The Rights of Workers
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church categorizes the rights of workers according to the following taxonomy (301-304):
(1) The dignity of workers and respect for their rights. It follows that workers have the right to: (i) a just wage, (ii) rest, (iii) a working environment not harmful to either physical health or moral integrity, (iv) respect for conscience and personal dignity, (v) subsidies for unemployed workers and their families; (vi) a pension and insurance for old age, sickness, and work-related accidents; (vii) social security connected with maternity; (viii) assemble and form associations and unions. Note that the call for a living wage extends into periods of unemployment, sickness, or disability. Elsewhere, the Compendium notes that making the family wage a concrete reality may require various social provisions such as family subsidies (#250).
(2) The right to fair remuneration and income distribution. Indeed, “remuneration is the most important means for achieving justice in work relationships”. Accordingly, workers should be paid a just wage, a living wage, noting that this goes beyond the notion of unrestrained labor markets since “the simple agreement between employee and employer with regard to the amount of pay to be received is not sufficient for the agreed-upon salary to qualify as a just wage”. It is also crucially important (and no accident) that the Church puts the importance of an equitable distribution of income on par with the right to fair pay. For “the economic well-being of a country is not measured exclusively by the quantity of goods it produces but also by taking into account the manner in which they are produced and the level of equity in the distribution of income.” This will call for forms of progressive taxation and redistributive policies.
(3) The right to strike. The option to strike is legitimate “when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit, when every other method for the resolution of disputes has been ineffectual.” Note that striking is inherently a collective process or a “concerted refusal on the part of workers to continue rendering their services, for the purpose of obtaining by means of such pressure exerted on their employers, the State or on public opinion either better working conditions or an improvement in their social status.”
What about the relationship between capital and labor, which relates especially to the second point above? Well, the Compendium affirms that labor has an intrinsic priority over capital, and that the relationship must ideally be a complementary one (#277). However, the relationship is frequently antagonistic (#279):
‘The relationship between labour and capital often shows traits of antagonism that take on new forms with the changing of social and economic contexts. In the past, the origin of the conflict between capital and labour was found above all “in the fact that the workers put their powers at the disposal of the entrepreneurs, and these, following the principle of maximum profit, tried to establish the lowest possible wages for the work done by the employees”. In our present day, this conflict shows aspects that are new and perhaps more disquieting: scientific and technological progress and the globalization of markets, of themselves a source of development and progress, expose workers to the risk of being exploited by the mechanisms of the economy and by the unrestrained quest for productivity.’
So while the Church acknowledges the primacy of the market system in terms of employment creation, it does not accept laissez-faire answers to the underlying principles of Catholic social teaching in this area.
Comments are closed.
So I take it you reject the “laissez-faire” approach of allowing women to work in the marketplace? After all, the inevitable effect of allowing women to break the male cartel in employment is that each individual person is no longer going to make a “family wage” sufficient to support both themselves and another adult (and kids). That’s why, in Rerum Novarum, you find both support for the family wage as well as the counsel that “a woman is by nature fitted for home-work.”
You don’t disagree with Rerum Novarum, do you? You certainly cite it often enough.
That’s why, in Rerum Novarum, you find both support for the family wage as well as the counsel that “a woman is by nature fitted for home-work.”
Sigh.
I understand that you’re exasperated that someone quoted the Pope, and not just the politically convenient excerpts. FYI, I don’t agree with Rerum Novarum here. But then I’m not the one constantly using carefully selected excerpts from Rerum Novarum to support an untenable political argument (i.e., an argument that makes absolutely no sense unless you really do mean to go back to the “man works, woman stays home” model of society).
Do I support the idea of a family wage so that one spouse can support a family? Yes, but right now, that’s a luxury for the rich– especially since the median wage of prime-age men has fallen sharply over the past 30 years.
I am not qouting RN directly. I am quoting the Compendium (which of course appeals to RN and all subsequent developments in CST) and the Compendium is totally up to date. And yet, there’s nothing here about prohibiting women from the workforce, is there?
Well, that’s carefully avoiding the question. Family wage makes no sense apart from a male cartel over employment. (If you have any ideas about how an entire society could manage to produce enough economic activity that men and women all INDIVIDUALLY earned enough money to support TWO OR MORE people — in effect, so that each individual earned double wages — I’d really like to hear them.)
So pick your poison: Do you want family wages? Then go back to the entire Catholic model from the “progressive” era, where men earned the family wage and women stayed home. Or do you want women in the workplace? Then come to grips with the fact that few individuals are going to earn double wages.
I understand that you’re exasperated that someone quoted the Pope, and not just the politically convenient excerpts.
No. I just think your hermeneutical approach to CST is rather poor. You can’t read CST like a fundamentalist. CST needs to be to read in the context of tradition–as a corpus of teaching rather than a collection of “politically convenient excerpts.”
the inevitable effect of allowing women to break the male cartel in employment is that each individual person is no longer going to make a “family wage” sufficient to support both themselves and another adult (and kids).
I don’t think this is true. It is true that as more women enter the workforce this will, ceteris paribus, exert a downward pressure on wages. But this needn’t mean that wages will fall below the level where an individual can make a “family wage” if there is some other factor (say, increasing productivity) that counteracts this effect.
S.B.,
Could you clarify your objection? I think the sections from the Compendium above are obvious to the point of banality. Sure, markets don’t produce living wages, and, sure, some level of redistribution is desirable to help those who are less fortunate. Additionally, workers have a right to strike.
All of these policies are currently reflected in the laws of the U.S. One can debate whether more or less redistribution best serves the common good relative to current practices, but I don’t think any of the statements above are particularly controversial. What specifically do you object to?
But this needn’t mean that wages will fall below the level where an individual can make a “family wage” if there is some other factor (say, increasing productivity) that counteracts this effect.
Agreed, if the economy is growing, wages on average could even reach the point where two people could both make a ‘living wage.’ One difficulty (or benefit) of societies with increasing affluence is that the definition of poverty moves. It’s possible to envision a society where the bottom 10 to 20th percentiles of wage earners are still paid what would be considered a ‘living wage’ according to CST. I don’t think we’re there, but it is possible.
No. I just think your hermeneutical approach to CST is rather poor. You can’t read CST like a fundamentalist. CST needs to be to read in the context of tradition–as a corpus of teaching rather than a collection of “politically convenient excerpts.”
Exactly, Katerina nailed it. Even though the conditions may change (though not as much as some think), the principles are still valid, and this post is about principles.
One difficulty (or benefit) of societies with increasing affluence is that the definition of poverty moves.
Well, sure. If your conception of the “living wage” is such that the necessary amount rises in conjunction with rises in actual wages, then a universal living wage is never going to be achievable. But in that case, this impossibility won’t have anything to do with whether or not women work outside the home. It would be just as impossible to achieve if only men were wage earners.
I think the notion that economic well-being depends not merely on the size of the pie but how it is distributed is somewhat controversial in the United States, though perhaps not so elsewhere.
I think the notion that economic well-being depends not merely on the size of the pie but how it is distributed is somewhat controversial in the United States, though perhaps not so elsewhere.
Which may be one of the reasons why the “pie” has tended to grow faster here than in a lot of other places.
Sounds like SB is arguing a variant of the lump of labor fallacy.
The period between 1950 and 1980 tends to do a lot of the heavy lifting for “grow faster here than in a lot of other places.”
Which may be one of the reasons why the “pie” has tended to grow faster here than in a lot of other places.
No, the pie only grows faster because European work about 30 percent fewer hours. After all, productivity (the main driver of growth) is pretty much the same. And anyway, even if redistribution did reduce the pie, it seems that CST is telling us that this is a price worth paying (of course, the exact trade-off would be a prudential matter).
Which may be one of the reasons why the “pie” has tended to grow faster here than in a lot of other places.
Well, but you’ve just spent a fair amount of time trying to demonstrate that the distribution of the pie as it grows is not that uneven, which suggests you value equality of distribution to some degree. I frankly don’t think it’s that controversial; most people would agree it’s a good thing for everybody to benefit when the pie increases. They disagree about what to do (if anything) when growth is unequal.
But in that case, this impossibility won’t have anything to do with whether or not women work outside the home. It would be just as impossible to achieve if only men were wage earners.
Right, that was the point I was trying to make. Did you take me to be suggesting something else?
The period between 1950 and 1980 tends to do a lot of the heavy lifting for “grow faster here than in a lot of other places.”
Actually, I believe it’s just the opposite. Growth slowed in both the U.S. and Europe after 1973, but it slowed more there than it did here. France, for example, has had less than 1% GDP growth per year since 1999, when it managed to eek out 1.03% growth.
No, the pie only grows faster because European work about 30 percent fewer hours.
They work fewer hours in part because restrictive labor laws make it more difficult to get a job (particularly if you are a minority). I consider that a bug, not a feature.
even if redistribution did reduce the pie, it seems that CST is telling us that this is a price worth paying
Let’s be clear about what you’re saying here. The standard of living of the average person in many Western European countries is at the level of the average person in poverty here. What this amounts to is saying that it would be better for most people in poverty (according to current standards) so long as it meant that rich people in the U.S. were a lot less rich (call it the “we’d all be richer if we were a lot poorer” theory of prosperity).
Do I think *that* is what CST calls for? I do not.
So some of you think that theoretically productivity could be so astonishingly high that every individual person (male and female alike) earned so much money that they could each support a family — meaning that the average family would then have two wages that would support 4 or 5 people (total of 8-10 people)? I have yet to see any reason whatsoever to think that this is, or could ever be, the case, any more than every child could be above the median (I think there’s a natural equilibrium of prices and wages that is rather substantially below everyone in society having a “wage” that would support 5 people.)
This is particularly true given the excellent point that any such rise in productivity will be accompanied by ever-rising expectations. Note: if we were just talking about whether people earn a living wage by 1920s standards, then nearly everyone in the western world already has a living wage. Problem solved.
Note: if we were just talking about whether people earn a living wage by 1920s standards, then nearly everyone in the western world already has a living wage. Problem solved.
That would be incorrect. A significant portion of housing was free and clear in the 20s and mortgaged properties were typically done so at less than 50% of value. Housing cost in the 1920s as a percentage of income was significantly lower.
Let me put it this way: Given today’s productivity, I’d bet that you could have two minimum wage earners, both of whom could pay for an entire family to live at the standards prevalent at the time of Rerum Novarum — that is, no cars, no electricity, primitive health care, no antibiotics or modern drugs, but still enough food, clothing, shelter, and water to live, just as all of our great-grandparents managed to do. It wouldn’t necessarily be the most pleasant life, if you’re used to modern conveniences, but I’m 100% in favor of everyone having a living wage in that sense.
That would be incorrect. A significant portion of housing was free and clear in the 20s and mortgaged properties were typically done so at less than 50% of value. Housing cost in the 1920s as a percentage of income was significantly lower.
That would be a non sequitur, unless you’re comparing apples to apples. Namely, you can’t compare the level of income spent on housing unless you also look at the amount and quality of housing bought. I have no doubt that someone who buys a 3000 square foot house with granite countertops today might spend a higher percentage of income than the 1920s person who had a 800 square foot shack. But if that person living today limited himself to the 800 square foot shack, the percentage of his income spent would be far lower.
I live in house built in 1900. I pay a mortgage on it. The person that built it most likely never paid a mortgage.
Sure, there were some updates in the 1970s, but I dare hope you aren’t going to allege that that is the reason I’m paying a mortgage.
Since the living wage or just wage takes into account the needs of the wage earner, it is not necessary for a working husband and a working wife each to make enough to be the sole supporter of the family. It is enough that together they can support a family.
However, I think the idea of a just wage or a living wage is anathema in the United States, where market forces are expected to set wages, and where I am quite sure the idea of equal pay for equal work is a much more potent concept in determining fairness in setting wages than taking into account the differing needs of two or more workers doing the same job.(To each according to his needs?)
MZ,
But a lot of other things have got so much cheaper since the 20s (measured in terms of the number of hours work at the median wage required to acquire them) that I imagine the mortgage balances out. The thing is, we turn around and use the surplus in ways we don’t see. For instance, the modern American diet is not nearly as simple as the middle class diet of the 20s. Plus, we buy all sorts of technology and consumables that simply didn’t exist then.
SB,
While I get your overall point, I don’t think women entering the workforce has been primarily responsible for keeping median wages down. It was a fairly gradual movement, and the increase in the number of workers served to create more wealth, not just spread the same amount around. (Though arguably, the two income family has served to raise the overall standard of living, which makes it harder for those of us who live on one income to pull it off without excelling.)
MM,
Looking at it very roughly: Less than half of American adults are college graduates. Most of the biggest technology related productivity increases in the 90s and 00s have been related to jobs which are populated primarily by college graduates. So it would make sense that most of the benefits from that increased productivity would initially be earned by those who are above the median. So it doesn’t really surprise me median income is not increasing at nearly the rate of overall national productivity.
MZ — your anecdotal experience doesn’t refute the fact that if today’s people were content to build a typical 1920s shack for themselves, not many people would need a huge mortgage.
This and other conversations remind me of the comedian who was interviewed on Conan O’Brien, and who pointed out to great comic effect that today’s people are totally spoiled by taking modern wonders for granted. He gave the example of a businessman who was whining about the Internet connection on a plane. To which he said something like, “An Internet connection? You’re sitting on a chair! In the SKY! Every second you’re up here you should be saying, ‘OH MY GOD, this is amazing!!’”
The same is true throughout all of these debates. It’s not enough that today’s Americans have health care (for example) that is totally beyond the imagination of anyone in the world who lived before 1900. No, instead of being concerned about the many people in the world today who still lack the simple but critical necessities of sanitation, we have to constantly whine about the fact that a few people in America have to worry about paying for the marvelous and astounding services they receive, and a few other people might not get access to the fanciest MRI machines.
Me, when I look at health care, all I can think is WOW. I can go get a tooth pulled, and I don’t have to take a swig of whiskey and then undergo the most agonizing pain. That’s freaking amazing.
For just pennies, I can take antibiotics to prevent infections that would have killed anyone prior to the 1940s or so. WOW! For instance, I somehow got the tuberculosis virus when I was 16. My parents took me to the free county health clinic, and I got a few shots, and I was fine. WOW! That’s freaking amazing, given how many people have died from tuberculosis in the past (and still do die from it today in Africa).
Beyond health care: when my grandmother was growing up as a sharecropper and homesteader, she lived for a while in a shack where the nearest water was 2 miles away. She and her siblings had to carry water buckets for 2 miles to their shack. My kids get to go to the bathroom, and turn on a faucet. WOW! That’s freaking amazing.
My grandmother never got to eat fruit, except for her Christmas present: one orange. Me, I can go to the store any time, and for less than one hour at the minimum wage, I can buy 5 pounds of oranges. WOW! That’s freaking amazing.
Once as a young girl, my grandmother had to live in a chicken house and work in a farmer’s fields during the day. I get to live in a house, and there’s no chicken manure anywhere! That’s freaking amazing.
As an adult, my grandfather sometimes didn’t have money for shoes, and he had to patch together shoes from old scrap rubber from tires. I’ve always had shoes. That’s freaking amazing.
My adopted daughter from Haiti . . . well, she remembers what it was like there. One of her jobs at the orphanage was dumping out the bucket of excrement in the street. Here, my kids get to have a toilet! That’s freaking amazing.
The moral of all the above is, if you want to worry about material deprivation, talk to me about the bottom 20% or 30% of the world’s population (even the bottom 80%). I’m completely unmoved by complaints that the 95th percentile (which is where the average American stands) doesn’t have everything that the 99th percentile has.
I don’t think women entering the workforce has been primarily responsible for keeping median wages down.
What I think I’m trying to say is that the median wage will stay at a more natural level absent the cartel effect of putting mainly men in the workplace, denying women (and blacks) the opportunity to compete, and artificially raising white male wages through the concept of a “family wage.” Anyway, I just can’t quite get my head around the notion that it’s possible to have a society in which 1) everyone works and produces a certain number of goods and services (which are consumed by the other members of the same society), and 2) every individual sells his or her own goods and services at a rate that is so high that he or she alone now has enough wages (= money that is useful only to the extent it can be exchanged for other people’s productivity) to buy the society’s expected standard of living for 3 or 4 other people.
I’ll take an anecdote over gratuitous assertion. I suppose I could claim I live in a neighborhood where almost all the houses were built around 1900. I could further claim that most of these houses today have a mortgage whereas in 1900 they were built free and clear. I could also point out that there are thousands if not millions of similar neighborhoods around the country today. I could point out to Census Bureau data going back over 40 years showing the greater debt load housing. At some point, I think I would have to conclude that I’m wasting my time.
Darwin,
Certainly there are a number of things that have gotten cheaper. Food is a mixed bag. Clothing is the biggest item that has gotten cheaper. By the same token, the number of people that can claim they could achieve a high standard of living without a car was significantly higher in 1900-1920 versus today where there are a handful of places where one could be upper or middle class without a vehicle.
Has it ever entered your mind that there are a lot of 1920s shacks that don’t even exist any more today? That the 1900s houses that do exist today are likely to be the better houses from that time period? Do you seriously believe that the average person today (who buys a 2,500 square foot house with all of today’s amenities) couldn’t get a much cheaper deal if he instead built a 1920s-style shack for himself? Of all the things to dispute that I’ve said, you picked that one?
I could point out to Census Bureau data going back over 40 years showing the greater debt load housing.
Right, because people are buying newer and bigger and fancier houses. Do you really not get that point? Sure, there are some expensive older homes — and those were the ritzy upper crust homes of 100 years ago. You’re not talking about the 1920s shacks that fell down decades ago.
some of you think that theoretically productivity could be so astonishingly high that every individual person (male and female alike) earned so much money that they could each support a family — meaning that the average family would then have two wages that would support 4 or 5 people (total of 8-10 people)? I have yet to see any reason whatsoever to think that this is, or could ever be, the case, any more than every child could be above the median
That not every child can be above the median is a definitional truth. The same isn’t true for what you are saying about wages. A century ago average household size was a lot larger than it is today. A married woman would have four or more children, and there might be an elderly relative living in the home as well. So you had six, possibly seven people all being supported by a single wage earner. Today, by contrast, the average married woman has around two kids. If it’s possible for a single individual to support six other people aside from himself, is it really so hard to imagine that he might be able to support three other people?
M.Z.,
I’m not sure that I get your point about housing. Do you dispute that average housing size was less than half what it was in 1900 than it is today (actually it was half was it is today in 1950, so I can only assume that in 1900 it was even less)? Do you dispute that most houses in 1900 didn’t have amenities that are now considered standard (I’m talking about things like electricity and indoor plumbing, not to mention air conditioning, central heating, various appliances, etc.)? Do you dispute that the home ownership rate in 1900 was a lot lower than it was today? If you don’t dispute any of these things, then I’m not sure I see your point.
If you think that access to electricity and plumbing are why I have a mortgage and the person that built my house didn’t, I don’t know what to say. This isn’t that complex. That total asset value of housing is somewhere around three times the national income. It was not 3 times the national income in 1900 or 1920. Yes, on average there is more house, but that is not the driving difference between the differential.
Perhaps this will help. My house is worth $x. If my house were at the corner of say 5th Ave and 21st St in Manhattan it would be worth a considerable multiple of $x. The reason that is isn’t because of electricity or square footage, because that hasn’t changed in this hypothetical. The reason is that the property itself is worth more, specifically its intrinsic relationship to the community it is in.
Apparently the home ownership rate in 1900 was 46% while in 2000 it was 66%, so I apparently part of the increasing home debt has to do with people being in the home market who weren’t before. (source Also, the percentage of the population employed in agriculture went from 35% in 1900 to around 3% today. (a href=”http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2007/0307/02ecoact.cfm”>source So clearly the ability percentage of people living in urban and suburban areas who own houses has massively increased. (I expect we can safely assume that the vast majority of farmer owned some sort of house, however meager.) So while it’s true that you might not have had much of a mortgage in that house in 1900, if you aren’t in the top 20% of urban/suburban earners, you wouldn’t have had the house at all.
Indeed, I think the argument is pretty good that the reason why mortgage debt, car ownership, household appliances, etc. have grown so much as a percentage of household expenses is simply that people have the money to spend on them, not that they somehow got more expensive on their own and squeezed the other things out. Indeed, for evidence of this look at the emerging nations which still have economies at much the same stage of development that we were at in 1900. They too often involve less mortgage debt, no requirement to own a car for a middle class income, etc. (Though often at the expense of living in crowded tenements and riding public transportation or bicycles for an hour or two each way.)
I understand your sympathies with the traditional life, and I often think that because of our affluence we consume far more than we should without really thinking of it. But the claim that we are not much more affluent than comparable people living in 1900 strikes me as pretty unsupportable.
On the flip side, if that is the case, how is it that our current system with a moderate size safety net, progressive taxation, and a host of other modern statist institutions is doing a _worse_ job of assuring living wages and equality than the almost entirely unregulated and un-safety netted economy of 1900? Do we need to go back to the government and economy of 1900?
M.Z.,
Here is a chart showing inflation adjusted housing prices for the period of 1890 through 2005. Just eyeballing the chart, housing prices in 1900 do not appear to be significantly lower than they were in 2000. So if the house you live in didn’t have a mortgage on it in 1900, this probably wasn’t because it was so much cheaper to buy a house back then.
They work fewer hours in part because restrictive labor laws make it more difficult to get a job (particularly if you are a minority).
I’m talking about hours per worker employment, not employment. I think I need to do another post to clear this up.
Most of the biggest technology related productivity increases in the 90s and 00s have been related to jobs which are populated primarily by college graduates. So it would make sense that most of the benefits from that increased productivity would initially be earned by those who are above the median. So it doesn’t really surprise me median income is not increasing at nearly the rate of overall national productivity.
I refer you again to the Gordon Dew-Becker paper I referenced in Blackadder’s post- the benefits are going to the very top.
“We show that over the entire period 1966-2001, as well as over 1997-2001, only the top 10 percent of the income distribution enjoyed a growth rate of real wage and salary income equal to or above the average rate of economy-wide productivity growth. Growth in median real wage and salary income barely grew at all while average wage and salary income kept pace with productivity growth, because half of the income gains went to the top 10 percent of the income distribution, leaving little left over for the bottom 90 percent.”
Here’s a long explanation of why a living wage doesn’t make as much sense when more people are working:
Imagine a society of 100 people, 50 of whom work.
Say total societal productivity is 1000 – or 10 units per person in the society (20 per working person). If everyone has the same standard of living, each of the 50 will be able to buy 20 shares of national productivity, enough to support themselves and someone else at a rate of 10 units per person. Crucially, each of the 50 is also buying the exact same average productivity as he or she produces (20 per working person). But that’s not a family wage.
So put the “family wage” concept into the equation: Could all 50 people have the capacity to support themselves and THREE other people – and this is the critical point – at the same standard of living, namely a share of 10 units per person? That would then imply that each of the 50 people could buy 40 units of national productivity. But that’s twice as much total national productivity as actually exists, and you could never have a society in which every working person bought twice as much productivity as he actually produced. It’s mathematically impossible.
You can’t get around this problem (as suggested above) just by having the working people be more productive. If total societal productivity doubled to 2000, that would now mean an average standard of living of 20 per person in the society. Thus, just as before, it can’t be the case that each of the 50 working people have the capacity to support 4 people at that rate (because that would imply that each of the 50 working people produced 40 units but bought 80 units). Still mathematically impossible.
Now compare to an earlier society in which 20 out of 100 people worked. Say that total societal productivity was 100, or 5 per working person and 1 per person in the society. If everyone had an average standard of living, that would be 1 unit of productivity per person. And each of the working people could buy 5 units of productivity, thus supporting themselves and an additional 4 people at the then-current standard of living.
Of course, the standard of living in this earlier society was far lower – 1 unit per person, as opposed to 10. So if the earlier society evolved into the later one – with more people working – the standard of living would go way up, as would wages. But that does not mean that the later society would have an easier time providing a “living wage” defined according to the later society’s standard of living. Quite the opposite.
If, on the other hand, anyone in the later society decided to live more simply, they’d be able to support 20 people, at 1 unit per person, on the later society’s wages. Which corresponds to the fact that if you decided today to live by 1900 standards, it would be a breeze to do so with today’s income.
Katerina does nail it–one must know how to read the documents.
I don’t wish to enter into the argument (really, there is no real argument to make here), but what I will mention is how so many non-specialists in economic posture as specialists when they are attempting to debate someone who is a specialist in economics and holds a Ph.D. from a top economics school (MM). This is not to suggest that the Ph.D. always has it right and the others have it wrong. Rather, the level of self-ascribed expertise in economics appears to be pandemic on Catholic blogs, including among those who comment here.
It’s a scandal child labor in coal mines isn’t legal :P
Surely we’d find a staunch Catholic defending it, pointing out the non-mandatory nature of such church teaching ;o)
Priceless Off-topic: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96I369O1&show_article=1
A Holocaust-denying bishop flew out of Argentina under a government expulsion order on Tuesday after scuffling with a reporter at the airport.
A local television station showed Richard Williamson raising his fist toward a reporter, then shoving him into a pole with his shoulder as he hurried through Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza international airport to catch a flight for London.
Argentina’s government on Thursday ordered the traditionalist Catholic bishop to leave the country or face expulsion, citing his failure to declare a job change as required by immigration law as well as his denials of the Holocaust, which it called “an insult” to humanity.
Rather, the level of self-ascribed expertise in economics appears to be pandemic on Catholic blogs, including among those who comment here.
I’m not sure how many of the comments you’ve read, but nothing discussed in the comments so far is particularly complex. These are fairly basic questions of statistics. Granted to someone whose expertise is in philosophy it all may appear hopelessly complex, but in that case they aren’t really qualified to say ‘don’t question the expert!’
Stuart,
You are assuming that “family wage” means something like “enough to support a family at the average standard of living for that society.” I agree that, if that’s the definition, then what you say will follow. But there’s no reason I can see why “family wage” has to be defined in that way.
This is not to suggest that the Ph.D. always has it right and the others have it wrong.
Darn right not to suggest that, given that the PhD does not and cannot show that I’m wrong. Mathematically, I’m absolutely right — if the standard of living at a given time = the avg. productivity divided by 1 + the avg. number of non-workers-per-worker, then BY DEFINITION it is going to be mathematically impossible for the average worker in that society to provide a “family wage” to a number of people greater than that avg. number of non-workers-per-worker. The only way it is mathematically possible is by using a standard of living below the societal average.
MM cannot disagree with this, because it’s true. Why are you making such a specious argument from authority here?
S.B., To BA’s point, I tried to suggest above that a ‘living wage’ in a wealthy society could be a wage at the bottom 10th or 20th percentile of all wage earners; it just depends on the society in question and the standard of living defined as a ‘living wage’.
Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? When MM and his ilk talk about how unfair it is that people don’t have a living wage, what they seem to be unhappy about is precisely the level of wages earned by the bottom 10 or 20 percent (of current Americans, that is, who are still in a very high percentile compared to the rest of the world, and in the 99th percentile compared to previous generations of humanity).
Well, S.B., I still support income redistribution to people in those percentiles, but I can understand why a person could make a contrary prudential judgment.
Sure, I do too, if it comes to that, although for the reasons explained in my 8:32 comment yesterday, I think people should keep things in perspective.
if the standard of living at a given time = the avg. productivity divided by 1 + the avg. number of non-workers-per-worker, then BY DEFINITION it is going to be mathematically impossible for the average worker in that society to provide a “family wage” to a number of people greater than that avg. number of non-workers-per-worker.
Again, this is only true if you define “family wage” in terms of the average standard of living of a society (the same goes, btw, for defining a living wage in terms of the bottom 10% of a society; just as half the people will always be below average, so there will always be people in the bottom 10%). If you do that, then a universal family wage or living wage or whatever will be impossible, but it won’t have anything to do with whether or not women work outside the home.
I refer you again to the Gordon Dew-Becker paper I referenced in Blackadder’s post- the benefits are going to the very top.
“We show that over the entire period 1966-2001, as well as over 1997-2001, only the top 10 percent of the income distribution enjoyed a growth rate of real wage and salary income equal to or above the average rate of economy-wide productivity growth.
Yes, well, given that that top 10%’s productivity is doubtless rather higher than the national average, the fact that they’ve enjoyed a growth rate of real wage and salary income equal to or above the average rate of economy-wide productivity growth is probably unsurprising. If there was a way to measure the productivity of the top 10% as an isolated group, I wouldn’t be surprised if their wages haven’t kept up with their productivity.
what I will mention is how so many non-specialists in economic posture as specialists when they are attempting to debate someone who is a specialist in economics and holds a Ph.D. from a top economics school (MM). This is not to suggest that the Ph.D. always has it right and the others have it wrong. Rather, the level of self-ascribed expertise in economics appears to be pandemic on Catholic blogs, including among those who comment here.
This probably depends a great deal on the topic. If MM decided to write a series of highly detailed posts on centralized banks and international monetary policy, I imagine he would run into less argument, since these are areas in which non-experts (unless they read a very great deal of technical literature) are at a conversational disadvantage. In this case, he posted excerpts from and comments on the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching, not necessarily an economic topic at all, though certainly related. And the economic topics being discussed are fairly open to the interested amateur. Plus several of the people commenting actually carry a fair amount of expertise in the area: John Henry spent several years doing financial analysis and in business school, as I recall; I do business intelligence/marketing analytics at a Fortune 100 company, etc.
I suppose if you wanted to turn your site into a experts only forum in which only people with advanced degrees in a topic were allowed to speak, you certainly could. But it wouldn’t really be very interesting, would it?
If you do that, then a universal family wage or living wage or whatever will be impossible, but it won’t have anything to do with whether or not women work outside the home.
Yes it will, because women are people, and when more people work, that raises the standard of living to an extent such that it’s now impossible for the average worker to provide the NEW standard of living to a bunch of nonworking people. See the example I gave above. (Again, though, you’re right that when more people work, it is eminently possible for an average worker to provide the OLD standard of living to a bunch of people, and thus, as I’ve said numerous times, average workers today already have a “living wage” in the 1920s or 1900s sense.)
Agreeing with Darwin on the “argument from authority” above: If we were talking about the local average treatment effect assumption in instrumental variable models, or about Charles Manski’s theories for identification with missing data, or some technical econometric topic like that, MM might (might) have a claim to some small measure of authority (it would depend on his dissertation topic and on how much he pays attention to econometrics).
But we’re most definitely not talking about technical economic issues. Indeed, if you ever read any actual economics (say, Daron Acemoglu, James Heckman, Esther Duflo, Guido Imbens, etc.), you’ll see that nothing MM has ever written on this site even remotely resembles what a professional economist does. No particular area of economic expertise is on display here.
I have no problem with people like Darwin and Blackadder making intelligent contributions. SB, not so much. His sole purpose is, and had always been, to mock others with an air of (false) superiority. Just look above: he desired me to discuss the properties of GMM estimators (huh?) while mentioning a group of economists who do work in totally different areas. I’ve a funny feeling that his sole point is to show that he knows who these people are, and that he has some econometric training. It’s tiresome and it’s getting old.
His sole purpose is, and had always been, to mock others with an air of (false) superiority.
That’s just not true. I’ll admit that I sometimes play the role of provocateur, but you surely have the self-awareness to realize that your blogging is normally provocative, thus eliciting such a reaction.
Just look above: he desired me to discuss the properties of GMM estimators (huh?) while mentioning a group of economists who do work in totally different areas. I’ve a funny feeling that his sole point is to show that he knows who these people are, and that he has some econometric training.
That response doesn’t even make sense . . . Heckman and Imbens write about econometric techniques all the time. Moreover, I wasn’t expressing any “desire” for you to talk about technical economic issues. I was just pointing out that Poli’s attempted argument from authority is completely inapt here, given that no technical economic issues (I gave a couple of examples) are at issue here, nor are you writing scholarly economic articles here (more and different examples of people who do that).
I was kind of surprised that no one had any reaction to this comment, in which I argued that people today are too whiny and should be more astonished at and grateful for all the amazing things that they have. Maybe because the post got held up in “moderation” for too long.
Any reactions, positive or negative? Anyone up for defending the fact that out of all the problems of material deprivation in the world, some people seem to think that Catholic teaching is primarily concerned about whether the 95th percentile has it as good as the 98th percentile?
S.B.,
I thought it was a great comment, but then I’m probably not who you were talking about.
S.B.,
There may be something to what you say, but our expectations are set by the times and conditions we live in. On the one hand, it’s nice to know that a child born 100 years ago had a life expectancy of about 50 years, whereas a child born today has a life expectancy of 80 years. But if some subgroup in the United States was distressed to find their children would have a life expectancy of 50 years, it wouldn’t be appropriate, in my opinion, to call them whiners and tell them they shouldn’t complain because they are just as fortunate as people who lived 100 years ago.
People did without electricity for thousands of years, but try going without it for 24 hours now. (I have lived through two blackouts in Manhattan, and I can tell you it wasn’t fun.)
A more troubling question for me is how much more do we owe, say, the 1% of children in the United States suffering from chronic malnutrition than we owe the massive numbers of children suffering from chronic malnutrition (or starvation) in Asia and Africa?