fulfill our moral obligations. the actual fulfilling of the moral obligations is left to us, obviously.

also, simple point which should untangle a couple other directions you were going: poor people don't have the moral obligation to help poor people (well, maybe those poorer than themselves, depending on how able they are to do so). those who are able to do so are the ones with that duty. therefore your entire analogy falls flat. we have the right to the have the means necessary to fulfill our duties.

I won't even begin to delve into your criticism of 'power' as such. like I said, a debate with an anarchist about economics is like a debate with a nihilist about religion, it won't go anywhere. obviously you don't recognize the authority of the state to enforce justice in these matters. you contradict Catholic social teaching in not recognizing that authority. so be it, I won't go into that because it's already been discussed in the anarchy thread.

wow, this thread is becoming long and taxing in the number of points to respond to...

the father who has another child doesn't automatically get a raise. the MINIMUM he must be able to obtain with reasonable hours is what raises. so, assuming he's already at a base living wage for his previous situation, he must be offered some combination of more available hours or some higher rate of pay. of course, in my view he should himself have some degree of ownership in the company he works for to begin with, which helps this assurance that his work will achieve his subsistence make more sense.

"employers are people too"... well, some of them are. some of them are distant corporations who claim ownership of local locations without having any physical power over them... and in fact, the only reason they're able to exercise power over those is because states and laws make that possible. if it were not for the United States Government, there'd be no way for WalMart to be owned nationwide by some central business authority. that's my shameless pandering to the anarchists, but I think it's true that it is the might of the state that creates the type of "ownership" of "property" that I do not recognize as true ownership. when it comes to local small employers, I do see them as being much more willing to make sure their employees get a decent wage.

and all the glorification of capitalism and the industrial revolution is sickening to me, but I don't have time to go in to too great of detail over it (we're getting to the point where every response has to be some long essay for all the points that are being simultaneously discussed). suffice it to say it was TECHNOLOGY, and not a system of economics, which raised the standard of living; and that technology could perfectly well have been developed in a different economic system. Thomas Woods, living thorn in the side of distributists everywhere, showed how voluntarily communistic Catholic monks in England were developing precursors to assembly lines before Henry VIII stomped them out.

but in any event, the Catholic prohibitions against usury and generally the Catholic economic principals that most modern post-Enlightenment Capitalists (imbued with the Protestant Work Ethic and a false understanding of the purpose of man in this life) think was holding the world back was actually the thing which made the middle ages bearable and good... made them pretty much the best they could be for that level of technological advancement.

do I oppose voluntary communists? no, because I don't oppose monasteries. but I also wouldn't oppose voluntary lay communists either, necessarily.

I apologize if I haven't addressed any point anyone thought was hugely important here... this is pretty much a me vs. everyone scenario so bear with me...

[Nihil Obstat]

Al, what about a man with a medium or large family who owns a small business? Who enforces his rights to fulfill his duties? He can't very well just give himself a raise if he wants his business to stay in business.

[Aloysius]

the very fact that he owns a business means that his rights are being fulfilled--he has the means to fulfill his duties. his right to own that business is protected by governments which enforce justice so that no one can try to compete with him unjustly (by coming into town and paying their employees way less so that they can sell their products way cheaper making him unable to be competitive)... but the point is that he has the right to own his own business, which is his means of fulfilling his moral obligations, and he clearly does.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='30 October 2009 - 11:36 PM' timestamp='1256963801' post='1994262']
the very fact that he owns a business means that his rights are being fulfilled--he has the means to fulfill his duties. his right to own that business is protected by governments which enforce justice so that no one can try to compete with him unjustly (by coming into town and paying their employees way less so that they can sell their products way cheaper making him unable to be competitive)... but the point is that he has the right to own his own business, which is his means of fulfilling his moral obligations, and he clearly does.
[/quote]
Well everyone certainly has a right to a job, which is what he has, but my point is sometimes the money for a living wage simply isn't there. Who's fault is that, and more importantly, how do they respond?

[Aloysius]

it would depend upon the case... it could be that their product or service isn't in high enough demand for their business to be operating, in which case it'll probably end up failing. or it could be that someone is doing as I said and competing with them in a way which is unjust, in which case it's the fault of the business acting unjustly. or it could be that their products or services just aren't as good as their competitors, and that might end up with the business failing.

I'm not preaching utopia here; sometimes you have to lay people off, fire people, sometimes businesses fail.

however, in a system that truly enforced just practices, a good decent business with a good idea is going to be able to succeed and afford to act justly in terms of wages, employee ownership, et cetera... they'd be able to keep their prices justly high enough for just wages for their employees in a way that does indeed protect the right to ownership of everyone involved. assuming it's a good business which is able to be successful in fulfilling a need in society.