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You also didn't address my questions. If people in general can't be trusted to make good / moral decisions, how can people in particular be trusted to do the same?

And - do you need someone overseeing your buying and selling to prevent you from hurting other people?

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Wasn't this brought up several times already? We have laws that govern commerce. Maybe I'd buy cheap sneakers make with child labor if it wasn't illegal. Probably because I wouldn't even know about it. There's nothing inherently open and transparent about markets. If someone can withhold information for profit, then they will. Because capitalism has no morality aside from profit. Or maybe I'd buy something from a country that under boycott because they are specifically threatening our society. The market wins but our society loses. So yes, my behavior also needs to overseen to an extent to make sure that I am informed and prevented from making individual decisions that benefit me but harm society.

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No society has ever had that much virtue, and yet you insist it is necessary for a stable society. There have been many stable societies through history, and I can't think of a single one with a preponderence of virtue. They all have plenty of compelled pro-social behavior, though.

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You need to make a distinction between private and public virtue. Public virtue in the body politic is a prerequisite for a free society to be stable. If you want to talk about forms of government with concentrated power, that's a different matter entirely. Public virtue means being able subordinate self-interest to do what's best for the public interest. A dictator or a self-serving oligarchy doesn't operate under these rules, because their personal self-interest is aligned with government activity.

You're kind of shifting the topic now. Compelled pro-social behavior is a pretty broad brush to paint with. Way back in the before time my objection was that a worker has no right to a wage - for the avoidance of confusion, this doesn't mean they have no moral claim to be paid proportionally to the value of their work, it means they don't have a claim on any particular person for any particular amount of money. They certainly have no claim to be paid disproportionately to the value of their work, and the employer has no obligation to pay a worker disproportionately to the value of their work.

It seems like you're saying that forcing people to pay others disproportionately to the value of the work they are buying is a pro-social behavior, because something something stability. That's a very different argument than what you said before, which is that our society is undervaluing unskilled labor, and that philosophically a living wage should be the floor for unskilled labor.

If you want to say, there is a secondary value over and above the overt value of the labor not to the employer but to society writ large, and that value is found in poor people not becoming a violent and destablizing force...ok. But again, there's no question of morals, or virtue, or rights in this. And this isn't really relevant to the question of capitalism.

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To respond in the same tone: your idea seems to be that working people should be happy being homeless and starving, because capitalism is always right.

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Yeah, except what I said was an accurate if snarky summary of your argument. Yours has nothing to do with anything I've written.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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You also didn't address my questions. If people in general can't be trusted to make good / moral decisions, how can people in particular be trusted to do the same?

And - do you need someone overseeing your buying and selling to prevent you from hurting other people?

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Wasn't this brought up several times already? We have laws that govern commerce. Maybe I'd buy cheap sneakers make with child labor if it wasn't illegal. Probably because I wouldn't even know about it. There's nothing inherently open and transparent about markets. If someone can withhold information for profit, then they will. Because capitalism has no morality aside from profit. Or maybe I'd buy something from a country that under boycott because they are specifically threatening our society. The market wins but our society loses. So yes, my behavior also needs to overseen to an extent to make sure that I am informed and prevented from making individual decisions that benefit me but harm society.

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No no no, come on. That is a punt. That's not what I'm asking - I'm not saying without laws preventing someone else from offering you something and making you a party to something bad, I'm saying - do you need those laws to prevent you from doing the bad thing yourself. It isn't the same question.

Who should decide how much you pay someone under your employ?

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Because capitalism has no morality aside from profit.

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Capitalism has no morality whatsoever. No matter how many times you want to say otherwise, it does not say people should pursue profit, it says people should be free to do so. Generally speaking, what a person determines is in their own self interest is what they should do, assuming they can find someone else to make the voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

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It seems like you're saying that forcing people to pay others disproportionately to the value of the work they are buying is a pro-social behavior, because something something stability. That's a very different argument than what you said before, which is that our society is undervaluing unskilled labor, and that philosophically a living wage should be the floor for unskilled labor.

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It's the same point. A living wage is the floor for the value of unskilled labor particularly because anything lower results in social instability. You've been protesting that it's literally impossible to pay people above their base market value because capitalism is a law of nature. Even if that base market value is below a living wage. So I've been arguing that in such cases capitalism needs to be modified by the society at large in order to keep the society stable. An essential part of that is making sure that full time unskilled labor pays a living wage. Then we went round and round about forced virtue.

I feel like I'm not making this complicated. If the market determines that full time unskilled labor is valued less than a living wage, then the broader society needs to intervene in whatever way and make sure that full time unskilled laborers can live and eat. Whether that's charity, a minimum wage, a universal basic income, or welfare really doesn't matter. Otherwise society becomes unstable, violence happens, and free markets become idealistic fantasies.

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No no no, come on. That is a punt. That's not what I'm asking - I'm not saying without laws preventing someone else from offering you something and making you a party to something bad, I'm saying - do you need those laws to prevent you from doing the bad thing yourself. It isn't the same question.

Who should decide how much you pay someone under your employ?

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This doesn't make sense. I'm not going to murder someone so murder should be legal? I'm not doing to steal so theft should be legal? I'm not going to underpay my employees so underpaying my employees should be legal? That's a weird standard to apply to this one single thing

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Capitalism has no morality whatsoever. No matter how many times you want to say otherwise, it does not say people should pursue profit, it says people should be free to do so. Generally speaking, what a person determines is in their own self interest is what they should do, assuming they can find someone else to make the voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

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Capitalism also has no checks against unlimited self-interest, and it rewards the people who most seek out their own self-interest. So it does have a sort of morality. In terms of capital, it punishes the lazy, the unintelligent, the unfocused, the scrupulously moral, and the easily satisfied. It rewards the hard-working, the intelligent, the unscrupulous, and the greedy. It's not fundamentally good or bad, but it has its own axis of morality.

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It's the same point. A living wage is the floor for the value of unskilled labor particularly because anything lower results in social instability. You've been protesting that it's literally impossible to pay people above their base market value because capitalism is a law of nature. Even if that base market value is below a living wage. So I've been arguing that in such cases capitalism needs to be modified by the society at large in order to keep the society stable. An essential part of that is making sure that full time unskilled labor pays a living wage. Then we went round and round about forced virtue.

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It isn't the same point. People were talking about rights, particularly within a framework of Christian morals and ethics and justice. You've moved off of that point entirely and are being strictly pragmatic now. There's dozens of pragmatic ways to skin the cat of "what do we do about the underclass?"

I have never once said it is impossible to pay people above the value of their work. Either you're not reading or I'm not being clear. When you do pay above the value, that's charity if done voluntarily, or welfare if done by decree or force. It doesn't change the value. And, capitalism doesn't say you should or should not do that, beyond the principle that people should be free to enter into voluntary exchange, so it doesn't need to be modified. Wrapping forced charity under the auspices of employment doesn't magically make it not welfare, and suddenly change what is actually being priced.

Even further, the great irony is that a permanent underclass and all the social unrest that comes with it is not a feature of capitalism in particular. In fact, as history would have it, it is in fact dramatically and amazingly reduced under capitalism when compared to any other economic structure. So again, I don't understand what the point is here. None of this appears to address 1) whether a worker has a right to a particular wage or 2) whether the actual value of labor is changed by the cost of living. You only seem to be interesting in saying 3) society should collectively take care of the poor and that somehow this is a criticism of capitalism. Does not follow.

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This doesn't make sense. I'm not going to murder someone so murder should be legal? I'm not doing to steal so theft should be legal? I'm not going to underpay my employees so underpaying my employees should be legal? That's a weird standard to apply to this one single thing

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It really isn't, because murdering someone and entering into voluntary exchange are not the same thing. The whole premise here was that people should be forced to pay a just wage because it was the right of the worker to collect a just wage. People have a right to life, therefore you should not murder them. Aside from a tautology, or taking the point under inspection as an axiom, we need to understand why it should be illegal for you to pay someone a wage that you think benefits you, and they think benefits them. Even clearer - murder has a victim. Who is the victim in a voluntary exchange?

So again, assuming you come to a bargain with a person to work for x, who should other than you and them decide whether that deal is OK?

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Capitalism also has no checks against unlimited self-interest, and it rewards the people who most seek out their own self-interest. So it does have a sort of morality. In terms of capital, it punishes the lazy, the unintelligent, the unfocused, the scrupulously moral, and the easily satisfied. It rewards the hard-working, the intelligent, the unscrupulous, and the greedy. It's not fundamentally good or bad, but it has its own axis of morality.

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Yeah, no, I don't agree. All you're doing here is establishing wealth as morality, but you and I both know that neither of us agree with that. Capitalism does not say it is good or bad, or right or wrong, to pursue wealth versus free time, to be charitable or hoard, to sell at huge margins or sell at cost. You're the one applying the value scale to it, while simultaneously denouncing your own value scale as bad. It allows people to pursue their self-interest. The fact that the hard working, intelligent, focused person is more likely to achieve success in that pursuit seems to be a matter of fact in any enterprise under any system. The unscrupulous, immoral person is going to have an advantage over the scrupulous, moral person in any enterprise under any system. These are hardly a critique of capitalism.

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Even further, the great irony is that a permanent underclass and all the social unrest that comes with it is not a feature of capitalism in particular. In fact, as history would have it, it is in fact dramatically and amazingly reduced under capitalism when compared to any other economic structure. So again, I don't understand what the point is here. None of this appears to address 1) whether a worker has a right to a particular wage or 2) whether the actual value of labor is changed by the cost of living. You only seem to be interesting in saying 3) society should collectively take care of the poor and that somehow this is a criticism of capitalism. Does not follow.

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Yeah, no, I don't agree. All you're doing here is establishing wealth as morality, but you and I both know that neither of us agree with that. Capitalism does not say it is good or bad, or right or wrong, to pursue wealth versus free time, to be charitable or hoard, to sell at huge margins or sell at cost. You're the one applying the value scale to it, while simultaneously denouncing your own value scale as bad. It allows people to pursue their self-interest. The fact that the hard working, intelligent, focused person is more likely to achieve success in that pursuit seems to be a matter of fact in any enterprise under any system. The unscrupulous, immoral person is going to have an advantage over the scrupulous, moral person in any enterprise under any system. These are hardly a critique of capitalism.

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These points both are criticisms of capitalism because it is the only economic system that does not inherently impose social obligations. I can list them all again, but capitalism is the only one that doesn't impose any reciprocal obligations on full time employees and their employers (or whatever the analogue is in each system). You keep saying I can't criticise capitalism from a social standpoint because capitalism doesn't have any social obligations, but I'm criticizing capitalism from a social standpoint exactly because it doesn't carry any social obligations. Economic systems don't exist in a vacuum. They need stable societies to function. Every other economic system has robust social elements that stabilize society. Capitalism does not. That's a weakness of capitalism.

And I never meant to imply that someone is born with the natural right to be paid a living wage for full time labor. However, anytime a society does not provide that, the society doesn't last long. So I'd say it's more a responsibility of a society to make sure there is a living wage and not a fundamental right of a person.

so what you're saying is freedom is a bug, not a feature?

why do you keep ignoring this question?

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So again, assuming you come to a bargain with a person to work for x, who should other than you and them decide whether that deal is OK?

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also.. when did stability become the ultimate goal? As noted brutal dictatorships can be very stable.

CrackerJackAg said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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You are right that there isn't an 11th commandment to buyback stock when commodity prices are down.

You are misguided that that there isn't any macro economic or political systems that Christians should endorse and see to be implemented (or not).

Of course, Christianity has no army, no use of force, no rebellion, no subversion to bring about these types of changes.

You live in a democracy. You have a share in authority. God wants us to see to it that we use authority well.

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You perceive capitalism and democracy to be part of the Christian faith. I disagree with that assertion just as I would that any other political system (outside monarchy potentially) or economic system is part of Christianity.

Not much else to talk about. No point in a nuh huh, uh huh, nu huh argument.

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I say that there are foundational elements of capitalism and democratic freedoms from God. Not that Christianity endorses Modern Capitalism (TM) or Democracy (TM). Heaven is not a democracy. If anything, replicating heaven through a benevolent and strong king has the most backing. But benevolence is such a rare trait among kings and dictators. Don't get me confused with a Protestant who thinks Jesus would embrace America here.

Again, go tithe until you're broke. Live communally out of love. But if you ever aspire for office, don't look to implement that communing aspect out of the barrel of a gun. And those who would caucus with you under the banner of implementing a communing utopia only seek to enslave and silence you.

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You're a weird dude. I think you have something in your head I'm not saying. Going on about utopias and communing and running for office with barrels of guns…strange. I didn't say anything like that. You need to relax.

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All I did was point out the obvious story arch of communism. It always starts with christian ethic rebuke of a modern power structure and it always ends with mass subjugation and slaughter.

You and I both agree on how person to person interactions should behave under Christ's rule. Where we differ is that you refuse to take the smallest step towards 'Does Christianity say anything about governance and economics?' And you abdicate the authority (albeit the tiniest of sliver) that you have in governing because you live in a democracy.

By wrongly claiming that God has said nothing about these things, you cede that whole arena over to those who don't care about what God says-period. And that always ends badly.

*No trolls were involved in the making of this film.*

Zobel said:

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Who is the victim in a voluntary exchange?

So again, assuming you come to a bargain with a person to work for x, who should other than you and them decide whether that deal is OK?

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I worry that the first line is too simplified. Just because someone does something voluntarily, does not mean they are not being taken advantage of.

I've enjoyed reading yours and Ramblin's back and forth. The piece I think I might be missing from your position is an address to the differential in bargaining power that occurs in low income unskilled labor markets. I don't think there is any objection to your description of how labor negotiations might work for a doctor or engineer or lawyer. But, those potential employees clearly have bargaining power. And clearly the person that harvests your food or cleans your office or stocks your groceries has far less bargaining power.

There are proposals out there to increase minimum wages or require that employers meet some minimum benefits to employees who are on the lowest end of the bargaining power spectrum. And while I acknowledge your criticisms of those proposals, I don't understand how 'your' system would protect against compensation for low wage and unskilled jobs being pushed down to extreme levels.

I think we, as a society, have a tendency to celebrate hard working and intelligent persons very selectively. A businessperson that comes up with a great idea and works hard and makes a large sum of money is celebrated. A laborer that works long hours, takes enormous pride in their work, is honesty and loyal to their employer, and is the model employee. . . we don't really care about. The employer is going to pay that person that absolute minimum. And if the employee objects, the employer will find someone 70% as good for 70% the cost and move along. We all rely massively on low income workers, but we don't seem to value them.

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I worry that the first line is too simplified. Just because someone does something voluntarily, does not mean they are not being taken advantage of.

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Clearly things get more complicated, for example when you have something like fraud. But in the essence fraud is deception - deliberate misinformation. That comes back to the early component of a voluntary exchange which is reasonable level of information. Fraud deliberately defies that.

I'm not sure, absent fraud and the like, there is much room in economic concept for "taking advantage" of someone in a voluntary exchange. The case of a man dying for thirst bartering his life for a sip of water stretches the spirit of voluntary exchange, and that would be where I would agree with you (he can't walk away from the deal and live). But even then, short sighted as it is, and cruel as it is, there is mutual benefit derived from that transaction. People can have make bad deals and have regrets, but I don't know how you can stop that absent pure paternalism.

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But, those potential employees clearly have bargaining power. And clearly the person that harvests your food or cleans your office or stocks your groceries has far less bargaining power.

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Define bargaining power? If you mean the ability to command a wage in absolute value, of course. But if you mean, the ability to hold out for whatever price they like, I completely disagree. The absolute wage they can earn will be limited by supply and demand - and someone accepting an offer (voluntarily, for mutual benefit) that will set the floor on value. But they have as much bargaining power as anyone else does in any transaction. Just because a person can command a higher price for the goods they sell doesn't fundamentally change any of this.

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There are proposals out there to increase minimum wages or require that employers meet some minimum benefits to employees who are on the lowest end of the bargaining power spectrum. And while I acknowledge your criticisms of those proposals, I don't understand how 'your' system would protect against compensation for low wage and unskilled jobs being pushed down to extreme levels.

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Well, for one, minimum wage doesn't actually help anyone. It's inflationary, all it does is increase price levels in the general sense. Perversely it has the greatest adverse effect on those who are least able to absorb the price increase, which are exactly the people it is supposed to help. Realistically I think the answer to "then why do politicians increase the minimum wage?" is because many labor deals are negotiated at multiples of minimum wage, so the general minimum wage level becomes an important bargaining chit and an opportunity for financial gain straight from legislation for people making much more money than the minimum itself.

Compensation won't be pushed down to extreme levels, it will match the actual value of the work. That value already exists, the work already has value. Reducing the artificial floor will actually increase the number of jobs available, because jobs which have negative value at minimum wage (e.g., when actual value of the labor is less than current minimum wage) simply go away. That's great news for business owners and people who don't need the job for subsistence living - like teenagers and students, for example, who can come to terms in a mutually beneficial deal. If not, they won't, and the job will either be rolled into another job, or be done away with.

If something can't happen, it won't. If the labor is a net negative, owners and shareholders will not spend the money at a net loss - or those that will will do so out of charity. Either way, the value of labor is a real thing. You can trade the product of labor for a price, and that price is set by someone else voluntarily buying it. If you artificially inflate the price of labor, the value of the labor product does not go up. If you uniformly inflate the price of labor, you also contribute to general price increases, with attending short term impacts on sales as prices increase relative to demand.

Also, unlike voluntary exchange, direct cash injection in the form of subsidy or welfare results in a winner and loser with mathematical certainty. The first person who receives the first dollar has a purchasing power increase over everyone else. As that injected money moves its way through the economy, general price levels rise, and the hypothetical last person to receive that dollar has actually paid for it through price increases they've endured until that time, but receive no benefit from receiving the inflated dollar.

If we actually get a point where the reality of the situation confronts us and we simply have too many people with negative labor value, we are in an economic situation that is a crisis no matter what system you're running. Socialism, capitalism, whatever, you have an upside down labor pool - you have more people than jobs. And no different than a bubble in any market leading to overproduction and excess supply, that has to be worked through. You can write down widgets and cars, and you can engage in charity or welfare to feed people - the end result is destruction of capital until the oversupply corrects itself.

In the meantime - if we really are in a situation where the value of a laborer is less than the actual subsistence cost (meaning, not including a netflix subscription or iphone or ps5) - the avenue to take of people is no different whether it is handled via charity or welfare. It is a zero sum in that regard.

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The employer is going to pay that person that absolute minimum.

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But this is nonsense even at slight inspection. Every employer pays every worker what they can. Step back and it is still true - everyone purchases everything they can at the minimum price they can find. Or do you go on Amazon and sort price high to low? Given equal product - like unskilled labor - why would you arbitrarily pay more? And given equal product - like a first year engineer - why would you arbitrarily pay more? In the end, it doesn't matter what level you're working at, your employer is paying you for the value you produce. Maybe it is a little more fuzzy for white collar jobs, harder to connect labor value to tangible goods, but the act of valuation and entering into a deal for mutual benefit is exactly the same.

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And if the employee objects, the employer will find someone 70% as good for 70% the cost and move along.

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If the employer was paying 42% more than necessary for what his business needed to operate, why is it bad for him to correct that? Why should either party be forced to engage in a deal that they do not feel is in their best interest?

Again, this happens at all levels. Employers fire high salaried employees too, if they make unreasonable demands and can't come to terms. And, incidentally, employers also give raises to employees who add value. Most people aren't cannibals in business, they're trying to do their jobs and put high value on their good employees.

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We all rely massively on low income workers, but we don't seem to value them.

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how should we value them?

this is like saying, we all value amazon prime, but none of us insist on paying more than they ask for their service.

Zobel said:

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so what you're saying is freedom is a bug, not a feature?

why do you keep ignoring this question?

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So again, assuming you come to a bargain with a person to work for x, who should other than you and them decide whether that deal is OK?

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also.. when did stability become the ultimate goal? As noted brutal dictatorships can be very stable.

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I answered your question to the best of my ability. I'm a moral person in general, but I specifically posted 2 instances where I would be happy to make a mutually beneficial transaction that damaged society at large. Therefore I must be prohibited from making these mutually beneficial transactions by the society at large. Not really sure what else you want from me regarding this.

Stability is a baseline prerequisite. There have been any number of utopian systems that don't work. That's typically the capitalist criticism of communism, and it's correct. It just doesn't work, because it isn't stable.

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We all rely massively on low income workers, but we don't seem to value them.

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how should we value them?

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Just point out that this is not a solved problem. There are plenty of people in our society that think unskilled labor is undervalued by the market, and many, many solutions have been proposed by both sides of the political aisle to fix this. On the one side you have immigration limitations to stop people from coming here and driving down wages by accepting lower pay, and you have community charities for people in need. On the other side you have unions, minimum wage laws, and welfare. Somewhere floating off by itself is UBI. The question will only become more urgent and important as automation and AI make human labor less needed. It's probably one of the "make or break" problems for our society in the immediate future. If your society is built on human labor and rewards only that, what do you do when you don't need much human labor anymore?

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Should we value low income workers and families beyond (or more) than just the sum of their economic contribution?

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I think we're using value in different terms. You seem to be using it more in a general sense in the importance or worth of something. I'm using it in the economic sense of the measure of the benefit of a good or service. The economic sense is not squishy, the value of something is actualized when the transaction happens. If you go and pay $10 for a candy bar, that is the value. It's a Real Thing. If the next guy in line negotiates and buys it for $1, that is also a Real Thing. It gets fuzzy when we start to average or aggregate all the transactions, but that's true for any kind of predictive activity.

That's why I think this statement doesn't make sense. Unskilled labor has a value, and that value is the average of all of the transactions where free agents choose to engage in a transaction trading unskilled labor. You and I as third parties don't have any say whatsoever in that value. You can't tell either party what they should have paid or gotten paid, you're not the one receiving the benefit of the transaction.

Now, if you're asking should we as people (since people aren't pure economic agents) consider people as more than the sum of their economic contribution? Absolutely. But capitalism doesn't come to bear on this. That's the Marxist premise that keep saying should be rejected. Putting a price on labor is not putting a price on a person.

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The value of these companies can be considered to be more than simply the sum of their transactions.

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I hear what you're saying, but you can still rephrase this into a transaction. What you're describing is to me a form of insurance. Looking out into the future, we say we need to make sure industry X exists. We're going to pay today for the promise of future goods delivered by industry X.

The problem with something like unskilled labor is that it is an input to every single industry and every single product. I don't really understand how you could even begin to create a structure to do that. And in the end because it is a universal input, tinkering with that price just ends up being reflected in general price levels, and is regressive in that it hurts low income families disproportionately.

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What I would like to suggest is that the potential value of low income workers and low income families that we miss out on comes in the form of community involvement, involvement in their children and families, and investment (time and money) into the success of their children. I don't think it would be difficult to draw a correlation between household income and the economic contribution of children from those households. I don't mean to make excuses for anyone, but I can't help but think that there is an absolutely massive amount of potential that we, as a country or as an economy, are losing out on.

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Yeah, but this is an argument for public education or public benefits in general. There is a significant difference between placing pricing caps on arbitrary goods and services - which will everywhere and always result in a winner and loser - and taxes in a general sense. Conferring a benefit on the population in general, like something like public education does, is different than conferring a benefit to a specific group, regardless of who that group is. And taxing in a general sense doesn't have the direct and immediate distortion effect that subsidies do.

I know it seems silly but the problem with minimum wage is made apparent when you ask what it should be. If federal minimum wage of $7.25 is too low, what should it be? Would making it $15 do all the things you say - give people more time with their communities, their kids? If $15 is better than $7.25, why not $30? Why not $50? I'm sure all of us can imagine what would happen to general pricing if we arbitrarily increased minimum wage to $50.

Another way to think about this is that whatever the difference between the minimum wage and the value of the labor is the charitable contribution to that laborer. So how much welfare is the right amount? How do you justify each incremental dollar, especially considering that you always have to pay the piper in the form of inflation?

Even further... we didn't have a federal minimum wage until 1938. Just off the cuff do you think community involvement, parental involvement, etc. is higher or lower today than in 1938?

If what we're really saying here is that things would be much better if everyone was wealthier, then I say I absolutely agree - which is a historical argument for giving people liberty and free exchange and NOT doing all these kind of subsidies. We have plenty of evidence that charitable giving is tied to economic health, so the best way to increase charitable giving is to have a better economy. And there is historical evidence (in the US, anyway) that government spending crowds out charitable giving, both from foundations and individual contributors...which matches what our intuition would tell us anyway.

See above. This seems to be a confusion about what the value of labor means. Unless you're buying and selling people, the idea that labor values workers is a premise we should all reject.

The only way to place a value on something is to purchase it. It is a measurement of actual activity. Saying "unskilled labor is undervalued by the market" is like saying "the measured value of gravitational acceleration is too low." There's no should or ought there. If you want to go change the value of something, go buy it at a different price. Don't force me to accept your value by forcing me to buy above the price at which I derive benefit.

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I answered your question to the best of my ability. I'm a moral person in general, but I specifically posted 2 instances where I would be happy to make a mutually beneficial transaction that damaged society at large. Therefore I must be prohibited from making these mutually beneficial transactions by the society at large. Not really sure what else you want from me regarding this.

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I want your honest answer that at the end of the day, you don't think a third party is necessary to tell you if what you're paying your employee is a fair wage or not, and forcing you to pay more. Any more than you don't need a third party to tell you if what you're paying for apples at the grocery store is fair or not and forcing you to pay more for that. None of us want that, because it is nonsense.

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I think we're using value in different terms. You seem to be using it more in a general sense in the importance or worth of something. I'm using it in the economic sense of the measure of the benefit of a good or service.

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Yes, that is a fair comment.

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The value of these companies can be considered to be more than simply the sum of their transactions.

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I hear what you're saying, but you can still rephrase this into a transaction. What you're describing is to me a form of insurance. Looking out into the future, we say we need to make sure industry X exists. We're going to pay today for the promise of future goods delivered by industry X.

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I don't see why we can't apply a similar logic toward people. Just as we invest in industries we will need in the future, I see it as being in the best interest for a country to invest in its people. I think you agree with that, but perhaps we lean toward different ways of investing in people.

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If what we're really saying here is that things would be much better if everyone was wealthier, then I say I absolutely agree - which is a historical argument for giving people liberty and free exchange and NOT doing all these kind of subsidies. We have plenty of evidence that charitable giving is tied to economic health, so the best way to increase charitable giving is to have a better economy. And there is historical evidence (in the US, anyway) that government spending crowds out charitable giving, both from foundations and individual contributors...which matches what our intuition would tell us anyway.

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I think my biggest hesitation with your position can be demonstrated by our current wealth distribution. The idea that removing these artificial guardrails will result in a better distribution of wealth seems crazy to me. When the top 1% controls 40% of the wealth and the bottom 50% controls 2.5% of the wealth in the richest country in the world, it signals to me that we have no shortage of wealth. . . . its just that the majority of that wealth is in a place where it primarily helps a tiny part of the population. I don't see how removing regulation and limitations on how this tiny part of the population interacts with employees is anything other than a recipe for accelerating the gap.

I don't like the idea of 'redistribution of wealth', but I think that some form of it is essential to avoid this type of runaway wealth and power gap. Wealthy and powerful people are good at collecting wealth and power. They are good at writing laws that allow for them to build that wealth and power. And they are good at convincing the rest of us that the problem is somewhere else.

Regarding charity, I would be interested in some studies on how improved economic conditions affect giving. What I mean is - If the removal of a welfare program or worker subsidy results in a better economy, does charitable giving increase sufficiently to make up for the loss of the welfare / subsidy program? My intuition says no, but maybe that is unfairly cynical?

On the topic of subsidies - every single employer and every single industry in this country is subsidized by the population. Not just through direct tax breaks and payments, but through every tax built part of this country including, but certainly not limited to, roads, utility infrastructure, security(police), fire services, defense, some of the education for the workforce that the company uses, public services, sanitation, traffic control, etc. It seems to me that a company looking to exchange money for services with a citizen is entering the discussion having already received all of this subsidization paid for by the body of citizens they are looking to hire.

I reject whole heartedly that this type of subsidization for employers is okay, but that a subsidization for employees is wrong. I think if corporations paid a similar tax rate as you or I, then we could justify this relationship, but I think too few of them do.

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I think my biggest hesitation with your position can be demonstrated by our current wealth distribution. The idea that removing these artificial guardrails will result in a better distribution of wealth seems crazy to me. When the top 1% controls 40% of the wealth and the bottom 50% controls 2.5% of the wealth in the richest country in the world, it signals to me that we have no shortage of wealth. . . . its just that the majority of that wealth is in a place where it primarily helps a tiny part of the population. I don't see how removing regulation and limitations on how this tiny part of the population interacts with employees is anything other than a recipe for accelerating the gap.

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What if the wealth disparity is a feature and not a bug? It doesn't hurt me if my neighbor has a nicer car or if some goober in Silicon Valley has a hundred nicer cars. What if the only way we can manage to allow for all of the advantages of modern life is that some people accumulate crazy amounts of wealth while others get anything they need delivered to their doorstep in three days? What if amazing technology and efficient industry that increases the world's standard of living is only possible with a few hundred billionaires that manage to lead a country where you literally have to be completely insane to starve to death or not have a roof over your head.

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I don't like the idea of 'redistribution of wealth', but I think that some form of it is essential to avoid this type of runaway wealth and power gap. Wealthy and powerful people are good at collecting wealth and power. They are good at writing laws that allow for them to build that wealth and power. And they are good at convincing the rest of us that the problem is somewhere else.

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The 20th century is filled with populist movements have sought to do exactly what you propose and remove the ability of the rich to become even richer. Even putting aside the tens of millions of people killed by their own governments in pursuit of that goal, you have countries like Argentina and Sweden that demoted themselves from places with top standards of living to backwater also-rans inside of a generation. I hate bankers scratching their own backs with crony capitalist policies as much as anyone, but that's the problem of cronyism that happens in every single economic system, not just capitalism. And to your last point, I'd love for people to be less convinced by bad faith actors, but they're everywhere and you can make a few bucks telling people what they want to hear.

Zobel said:

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And you absolutely should have the right to pay above market. You should also have the right to pay below market, if you can find someone willing to do the work.

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The second part seems to fall clearly into the field of exploitation. I reject the notion that exploitation requires no benefits to both parties or that it can't be willfully agreed upon by the exploited party. And this is absent the presence of outright fraud which very obviously would qualify. A simple example might be a street pimp and street prostitute.

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You've highlighted here that employers can have an information advantage. But that isn't always one-sided and employees can leverage information as well. You mentioned employers bringing in new hires at higher pay; the counter example is an employee shopping their resume to get competitive offers.

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This is where I diverge, I think. The employers information advantage is typically dramatic. Even your example of shopping a few locations to get competitive offers give only something more than the employee arguing completely blind of information.

If the employee knew the wages of his fellow employees as well as that of similar employees at other companies, and knew the net profit his position typically produced (or if working there, the profit he produced) he would be well informed in negotiating. The only factor in this that employers sometimes don't know is the positions pay at other companies. And again that's only sometimes. So the employee is at a pretty rough information disadvantage very much of the time and even in the best case scenario will only be working with equal information much of the time.

In addition to this disadvantage, the employee may need to come to a compromise for fear of losing basic needs and shelter. The employer is usually at no more risk than inconvenience.

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If the owner has the incentive to evaluate the price they're paying for labor, the employee also has the incentive to evaluate the price they can sell their labor for. It is difficult to me to say that one is inherently different than the other.

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it is when there are major imbalances in information. And I think this is the case. In a fully informed market I tend to agree this falls into balance for most professions.

You are also missing that the apparent market value is different when bargaining collectively. Why do you suppose that is? I mean it's all free negotiation, right?

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I agree that employees don't seem to be as aggressive in maximizing their pay as employers often are in minimizing their labor costs. However, again, without coercion and with a reasonable level of information the balance will always be struck in a way that both parties derive mutual benefit.

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This goes back to my belief that some level of mutual benefit does not deny the possibility of exploitation. You don't have to completely defraud a person of their market value to exploit them. I don't at all see why this would be the case.

Nor do I see why market equilibriums must be considered sacrosanct in all instances. We paternalistically interfere with markets (in both directions, we end strikes and control prices) to protect against over pollution, national security, and securing basic utilities.

And back to the OP, can a Christian, morally pay an employee who matches the productivity and output of other similar employees 50% of the pay of those employees simply because he's ignorant of his market worth and willfully accepted a worse pay? You have defined paying this employee the same as his coworkers "charity" since it's above and beyond what he negotiated. I don't see it that way. I see it as exploitation based on an information advantage. I don't think it's moral, and I'd be surprised if most christians disagreed.

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A simple example might be a street pimp and street prostitute.

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...so your go-to is a sublegal profession that is often tantamount to slavery, is based on implicit or explicit threats of violence, and because of its illegal nature has no recourse, and therefore is at least to a large degree involuntary? Yeah, that's exploitation.

Can you tell me why hiring someone willing to accept my offer of $15 for starting wage, when most of my competitors are paying $20, is me taking advantage of them?

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If the employee knew the wages of his fellow employees as well as that of similar employees at other companies, and knew the net profit his position typically produced (or if working there, the profit he produced) he would be well informed in negotiating.

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I don't agree that a person needs to know all the relevant details to be able to negotiate. You don't need to know the other party's benefit to know your own. It certainly helps, but it isn't necessary. It may change your opinion to know the total amount of the pie that is being divided, but it doesn't change your needs. I'm glad you brought this up because I think that's a very important part. Some of the objections here seem to want to have their cake (pie?) and eat it too, in that regard. Why should one party in the negotiation be forced to divide the pie to some third party's arbitrary definition of fair? Why does the employer need to consider not only his own negotiating objectives but ALSO take care for the negotiating objectives other other agent? We don't do this in any other transaction. You don't ask yourself - is this sale price sustainable for this company? Should I really pay 50% off for this item? What if they're losing money? You say "is this worth $x to me?" and move on with your decision.

Why do we expect employers to be paternalistic in negotiations in order for it to be fair? It seems like a soft form of bigotry. Don't employees know their own objectives?

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In addition to this disadvantage, the employee may need to come to a compromise for fear of losing basic needs and shelter. The employer is usually at no more risk than inconvenience.

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And the business may need to compromise for fear of going bankrupt. I don't buy that supply and demand should govern every single transaction except for this one. It is not for the employer to arbitrarily change their price regardless of what someone is willing to accept. Paying for basic needs and shelter is mutual benefit.

There seems to be this lurking idea that somehow an employer making a profit is OK, but only to a point. And further, that there's some obligation to share profits with employees whether they know, or ask, or have someone else willing to do the same work without that profit sharing. I don't know how you can justify that, or say what the "right" amount of profit is. Are you willing to work open book for someone to come and say that maybe you're being overpaid for your job? Why should anyone have to do that? What's fair is voluntary exchange, because both parties walk away with mutual benefit. The degree of benefit does not have to be equal.

If we're not willing to accept imbalances in exchanges, you're not willing to accept that people have the ability to rationalize their own self-interest at all.

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You are also missing that the apparent market value is different when bargaining collectively. Why do you suppose that is? I mean it's all free negotiation, right?

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When businesses do it we call it collusion and the reason it is illegal is because it limits competition to artificially raise prices above their true value. What's the difference?

This is basically saying "preventing competition in a market changes the price." Yeah. Exactly.

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And back to the OP, can a Christian, morally pay an employee who matches the productivity and output of other similar employees 50% of the pay of those employees simply because he's ignorant of his market worth and willfully accepted a worse pay? You have defined paying this employee the same as his coworkers "charity" since it's above and beyond what he negotiated. I don't see it that way. I see it as exploitation based on an information advantage. I don't think it's moral, and I'd be surprised if most christians disagreed.

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I don't see anything immoral about it, unless you're being deceptive to achieve this. But this hypothetical is way too simplistic. The real question is, would anyone pay an employee who matches productivity and output of others at half the wage? A fool might, but doing so would in the long run be against his own best interest. And you know what? He should be free to do that stupid, bad thing. Just like that employee should be free to accept something less than he should get.

The only reason this is outrageous is because you picked a big number. The principle is the same at 50%, 5%, 1%, or one penny. Should people be allowed to be paid differently at all for the same work? Why or why not?

And no, I do not define paying that employee more than what he asked for charity. What I said was charity was paying above the value of the work product. In other words, charity would be me sacrificing for his benefit.

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perhaps we lean toward different ways of investing in people.

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yes, means and methods matter.

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I think my biggest hesitation with your position can be demonstrated by our current wealth distribution. The idea that removing these artificial guardrails will result in a better distribution of wealth seems crazy to me.

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I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. Why not compare our poor people to everyone else's? Or our average? Our standard of living?

Minimum wage doesn't prevent wealth distribution at all. I mean... we've run the experiment. Minimum wages keep going up, and so does concentration of wealth. I do think it can be destabilizing and bad, but I think there's far more going on here and - to your point - politicians saying <<this is the problem>> and effectively making everyone regressively pay to take care of the poor is a pretty solid way for the wealthy to convince people that "the problem is somewhere else" - if indeed there is a problem. I suspect people the world over would love to have our wealth distribution problem.

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Regarding charity, I would be interested in some studies on how improved economic conditions affect giving. What I mean is - If the removal of a welfare program or worker subsidy results in a better economy, does charitable giving increase sufficiently to make up for the loss of the welfare / subsidy program? My intuition says no, but maybe that is unfairly cynical?

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Charitable giving tends to go up every year regardless of economic growth, but goes up more under a good economy. But, historically, the crowding out goes the other way. We've never removed a welfare or relief program that I know of, so we only have seen the one direction.

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On the topic of subsidies - every single employer and every single industry in this country is subsidized by the population. Not just through direct tax breaks and payments, but through every tax built part of this country including, but certainly not limited to, roads, utility infrastructure, security(police), fire services, defense, some of the education for the workforce that the company uses, public services, sanitation, traffic control, etc. It seems to me that a company looking to exchange money for services with a citizen is entering the discussion having already received all of this subsidization paid for by the body of citizens they are looking to hire.

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This is just muddying the waters. If merely existing in society is a subsidy equivalent to any and all subsidy, we should just give up. I'm pretty sure everyone understands that saying - "hey guys, the new price ceiling for gas is now $1/gal" - or "steelworkers will now receive a special $5/hr subsidy from the USG" - is different than police and fire stations existing. Everyone benefits from those, equally. And anyone, ostensibly, can engage in free exchange of goods and services (including their own) to take advantage of those benefits for their own self-interest.

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I reject whole heartedly that this type of subsidization for employers is okay, but that a subsidization for employees is wrong. I think if corporations paid a similar tax rate as you or I, then we could justify this relationship, but I think too few of them do.

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corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do.

Zobel said:

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I reject whole heartedly that this type of subsidization for employers is okay, but that a subsidization for employees is wrong. I think if corporations paid a similar tax rate as you or I, then we could justify this relationship, but I think too few of them do.

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corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do.

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Corporate income taxes are a political dodge that turns businesses into their (inefficient) collection agents. They make consumers pay higher prices for everything without most of them realizing it was mandated by the government. Skip corporate taxes, and the corporation's owners pay higher individual income taxes.

They're more a system of carrots and sticks to deploy against well run enterprises when .gov wants something done than they are about revenue generation.

chimpanzee said:

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What if the wealth disparity is a feature and not a bug? It doesn't hurt me if my neighbor has a nicer car or if some goober in Silicon Valley has a hundred nicer cars. What if the only way we can manage to allow for all of the advantages of modern life is that some people accumulate crazy amounts of wealth while others get anything they need delivered to their doorstep in three days? What if amazing technology and efficient industry that increases the world's standard of living is only possible with a few hundred billionaires that manage to lead a country where you literally have to be completely insane to starve to death or not have a roof over your head.

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I am by no means anti-wealth.

Money is power. Its not the only source of power, but it is a major source of power. Money pays for laws and politicians. Money influences what is taught in schools, what we hear on the news, and who we go to war with. The concern is a system of government more and more resembling an oligarchy where decisions are made by those with power and everyone else's power becomes more and more of an illusion.

I do love my Amazon next day delivery and manyof the benefits that have come from radically successful billionaires. But, you have to admit, the way you describe it above feels very Brave New World. We should all just be content taking our 'soma', right?

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I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. Why not compare our poor people to everyone else's? Or our average? Our standard of living?

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Louisiana Monroe went 4-8 in 2022. We went 5-7. I guess we had a great year, right? Obviously, given A&Ms resources and talents and facilities, we should be comparing ourselves to schools with similar talent and resources. I think it fair to judge football teams in terms of how well they perform given their resources.

Given the USA's resources and wealth we should be careful who we compare ourselves to. How well does our political and economic system serve the people its meant to serve? Should we talk about how it can better serve the people or should we be content because most of our poor people own refrigerators and have a phone?

But, if we were going to compare our poor people to everyone else's, the first thing we should talk about is healthcare. . . .

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I suspect people the world over would love to have our wealth distribution problem.

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No, they wouldn't. They'd love to have so much wealth (as we do) that a hugely skewed distribution still puts them as better off than they are now.

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corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do.

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Are corporations not consumers???

kurt vonnegut said:

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chimpanzee said:

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What if the wealth disparity is a feature and not a bug? It doesn't hurt me if my neighbor has a nicer car or if some goober in Silicon Valley has a hundred nicer cars. What if the only way we can manage to allow for all of the advantages of modern life is that some people accumulate crazy amounts of wealth while others get anything they need delivered to their doorstep in three days? What if amazing technology and efficient industry that increases the world's standard of living is only possible with a few hundred billionaires that manage to lead a country where you literally have to be completely insane to starve to death or not have a roof over your head.

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I am by no means anti-wealth.

Money is power. Its not the only source of power, but it is a major source of power. Money pays for laws and politicians. Money influences what is taught in schools, what we hear on the news, and who we go to war with. The concern is a system of government more and more resembling an oligarchy where decisions are made by those with power and everyone else's power becomes more and more of an illusion.

I do love my Amazon next day delivery and manyof the benefits that have come from radically successful billionaires. But, you have to admit, the way you describe it above feels very Brave New World. We should all just be content taking our 'soma', right?

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Having just finished brave new world (again), no, it's not like soma. However, the globalists and WEF crew…that's another matter.

kurt vonnegut said:

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chimpanzee said:

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What if the wealth disparity is a feature and not a bug? It doesn't hurt me if my neighbor has a nicer car or if some goober in Silicon Valley has a hundred nicer cars. What if the only way we can manage to allow for all of the advantages of modern life is that some people accumulate crazy amounts of wealth while others get anything they need delivered to their doorstep in three days? What if amazing technology and efficient industry that increases the world's standard of living is only possible with a few hundred billionaires that manage to lead a country where you literally have to be completely insane to starve to death or not have a roof over your head.

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I am by no means anti-wealth.

Money is power. Its not the only source of power, but it is a major source of power. Money pays for laws and politicians. Money influences what is taught in schools, what we hear on the news, and who we go to war with. The concern is a system of government more and more resembling an oligarchy where decisions are made by those with power and everyone else's power becomes more and more of an illusion.

I do love my Amazon next day delivery and manyof the benefits that have come from radically successful billionaires. But, you have to admit, the way you describe it above feels very Brave New World. We should all just be content taking our 'soma', right?

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I don't know how to keep money from buying power, though I think we've actually done a better job here on that measure than most places. It's a different and interesting rabbit hole to go down, but tangential from where I was headed. My pet theory here is the level of power that was given up by the states and legislative branch in deference to the executive. I think a lot would be solved by better adherence to federalism as more originally supposed, though clearly it has the fatal flaw of being interpreted by the powerful thus leading to more concentrated power. Maybe that can only be stalled for a while before the more historically prevalent system of power reasserts itself. Anarchy has zero precedent for success.

Contentment is not going to come from a more equally enjoyed materialism or more access to hospitals or more leisure time any more than it will from making people in Beverly Hills or the Upper West Side poorer. Individuals buying into a culture that encourages discipline to make good choices while not forcing citizens to do anything at the point of a gun (either his neighbors' or his government's) is the most I would hope for.

I can show you the math on how to retire comfortably after 30 years as a truck driver and never work another day in your life. It's not all yachts and country clubs for sure, but neither is it an oppressive way of life. If you want more than that, it shouldn't have to be forced from someone else that figured out a better way to make money.

Zobel said:

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See above. This seems to be a confusion about what the value of labor means. Unless you're buying and selling people, the idea that labor values workers is a premise we should all reject.

The only way to place a value on something is to purchase it. It is a measurement of actual activity. Saying "unskilled labor is undervalued by the market" is like saying "the measured value of gravitational acceleration is too low." There's no should or ought there. If you want to go change the value of something, go buy it at a different price. Don't force me to accept your value by forcing me to buy above the price at which I derive benefit.

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In case it's not clear, I ardently disagree with this. The closest analogues to full time employees are peasants, serfs, and slaves. Our jobs are our identities, and when our society functions well they are our only means of survival. Full time workers spent more time working than doing anything else in their life. Whether we place too much emphasis as a society on people's work and profession is a legit question, but we certain place a huge emphasis on it. You can't just reduce that to a supply/demand equation. The way we pay full time employees is the closest our society comes to putting a value on them as people.

As far the whole supply/demand/all powerful market/law of gravity argument, our society has decided that full time labor is the maximum work that any employer can expect from an employee. After 40 hours our society requires extra pay to work more. (or you could be salaried and trade your extra time for guaranteed pay). We have collectively decided that working more than 40 hours per week is a sacrifice that requires renumeration over and beyond whatever wages were previous agreed. In other words, more than 40 hours of work comes at great personal cost to the employee and negative impacts the rest of their life outside of work. As a society we have clearly placed some sort of monetary value on people's labor that figures in social cost, and somehow everything still works just fine. We acknowledge that the market value of a person's labor is not relevant when it comes to overtime, and neither the employee nor the employer has the option to ignore this. There is no reason we can't value labor in general in the same way.

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I answered your question to the best of my ability. I'm a moral person in general, but I specifically posted 2 instances where I would be happy to make a mutually beneficial transaction that damaged society at large. Therefore I must be prohibited from making these mutually beneficial transactions by the society at large. Not really sure what else you want from me regarding this.

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I want your honest answer that at the end of the day, you don't think a third party is necessary to tell you if what you're paying your employee is a fair wage or not, and forcing you to pay more. Any more than you don't need a third party to tell you if what you're paying for apples at the grocery store is fair or not and forcing you to pay more for that. None of us want that, because it is nonsense.

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So you're just going to keep repeating yourself until I give the answer you want despite all my careful thought out and considered answers, and you're going to consider anything else I say on the subject dishonest. Not cool, good sir. I'm going to just ignore this line of the conversation from now on and focus on the parts of the discussion that seem to be in good faith.

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What if the wealth disparity is a feature and not a bug? It doesn't hurt me if my neighbor has a nicer car or if some goober in Silicon Valley has a hundred nicer cars. What if the only way we can manage to allow for all of the advantages of modern life is that some people accumulate crazy amounts of wealth while others get anything they need delivered to their doorstep in three days? What if amazing technology and efficient industry that increases the world's standard of living is only possible with a few hundred billionaires that manage to lead a country where you literally have to be completely insane to starve to death or not have a roof over your head.

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The more I study history, the more I think you are right about this. As depressing at that is. There are basically only 2 kinds of "stable" societies. Tribal nomadic groups that are more or less egalitarian like the plains Native Americans and Eurasian Steppe horse nomads are one, and I'm using stable very liberally in that case. The other is oligarchic "civilized" society with ridiculous imbalances of wealth and power. There seems to be almost no crossover and almost no middle ground. Every attempt to create imbalance in tribal societies ends poorly, and most tribal leaders would go to great lengths to give away wealth and shut down even the rumor that they were benefitting materially from their position. OTOH, every attempt to make a civilized society egalitarian has failed miserably. You end up with political oligarchy in Communism, financial oligarchy in Capitalism, and other situations lead to civil war and loss of any pretense of equality. It's sort of disheartening that financial systems run most smoothly for everyone when only a few people can gain immense wealth, and political systems run most smoothly for everyone when only a few people have power. The iron law of oligarchy always seems to win

You carefully never answered the actual question, you just created a different question and answered that.

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In case it's not clear, I ardently disagree with this. The closest analogues to full time employees are peasants, serfs, and slaves. Our jobs are our identities, and when our society functions well they are our only means of survival. Full time workers spent more time working than doing anything else in their life. Whether we place too much emphasis as a society on people's work and profession is a legit question, but we certain place a huge emphasis on it. You can't just reduce that to a supply/demand equation. The way we pay full time employees is the closest our society comes to putting a value on them as people.

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Man, I am not a peasant, serf, or slave. I can't believe you think this.

My job is not my identity. My identity is found in relationships. What I do have very little to do with it.

My job is only my sense of survival in that it is the way I pay for food. But I could easily do something else. Everyone has a means of survival, so everyone has a job.

You seem hellbent on accepting or even wholeheartedly approving of the premise that a person is his job, or is judged by it, or that it is an accurate representation of their value. I find that flabbergasting.

Why? Your church has said the same thing, as I posted above. I believe you're even Greek Orthodox, no?

Antiochian, but it didn't say that anyway.

Zobel said:

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Antiochian, but it didn't say that anyway.

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Come on, you've been arguing this entire thread that labor is nothing but a commodity (even using an apple as an example) and refers to corporations prioritizing profits over benefits and dialing to provide a just wage, which you argue doesn't exist.

Whether you agree with it or not, this can't be a "I've never heard of this like of thinking before".

It does not say that employees are peasants, serfs, slaves or that they're closely analogous to them. There is a key difference in that employees are free. I should say that free peasants were probably the closest thing to a modern day employee, but they had no legal or customary claims against their lord - much like I'm arguing the case to be for an employee.

It doesn't say our jobs are our identities.

It doesn't say that an employee's value is what he is paid.

Further, I did not say labor was a commodity. In fact the last time you posted this I said it is not, because commodities are fungible and labor is not. Other than answering you, I haven't used the word commodity once.

As for the things about employees and reducing people to wage slavery, I've said that's bad because it precludes free exchange. So... that would be what I'm arguing against. Withholding benefits sounds an awful lot like fraud or theft to me, as it implies the refusal to give something that is due. So... also something I'm arguing against. Managing worker's hours in a way to deny them the privilege of true employment I think is shifty, especially if it is done with intent, but absent the condition where the employee doesn't have agency to walk away, I don't think a 3rd party can say whether or not even that is providing mutual benefit.

It also says 'living wage' not 'just wage' which is an economic or political concept, not a theological one. If they mean that an employer is obligated to negotiate on behalf of their employees to keep pay increases consummate with the cost of living, I freely disagree. Any more than you should go into your grocery store and tell the manager you're going to pay him 1% more than last month. It is nonsensical.

But that whole paragraph (you seem to have missed) is "consequence of laws designed to secure the wealth of the wealthy". Those laws are probably market distorting and bad, just like minimum wage laws. Laws should not be designed to secure the wealth of the wealthy. What's the issue?