Comments on: ‘Living Wage’ is Socialistic Income Redistribution

By: CCSmith

CCSmith — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 22:22:26 +0000

Nietzsche stated that to be unwilling to help is better than to be constantly helpful for it causes people to help themselves and develop their own will. This is why the so called “Nanny State” is so hated. It does not help people become stronger developed human beings it simply gives power to government officials, and where power is given it is also stolen. Maybe the workers should organize create thier own company doing what they do, if as implied they are not the cause of the terrible inefficiency, and all pay themselves what they deserve. That is the American way, not hand holding.

By: Max Godwin

Max Godwin — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 09:40:22 +0000

All that is really being said here is that conservatives think poverty is right, poverty is normal, and poverty is good. If everyone in the world could pull themselves up by their so called “bootstraps” then who would be left to flip the burgers or clean the office toilets? This is not a matter of what people supposedly do or do not deserve, civilized individuals help each other, period, and realizing that none of us is an island is one the very first steps a child takes to maturity.

Perhaps the conservative utopia should be allowed to develop, and when all the house cleaners are dead because they can’t afford to eat, maybe then the remainder will begin to get an idea for themselves how much having their toilet cleaned for them was actually worth.

By: Nate Grignol

Nate Grignol — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:31:02 +0000

People need to take personal responsibility. People are depending more and more on the Gov. to take care of them. Like Jeshua Erickson who posted above about being able to feed her kids. Well if your job skills don’t merit enough pay to feed your kids it is YOUR responsibility to either acquire better skills or get a second job. No sobs stories, people work hard and pull themselves up from their bootstraps everyday. A McDonalds cashier should not be making a “living wage”. It doesn’t require much skill. A person is not supposed to be able to provide for a family on a minimum wage job. It is a minimum wage because it requires minimum skill!!

By: Jeshua Erickson

Jeshua Erickson — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 06:29:50 +0000

“Living wage” means that a mother of two who works 40 hours a week can afford to feed her children.

By: Jon Koniecki

Jon Koniecki — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 04:10:02 +0000

A related idea is in my old college economics text – wage levels are not subject to the law of supply and demand because you cannot buy and sell human beings. However, one’s skills are a very marketable commodity, subject to the law of supply and demand. At the risk of being attacked for “blaming the victim,” refusal to acknowledge this fact does a grave disservice to low-wage workers by obscuring how on their own initiative they might improve their economic condition. That people do not really need government to improve their lot brings into question the benevolence of advocates of “living wages.” So-called compassion, divorced from considerations of the effectiveness of what is being proposed, is really self-centered sentimentality.

By: G of Sedona

G of Sedona — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:33:10 +0000

With regard to the above comment, “It does not necessarily have to be the Marxist bogeyman…”, I submit, “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck,…” etc.

By: Anthony Gaddini

Anthony Gaddini — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:03:29 +0000

While this article brings up many good points, it overlooks the true notion of the “living-wage” and distorts its origins. It not Marxist. It comes from the work of Heinrich Pesch (1854-1926), a decidedly anti-communist German Jesuit Catholic priest. The living wage comes from the realization that in a agricultural setting (the economic setting of the vast majority of homo sapiens for the last several thousand years) a typical man can support himself through sustenance farming and a family economy can operate with a natural division of labor among husband, wife, and children. This is how the old order Amish live today! They are not suffering harsh poverty or starvation.
Given this fact, Fr. Pesch asserted that any employer that cannot provide a wage great enough for a worker to enjoy that same or better standard of living than a primitive farmer is wrongly inefficient. Indeed, such inefficient employers did exist and continue to exist. The concept of the “living-wage” is therefore useful for benchmarking employers and whole societies. It does not necessarily have to be the Marxist bogeyman suggested in this article. Indeed, efforts to establish a living wage through various government-led coercive measures may indeed reek of Marxism, but this does not mean that the living wage is itself Marxist, harmful, or useless.