The Onion on Wal-Mart
February 10, 2010, 3:46 pm
Posted by Matthew Boudway
“Wal-Mart Cuts Over 13,000 of What It Calls Jobs“:
Sources inside the company confirmed that roughly 1,200 people will be forced to leave what one might very charitably characterize as their careers in the neon-lit dungeon known as the membership recruitment office. In addition, another 10,000 worn husks of human beings will be relieved of what it literally induces pain to say are their job responsibilities handing out free in-store samples to customers…
Those so-called jobs are what the service-based economy of the US produces.
Yes, Jim, that’s right. So why is this funny? Or don’t you think it’s funny, and sad? Does it bother you that many of the people who have these low-wage service jobs used to have factory jobs? Does it matter that most of our working class, which used to make things, now mainly sells things made in other countries, and for non-union wages?
God bless, you, Matthew, for not yet being old and bitter enough to see the comic possibilities in tragedy. However, as life beats you down, it’s sometimes the only sanity defense mechanism left to you. (That and trolling YouTube for clips from Letterman’s stupid pet tricks episodes.)
I have several friends and family members who work at “Wil-marts,” as it is affectionately known here. For many months, it was the one place in economically strapped Michigan where you could get a so-called job.
However, now even this source of so-called employment has dried up.
I did see on the news that a good deal of the alternative energy job stimulus $$ is helping out Chinese workers who make those big fan blades for wind energy turbines. This is probably allowing American business owners to stay afloat and make a nice living for themselves. But it’s not trickling down to American workers who are passed over in favor of cheap overseas labor in a country that has swamped our country with any number of shoddy goods.
Hi, Matthew, in order:
Because good satire frequently isn’t particularly ha-ha funny.
More the latter than the former.
Yes – but my bigger concern are out-of-work factory workers and other non-degreed workers who can’t find any job, period. Istm that is the choice in today’s world for laid off workers: Wal-Mart or nuthin’.
Yes – but – sticky-downward union wages are some part – maybe a big part, maybe a very small part – of the explanation as to how those manufacturing jobs ended up going overseas.
I think you misunderstand me, Jean. I do see the comic possibilities in tragedy; that’s why I linked to this article. When I asked Jim why the article is funny, I didn’t mean that it isn’t. I meant: If there’s nothing wrong with the fact that this is the kind of job the U.S. economy produces (which I take to be Jim’s judgment), then there wouldn’t be a joke here. Maybe Jim doesn’t think this is funny; maybe he just finds it offensive. Many an economic conservative in a Brooks Brothers suit (no, not you, Jim) would at least pretend to find the article insulting to the hard-working people who have this sort of job: “Who the hell are these smartasses to say what counts as decent work? Not everyone can produce snark for a living.” But of course the media conservatives who say this sort of thing don’t go to Wal-Mart themselves and don’t spend much time with the no-nonsense working class they celebrate and exploit. It’s the idea of Wal-Mart they like, not the fact of it. One of the many reasons I get tired of hearing that Obama is a radical leftist is that he is as committed to neoliberal trade policies as his predecessor was. Despite evidence that the growth in GDP caused by NAFTA has not benefitted American workers, no one in the White House is urging that we revise or revoke it.
For the record: I think it’s very said and deeply frustrating that Wal-Mart jobs are about all the economy seems to churn out anymore.
Not sure how well-known it is nationally but Wal-Mart has been very controversial in Chicago for a number of years – until a few years ago there were no Wal-Marts in the city limits, because the labor unions, which wield a lot of clout in Chicago, didn’t want them in town, as Wal-Mart is notoriously anti-union. But the outcry from poor neighborhoods, where low-paying jobs and inexpensive goods are a marked improvement, was so great that finally Mayor Daley acquiesced.
I’d love to see some union figure out how to organize Wal-Mart workers. I don’t see much use these days for a Major League Baseball Players union, but I’d think Wal-Mart is exactly where union organizers should be spending their time.
Sorry, meant “very sad”
Jim,
I apologize. It was I who misunderstood you.
Doh!
It is not just low wage non-degree workers whose jobs have transferred to other countries. Most of us know, I presume, that when you have a question for your bank or a problem with your computer you are speaking to a person, in India, the Phillipines or some other country where they are thrilled to make a $100.00 a week replacing the American worker who was getting, before the layoff, $1000-$2000 a week for the same job. We are letting these businesses, who are thus able to make gargantuan profits as a result, off the hook. I am saddened at the number of talented people willing now to work for lower wages because of greed of large corporations.
Another atrocius practice which is increasing is that in the building industry large contracters are refusing to pay smaller contractors even after they have done the work which has been discounted anyway. Sue me they tell the smaller contractors who have less lawyers and resources at their disposal.
One suggestion was that we should choose smaller banks even tho they may be more inconvenient as to less locations, atms, etc. Sadly the best jobs, outside of outlandish Wall Street are in civil service at the state, city and federal levels.
The Tea Party is exploiting the anger among workers. But workers should know that they do not care about them; only as a means to regain power.
Now let me start by saying that I am no lover of Walmart (I haven’t shopped there in a couple of years) and fortunately for me I have been able to be on a no-China purchasing policy for the last couple of years (to my knowledge I have avoided most if not all Chinese made products except where completely necessarily like the new clutch cable for my 1997 golf). That being said I find most of my clothing and canned food comes from Thailand, Indonesia, and Pakistan which are only arguably marginally better.
However, as one poster stated in another thread, the shrill reply from commonweal has been sadly predictable. A few years ago in university when the Canadian dollar was higher than the American, the lineups to the states (for ‘shopping’ weekends) were ridiculous. And our self-proclaimed socialist geography prof had the audacity to (in the same breadth) boast of his weekend shopping in the US while criticizing the outsourcing of Canadian jobs.
Until human nature is changed, I think it is only hypocritical to expect corporations and the wealthy to behave objectively different from the rest of society. We as a society seem to look back at the 1950s factory workers as some transcendent ideal, like Chesterton looked back at the yeoman ideal or the romantics looked at the medieval ideal etc.
I’ve yet to encounter a viable economic alternative to our current system. And part of me thinks that people with grade 12 educations who grew accustomed to making substantially more than me (a teacher with 3 degrees making 40k) ought to consider themselves lucky they are not one of those people who is working for $100 a week in India. Perhaps a redefinition of poverty is needed and I say this as a 28 year old professional living in a two bedroom apartment (with a roomate) driving a vehicle with 370,000 kms on it.
I should add that in no way do I consider myself ‘poor’ but rather I am amongst the top 2% of the world. I actually ate meat for dinner today and as Lent approaches I am starting to think that I need to do something to help out my fellow man and remind myself of my privileged position on earth.
Oh, and the Onion is hilarious, sometimes biting, always provocative, and consistently hilarious.
“Until human nature is changed, I think it is only hypocritical to expect corporations and the wealthy to behave objectively different from the rest of society.”
Adam,
Shrill reply?? Talk about getting on the bandwagon. I guess Jesus was shrill when he fought for the downtrodden. So was John the Baptist when he commanded fairness. Also throw out all the social justice encyclicals, according to you.
Do your homework on WalMart:
“How Walmart is destroying America” …..Bill Quinn
“The United States of Walmart” ……John Dicker
Highlights:
Wal-Mart has also faced accusations involving poor working conditions of its employees. For example, a 2005 class action lawsuit in Missouri asserted approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people who were forced to work off-the-clock, were denied overtime pay, or were not allowed to take rest and lunch breaks.[48] In 2000, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had been forced to work off-the-clock.[48] The company has also faced similar lawsuits in other states, including Pennsylvania,[49] Oregon, and [50] Minnesota.[51] Class-action suits were also filed in 1995 on behalf of full-time Wal-Mart pharmacists whose base salaries and working hours were reduced as sales declined, resulting in the pharmacists being treated like hourly employees.[52]
Wal-Mart has also been accused of ethical problems. It is said that the Wal-Mart employees are gender discriminated when trying to be hired and treated in the work area. In Duke vs. Wal-Mart inc., which was a discrimination case on behalf of more than 1.5 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores across the United States. (9th circuit 2007) Dr. William Bliebly who evaluated Wal-Mart’s employment policies “against what social science research shows to be factors that create and sustain bias and those that minimize bias” (Bliebly) and he finished by saying, the men and women not being created equal in the workforce is what Wal-Mart is doing and what they should essentially not be doing.
On October 16, 2006, approximately 200 workers on the morning shift at a Wal-Mart Super Center in Hialeah Gardens, Florida walked out in protest against new store policies and rallied outside the store, shouting “We want justice” and criticizing the company’s recent policies as “inhuman.”[53] This marks the first time that Wal-Mart has faced a worker-led revolt of such scale, according to both employees and the company.[53] Reasons for the revolt included cutting full-time hours, a new attendance policy, and pay caps that the company imposed in August 2006, compelling workers to be available to work any shift (day, swing or night), and that shifts would be assigned by computers at corporate headquarters and not by local managers. Wal-Mart quickly held talks with the workers, addressing their concerns.[53] Wal-Mart asserts that its policy permits associates to air grievances without fear of retaliation.[54]
The 2004 report by U.S. representative George Miller alleged that in ten percent of Wal-Mart’s stores, nighttime employees were locked inside, holding them prisoner.[55] There has been some concern that Wal-Mart’s policy of locking its nighttime employees in the building has been implicated in a longer response time to dealing with various employee emergencies, or weather conditions such as hurricanes in Florida.[56] Wal-Mart said this policy was to protect the workers, and the store’s contents, in high-crime areas and acknowledges that some employees were inconvenienced in some instances for up to an hour as they had trouble locating a manager with the key. However, fire officials confirm that at no time were fire exits locked or employees blocked from escape. Wal-Mart has advised all stores to ensure the door keys are available on site at all times.[56] The issue has become less of a problem with the increase in the number of twenty-four hour stores.
of course there’s ethics isues in economics.
I see hans Kung and his group are tring to tackle the global side of the issue and didn’t i recently read about a US conference on ethics and economics?
Of course those whom Mr. Stiglitz talks abou tas cheerleaders for a free market may not appreciate that.
Adam,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. No one can deny that in rich countries like the U.S. and Canada, even the poor are, by any material measurement, better off than most people in very poor countries — that is, less likely to go hungry, more likely to receive basic medical care, etc. But this thread isn’t about absolute measures of poverty, and it isn’t only about compensation; it’s also about the quality of work and one’s well-being relative to other members of one’s own society, past and present. Judged over time and in terms of material inequality, we’re not doing so well. The proposition that we couldn’t possibly do better until human nature itself changes sounds like ideological boilerplate to me. As John Locke, the father of free-market theory, acknowledged, economic groundrules are one of things that determine what parts of our nature get expressed and developed. Our own economic groundrules encourage companies to “outsource” as much skilled labor as possible. They encourage not only greed, as Locke foresaw, but social recklessness, which he didn’t (and probably counldn’t have). The problem with most “blue-collar” jobs in the U.S. is not only that they don’t pay as well as many blue-collar jobs did just a generation ago; it’s also that they’re so unsatisfying and insecure. Hence the Onion headline. As for your assertion that you’ve yet to encounter a viable economic alternative to our own, I guess I have two answers. The first: Have you ever been to Germany, or to France? Do you not consider their systems (broadly, social democratic) viable? Or do you not consider them alternative because they have much in common with ours? In which case, what, besides Soviet Communism, would count as an alternative system in your view? And that brings me to my second answer: politics is the art of the possible, and the range of the possible usually exceeds our experience. So the choice is not only between whatever we have now, and whatever we or someone else used to have.
“It is not just low wage non-degree workers whose jobs have transferred to other countries. Most of us know, I presume, that when you have a question for your bank or a problem with your computer you are speaking to a person, in India, the Phillipines or some other country where they are thrilled to make a $100.00 a week replacing the American worker who was getting, before the layoff, $1000-$2000 a week for the same job. We are letting these businesses, who are thus able to make gargantuan profits as a result, off the hook. I am saddened at the number of talented people willing now to work for lower wages because of greed of large corporations. ”
My employer has moved jobs offshore, and has also laid off many workers in the US. But if it hadn’t moved those jobs offshore, many, many more would have been laid off in the US. Why? Because our competitors are offshore (and some are not American firms) and reap the benefits of lower wages. Our business is very price-sensitive, and if our cost model is substantially higher than our competitors’, our business fails and we’re all out of work. For us, it’s compete or die. That’s the logic of the global marketplace. It sucks for us, although it’s great for Asian workers whose standards of living have risen dramatically. Many millions have been lifted out of poverty. They’re God’s children, too, and have a right to things like homes, food and medical care.
Jim – can’t disagree with your points or the excellent response from Matthew.
But, the current business model of US Corporations that seems to be in vogue is really self-destructive e.g. company must move jobs off-shore in order to compete?
Experience and results indicate that typical corporate moves over the last 20 years e.g. right sizing, downsizing, off shore transitiions, etc. only weaken if not destroy the core business.
See recent article in Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/233131
All of this is another indication of how most liberals are bitter, angry people, incapable of counting their blessings.
In addition, low-income folks love Walmart for its low prices, brightly-lit aisles, and largely very friendly clerks. Get over it.
just want to say the person who seems angry and bitter here is Bob S.
Before I begin, I would like to add that I agree with Bob that ethics needs to be involved in economics. In fact I teach the subjects (business ethics and economics) at the highschool level. But much like in economics where we talk of the supply and demand side, I think those categories can be translated over to ethics and I have made a conscious effort to be an ethical consumer and I don’t put all the onus on the corporations.
I also fear legislating ‘ethics’ in any too broad a sense. The above remarks concerning Walmart’s behaviour do not require an extension of the governmental interference in business but rather simply the enforcement of already existing legislation. You will not find a conservative economist who doesn’t believe that governments have the right (and responsibility) to create the framework in which businesses can operate, but don’t come crying when the government unduly reduce the ability of businesses to expand the economy and improve the material lives of the citizens.
Thank you Matthew for the reply. I have been to France (I worked there for a year) and Germany (I studied there for a semester). You will be sad to hear that they are far from the utopias you might imagine. France has Carrefour, their version of Walmart. Carrefour has essentially killed the business districts and France has an unenviable consistent unemployment rate of 10% (reaching 20% amongst youth). Having lived in Chicago, France and Germany/Austria (along with Taiwan and South Africa) I can say that not one of these nations is offering any substantially different economic alternative to liberal economic policy. Some are simply further along the globalization trend than others.
But that raises another point, one about nationalism. I see no reason to restrict the rights of workers (to work, gainful employement, safety etc) to the modern nation-state. Now it is true that because of purchasing price parity, that $100 in the US is not worth $100 in Cambodia, why should a corporation be forced to pay one unskilled worker ten or a hundred times more when in all honesty, the infusion of those wages would better benefit the global economic community. Or are corporations bound by narrow nation-state interests?
And Bill, I have a great love of the social encyclicals but I find it ironic that you of all people should use them as a hammer. Especially considering the recent thread on papolotry. I faithfully file Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Ano and Centesimo Ano between Humani Vitae, Apostolicae Curae and Dominus Iesus. They are an important voice in the discussion but not the final word I think we can both agree.
Or are corporations bound by narrow nation-state interests?
Adam,
This is an interesting question. If employers are obliged to pay a just wage or a living wage, as opposed to paying workers wages determined by a competitive market, may they seek those workers out anywhere in the world? Does a corporation in the United States have any obligation to the United States? If I have a company in City A, which has high unemployment, can I outsource some company tasks to China or India, where I can get them taken care of more cheaply, if my purpose is purely to make more money for the company? My understanding is that CST sees companies primarily for the benefit of society, with profits being important but secondary.
“Does a corporation in the United States have any obligation to the United States?”
David, just want to mention that this question is of more than purely hypothetical interest, as the threat has been more or less explicitly made that, should the US government or the European Union impose tougher regulations on capital markets in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown, capital will simply flee to (literally) less taxing havens overseas.
“Does a corporation in the United States have any obligation to the United States? ”
One common ethical framework is that a company has obligations to at least five primary stakeholders:
* Its owners/stockholders
* Its customers
* Its employees
* Its suppliers/vendors
* its local community/(ies)
It gets complicated, as any or all of these could be in the US, abroad, or both.
“And Bill, I have a great love of the social encyclicals but I find it ironic that you of all people should use them as a hammer. Especially considering the recent thread on papolotry.”
Adam,
I am being fair in that I will give attention to the popes when they follow the gospel. Unfortunately, the papacy has been mostly a dominating body, even today when Benedict chooses to talk to peole on a lofty throne or dais always cosncious of his status. Paul corrected Peter and all of us should when Peter strays. As we shoulc build up and correct each other.
I think Constantine is the one to blame when it comes to Wal-Mart! It all goes back to him with EVERYTHING! (and Cardinal Law sometimes too)
One common ethical framework is that a company has obligations to at least five primary stakeholders:
Jim,
Thanks, but I don’t think that is drawn from Catholic Social Teachings. I want to know how things like the concept of a living wage are figured into the kinds of things that Adam teaches. If companies paid a living wage, it seems to me we would not have the working poor. A living wage is a wage sufficient for a person to support himself and his family.
Are there any major businesses in the United States that have a policy of paying each employee a living wage? I know that there are some companies that try very hard to do good things for their employees, but I assume by and large wages are set in the United States by the market. And for companies that send jobs overseas, are companies getting the cheapest labor they can, or are they genuinely trying to pay foreign workers a living wage? I believe it is stated somewhere in CST that just because a worker agrees to work for a certain sum, that does not mean it is a living wage.
Why are the popes always criticizing capitalism? I don’t think they mean dog-eat-dog, ruthless capitalism. I think they mean things like letting the market set wages, maximizing profits, and so on.
Adam – well said and agree with your lived experience. Not sure which “Bill” you are addressing.
In terms of social encyclicals and Popes, I actually pay more attention to the gospel imperatives and the social & pastoral letters, memos, action plans that come from specific bishops conferences…….nuclear war; poverty; death penalty…….I do not think that these issues are the same as HV’s statements. It is more nuanced but that is another subject.
You are correct – it is well within government power and current law to apply the common good to the free market and corporate structure. Unfortunately, that takes political will which we have been and are in short supply.
I live and work in a “right to work” state (TX) and was raised without believing that unions contributed much to the common good (image would be more like a leach or vulture). Unfortunately, over the last 30 years, the US has seen a decrease in the middle class; a huge increase in the top 2% who have multiple ways to suck from government but not pay their way. In fact, unions may be the only way to change the current free market structure again and focus on the American worker, his/her family, and the middle class. I actually believe those professors who think that our children will not enjoy the same standard of living that we have become accustomed to.
Examples – in the 60′s and 70′s, the top 2% had a tax rate of 60% or more – it is a fraction of that now. Social Security/Medicare can not continue at its current pace because the money and the workers are not there. CEO pay has moved from 30 or 40X larger than the average worker’s wate to 500 or 600 X the average worker’s wage. The impact of stakeholders; stock prices, etc. in which 90% of the wealth of the US is controlled by less than 10% oif its population.
In terms of this blog’s subject, Wal-Mart, what do you say about 20 years of abusing the small town and now urban workers so that three of the Waltons are in the top five most wealthy billionaires? Yes, they may have done this legally but only by taking advantage and in some cases breaking the wage, safety, and employment laws of various states, US laws, etc.
David – I don’t know of any companies that model their compensation plans on Catholic social teaching.
In the US economy, the basic philosophy is that a competitive labor market will result in outcomes that are consistent with the notion of a living wage.
Frequently it works.
Bill – it is difficult to resist the call for solutions like Buy American (in cases where foreign-produced goods and serviecs are driving US workers out of job), or the traditional impositions of tariffs on imports.
The best way to thwart Wal-Mart is to have Target come to town.
A cryptic comment that does not claim to solve anything, but only to raise an often overlooked consideration. As a matter of history, Western imperialism and capitalism have contributed substantially to the impoverishment of large parts of the globe. These same forces have greatly enriched the West. Had this process not taken place, it is not unlikely that there would be fewer poor places to which Western corporations could “outsource” jobs. As beneficiaries of this exploitation, we in the West now have to face up to the problem that past exploitation now poses problems for us at home. We Westerners who are well-off, the beneficiaries of this history, have some obligation to help our own poor as well as to support efforts to bring more prosperity to less developed nations. Unfortunately, this may require that we who are well-off take an economic hit, in the form of taxes, to reconstitute the social safety net of our fellow citizens who are now left in the lurch.
These are matters of justice. Economic realities cannot be denied, but they are not self-justifying. Bill DeHaas is right that we as Christians ought to promote the political will necessary to give these justice considerations their due weight.
“In addition, low-income folks love Walmart for its low prices, brightly-lit aisles, and largely very friendly clerks. Get over it.”
And let’s not forget the cheaply and poorly made crap that ensures frequent return trips to replace what falls apart. How about them vittles: high in sugar and fat, low on nutritional value.
Hey, but it’s cheap, well lighted and staffed by largely very friendly clerks —- who also are one step above poverty level with the wages they are paid and, unless the work the requisite number of hours, no benefits.
Hey, America: you’re lookin’ GOOD!!!
I don’t like Walmart’s business model, the way it treats its employees, and I don’t find the place particularly inviting.
I don’t think it needs to be regulated. I think more people should stop shopping there. So I don’t. I can usually beat Wal-mart prices by buying things used on eBay or Amazon.
You know, I never really got the whole just wage/living wage thing. Do workers owe employers a just and living profit? After all, it’s the employers who are the catalyst.
Thank God we have a free market to resolve these imponderables.
So lets look at the beginnings. John Rockefeller plundered and stole to build his oil business. So his sons say well it was not right but we are more humanitarian as a family. Yes, but all the money the father plundered to get is the foundation for future business. It is elementary in business that you need money to make money.
Henry Ford hired thugs to control his workers and tame his unions. Money to make money.
It is true that Microsoft, Google and others were the products of genius and hard work rather than plunder. Which makes this a great country.
But there is plenty of expolitation which has nothing to do with market conditions. Greed.
Sorry, Mark, but your statement is the core of the problem. In fact, it is merely a variation of Marxism – we folks are merely part of the whole scheme of production – it is the state not not the employers.
Your argument like communism, fascism, and most other isms has been proven to be utter failures.
Capitalism works only if it is balanced by respect for human dignity, rights of the workers, etc. Many of the most successful companies live by the belief that their employees are the key assests – not shareholders, not stock owners, not the board of directors, etc.
The best analysis of this system between capitalism, free market, employers, employees, government, and common good was published in 1909 at the height of the T. Roosevelt revolt against big business and the implementation of the initial methods to limit capitalism and set ground rules to support the common good – by Herbert Croly, “The Promise of American Life.” The questions is asks, answers, and analyzes are the same we face today. He posits that American Life has three goals – improving popular economic conditions; guaranteed by democratic political institutions, and resulting in moral and social amelioration.” All three must remain in place and balanced or there can not be a good result – for him, these goals are at heart deeply “conservative” in the classical sense of the word. For him, American Life means making a better future through reasoned choices and decisions – not to sit idly by and let nature takes its course – a type of philosophy of drift that will inevitably lead to the future. Your statements above are examples of Croly’s “philosophy of drift” – allowing the middle class to decrease; allowing the top 2% to own 70% or more of US wealth – that is no future; it is a philosophy of drift.
Thank you, Mr. Dauenhauer – your words concisely capture the dilemma we face today and I do not see reasoned catholic leaders doing anything to focus on these issues which are at heart pro-life issues.
A
low-income folks love Walmart for its low prices, brightly-lit aisles, and largely very friendly clerks.
At less than $12,000 a year, I guess I qualify as low-income, but I’ve never been to a Wal-Mart … I try not to buy stuff from China.
I don’t know anything about economics but capitalism seems to me like a Darwinian survival of the fittest/luckiest system that is at total odds with Christian teaching.
Bill–
I espouse the free market and you say that’s just a variation of Marxism? Dang, that’s one heckuva variation. I’m sure Karl would be rolling over in his warm and toasty grave if he heard that one.
You stump for human dignity? Count me in. Let’s just remember that employers are human too. I think many on this blog tend to forget that. Workers’ rights? Sure thing. Let’s just balance them against employers’ rights.
You equate capitalism with sitting idly by and drifting? “Drift” is what happened to the USSR and is currently happening in Cuba. If you’re content to drift in a capitalist society, you drift down. Capitalism is animated by creative destruction. Catch my drift?
David, I too am interested in how to determine a “living wage” and when I returned home to look at the big three encyclicals (Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Ano and Centesimus annus) I noticed that all three, when talking of living wage refer to “wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner [and later addition: and family].”
I cannot help but feel that the economic environment that these writings refer to are not discussing the types of employment offered by Walmart (or McDonald etc). To be brutally honest, those jobs should be transitory and if a person only can attain to that level through their entire working career, than that person should accept the fact that they will likely never enjoy many of the luxuries our society has to offer (I emphasize “luxuries”). I personally know a good number of Dinka people (from Southern Sudan) who are more than overjoyed to work for $8-10 an hour here in Canada and in Chicago and still manage to save for college (with much government assistance) and send money back to their families in Uganda and Kenya who were displaced in the 1980s. They seem to consider minimum wage a fair and just wage to maintain a comfortable level of living for the meantime. Though I also see many motivated to further themselves through education because they are not satisfied with the wage/hours/working conditions etc.
It should be noted that a person in Canada working for minimum wage receives roughly $17,000 a year, pays almost zero income tax and is the recipient of GST credits (a couple thousand a year), low-income housing, grants for education, subsidized bus fare, subsidized health premiums and in some cases subsidized electricity.
Therefore, though I hesitate to call what Walmart offers “careers” I think as a job goes, it is more than reasonable in our economic situation. Many months Walmart employees make more than my brother who is a well trained paramedic becuase in BC the vast majority of paramedic operate on an on-call basis and are only paid when called out.
Raising minimum wage would only do two things: increase unemployment and increase inflation. The increased wages would have little effect on the overall standard of living for those at the lowest socio-economic rungs.
And Bill DeHaas, we can complain all we want about Walmart “abusing” the workers, consumers and communities, but it should be noted that “you can’t rape the willing.” Walmart only has power over people who choose to shop there (individually and as a community).
As to Mark Proskas comments which garnered less than enthusiastic responses:
“72. In determining the amount of the wage, the condition of a business and of the one carrying it on must also be taken into account; for it would be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent calamity to the workers.” (Q.A.)
Adam,
Thanks for the detailed response.
It seems to me that if a working person needs all the subsidies you mention to get by, he or she is not being paid a living wage. Also, I presume the Church still believes the ideal is a father who works and a mother who stays at home and takes care of children. The fact that so many women (who are mothers) feel the need to work indicates to me that when wages are determined by the market, it often leaves large numbers of people falling far short of making a living wage.
For a single-parent family, should the cost of child care also be counted as part of a living wage? More generally, in determining the amount of the wage, should the condition of the employee also be taken into account to figure out what is a living wage?
I appreciate the nuance of taking into account the condition of a business, but taking into account the condition of the employee seems just as important.
Speaking of humorous satire, check out Deal Hudson’s latest, “Is It Time For A Catholic Tea Party?” http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7652&Itemid=48
Deal knocks ‘em dead with complaints about how the ‘liberal’ USCCB has issued letters of questionable orthodoxy like the 1983 pastoral letter on war and peace which included offensive lines like: “Under no circumstances may nuclear weapons or other instruments of mass slaughter be used for the purpose of destroying population centers or other predominantly civilian targets.”
Watch out, Onion!
I appreciate the nuance of taking into account the condition of a business, but taking into account the condition of the employee seems just as important.
Claire,
That is how I understand the Catholic position. And as I read this, from the Catechism, it means two employees doing exactly the same work might be paid differently based on their needs. A man with no children, for example, could be paid less than a man with a large family.
It would seem to me impossible to reconcile this with the idea that the free market solves the problem of setting wages. The market can’t possibly take into account the needs of each worker.
Applying this method of determining wages would, it seems to me, open an employer to endless lawsuits.
Then the kind of subsidies that Adam was talking about can make the difference to take the same wage, a living wage for, say, a single adult with no special needs, and adds subsidies to account for the various needs of, say, a man or woman with a large family.
Pax Christi shows how to work against corporate greed. http://www.paxchristiusa.org/news_Events_more.asp?id=1967
“Do workers owe employers a just and living profit? After all, it’s the employers who are the catalyst.”
If you’ve lived in the “real world” as a worker, I think this is driven home to you fairly frequently. I have never had a boss in the private sector who did not emphasize that my job was contingent on the organization making money, often from products I was helping create. I don’t think was an unfair expectation,
Some employers, however, do not provide a lot of incentive the other way. I got a national award for a training program I developed (which the CEO of the nonprofit I worked for accepted at a big dinner at the Arizona Biltmore and displayed in his office, though he did put a letter of commendation in my file).
When sales hit $1 million (which made a big commission for the sales staff) I asked for a bonus and was told that only Vice Presidents were eligible for bonuses (which means my VP got a bonus for making her department look good), but that I could ask for a raise at my next performance review.
At my next review, I was offered a five percent raise and a “promotion” that would have paid me a larger income but required extensive travel (I was seven months pregnant). I declined the promotion, but outlined my contributions to the company and asked for a bonus instead. That was declined and, after the baby was born, I walked.
I don’t regret the decision. But I wish I’d taken that damn award out of his office and melted it down.
Certainly, many employers see enlightened self-interest in treating productive employees better, but I suspect that many more are farming out jobs like mine as consultantships. I am often paid quite well for these types of gigs. The problem is that it looks like a lot of $$, but when you tote up the benefits you have to replace, you’re working for a pittance. Plus, consultancy is a job for the young who do not have sick elderly parents, a teenager, and a variety of other obligations.
I have nothing against capitalism. I just don’t like the yahoos who are running it.
Regarding the transitory nature of Wal-mart jobs: it can be argued that Wal-Mart is a special case and should be held to an even higher standard than most other employers, because their entire business model, during their years of rapid growth, was predicated on setting up superstores in small towns in rural areas served only by local merchants, underpricing those local merchants, driving them out of business, and thereby enjoying a virtual monopoly on consumer goods in that area.
Catholic social teaching is pretty clear that employers have a social responsibility to their workers. Employment is more than a financial arrangement; it is a social contract. In return for the employee’s services and time – a huge chunk of his life – the employer owes the employee those things that allow him to live according to standards of human dignity: to feed himself and his family, give them a place to live, get decent medical care for himself and his family, educate his children, and so on.
This might be a good time to add that the Catholic Church as an employer is not exempt from these requirements, either, but the way they pay many of their employees, mostly women, you’d think so.
“The market can’t possibly take into account the needs of each worker. ”
It can, actually. How? The “market” can be understood as the sum of thousands or millions of individual transactions. The worker herself presumably understands her needs, and in a free and well-functioning labor market can switch to a job that better suits her situation. She can also gain new skills that make her services more desirable in the marketplace.
“Catholic social teaching is pretty clear that employers have a social responsibility to their workers.”
Sam Walton, Walmart founder, was a Presbyterian.
It can, actually. How? The “market” can be understood as the sum of thousands or millions of individual transactions.
Jim,
The market, at the moment, has put at least 10% if the workforce out of jobs. Certainly you don’t believe the market guarantees everyone a just wage, do you? What about the working poor? Is it their fault?
Wikipedia (what would we do without it) tells us:
I can see how people could maintain that Catholic Social Teaching is talking about ideals that it it very difficult, if not impossible, to attain. But I simply can’t understand how anyone can claim the free market does what CST says government and business ought to do.
“The market, at the moment, has put at least 10% if the workforce out of jobs. Certainly you don’t believe the market guarantees everyone a just wage, do you? What about the working poor? Is it their fault? ”
No, neither the marketplace nor any other social structure I know of guarantees anyone a just wage. The marketplace is a mechanism that frequently achieves (in developed countries) a just wage, or at least (in developing countries) a less unjust wage.
There is no other social mechanism that we have discerned or invented so far with outcomes as good, and with as few bad outcomes. It’s the least bad way we know to raise standards of living.
Btw, the government is part of the labor marketplace – in fact, government agencies are huge employers. Government isn’t an alternative solution to the labor market – the government is an active participant in the labor market. Government also softens the rough edges of the labor market with things like public aid, unemployment insurance, and retirement benefits. That’s the case in every developed country.
“I can see how people could maintain that Catholic Social Teaching is talking about ideals that it it very difficult, if not impossible, to attain. But I simply can’t understand how anyone can claim the free market does what CST says government and business ought to do.”
Traditional Catholic social teaching, as we’ve been discussing it here. seems to take a “micro” point of view: how an individual employer like the local Wal-Mart should treat an individual employee or a group of employees. There is still a lot of validity to what the church has been teaching about that.
But the enormous problems like unemployment that you illustrated with the Wikipedia quote aren’t micro problems, they’re macro. They’re symptomatic of huge socioeconomic dislocations that are rocking the world. When the world economy crashes because hedge fund managers speculated on real estate securities, and a guy billing $100/hour in Cleveland loses his contract to a guy in Bangalore billing $35/hour, Catholic social teaching, as far as I know, hasn’t caught up with issues on that scale. Neither are national governments capable of managing problems that are multinational in scope. Hence Pope Benedict’s call for multinational cooperation.
Talk about the need to maintain a sense of humor; I sometimes (sometimes) get a kick out of the hand wringing about programming and software development jobs going to India.
When the blue collar guys who made appliances and televisions here in the USA were losing their middle class jobs, they were told to re-educate themselves and get with the globalization program.
Now that some $100K programming jobs are heading to Bangalore, some worry that we ought to (collectively) do something.
And so the tax-payer who ten years ago was 45 years old and told after working for Maytag for twenty years that they were moving the factory to Mexico, the man who then lost his job and had to start over at a lower wage (or maybe same wages but no benefits), is now hearing some Americans preparing to ask him to worry about a software engineer who might lose his job to an Indian programmer.
And nobody likes poor old WalMart.
Wow – it is important to look on the bright side and to keep smiling!
Adam,
You imagine that I imagine what Europe is like. In fact, I lived there too (in France, where I worked for two years; in England, where I was a student for one). I don’t “imagine” that France is utopian, and I did not find it utopian (why return from Utopia?); but I did notice that its economy was different from, and in some ways better than, ours.
You say it really isn’t different but then compare France’s unemployment figures unfavorably with ours. One might have thought that this is not the best moment to mention unemployment in defense of American capitalism, but in any case such comparisons are only relevant because we agree that France’s economic model is different in important respects from the American model (if not so different as many Americans suppose).
It’s true that before the current recession, the unemployment rate of France — and most of Europe — was higher than that of the United States, and this is a fact of some importance. But it is not all-important; that is, it does not tell us all we need to know about the strength and health of their economy relative to ours, or what it’s actually like to be a worker in either country. Those who do have jobs in France are much less likely to lose them, and much more likely to have full benefits. Those who don’t have jobs in France get more help from the government than unemployed Americans do, including guaranteed access to health care. France’s per-capita GDP is lower, but its standard of living is higher according to a wide range of standard indicators (for example, health and education), as well as other indicators that are more disputed but no less important (for example, time left for leisure). Yes, they have their Carrefour, as we have our Wal-Mart, but their centres-villes are still full of small family-owned specialty businesses of a kind you won’t see anywhere in the U.S. outside of a few major cities. (In America, only those who work near a Wall Street now have the luxury of an old-fashioned Main Street).
You preach the virtues of the American system by pointing to immigrants making minimum wage at fast-food joints in Canada, and then acknowledge that they enjoy many state-sponsored benefits, not all of which are available to people who do the same kind of work in the U.S. Of course it’s true that the government doesn’t need to require that companies pay their workers a living wage if the government is willing to absorb so much of their cost of living. But either way, we are talking about government intervention. The government can force businesses to do right by their employees, or it can tax businesses heavily and subsidize underpaid employees. There are good arguments for either approach, but the principle for both is the same: market forces are not sufficient by themselves.
Jim Pauwels points out that the government is part of the labor marketplace. Indeed it is. But if it is a democratic government concerned with promoting the common good, then rather than being constrained by market forces, it will constrain them — by regulating them and by exempting certain domains in which market logic isn’t appropriate (for example, health care and education).
“The market can’t possibly take into account the needs of each worker. ”
On the contrary. The market is extremely efficient at taking care of the needs of each worker. It’s just that we forget that different workers might have different needs.
This is from the Wall Street Journal:
“According to a study from Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Studies, unemployment for those in the top income decile–individuals earning more than $150,000 a year–was 3% in the fourth quarter of 2009. That compares with unemployment of 31% for the bottom 10% of income, and unemployment of 9% for the middle decile.
The differing rates of underemployment–including those working part-time for economic reasons–are also notable. Underemployment for the top 10% was 1.6%, while the bottom was 21%.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/02/12/high-unemployment-not-for-the-affluent/
The workers at the bottom NEED the stimulus of being pushed out of work and, often, onto the street in order to give them incentives to work harder to get to the top. On the other hand, the people at the top have already shown that they deserve to control most of the incentives because this is why they are at the top.
But there’s more:
“Yet the numbers may suggest an emerging theme in our economy: Richistan is recovering while the rest of the country isn’t. As such, the data raise questions about the theory behind what is informally known as “trickle down” economics, since full employment at the top doesn’t seem to be translating into more jobs below.”
“Richistan” is one of those snarky words that the quasi-socialist Wall Street Journal uses to refer to the top ten percent who own most of the economy. If one looks at this with a clearer head, the problem really lies with regulation, which is impeding the trickle down effect. After all, if the Catholic Church has existed for 2,000 years and has still not managed to bring the entire population of the earth into the Kingdom, how much can we expect from the far more efficient capitalist economy (there are, after all, more capitalists than Catholics) that’s only been around for a mere 200 years. It looks at least like the economy is working for the people that matter.
What puzzles me about these discussions is that whenever a walmart opens they have lines of people wanting jobs there, and the people I know who have jobs there over the years generally liked working for the company,
This doesn’t mean they are perfect, but it is some indication that it’s probably better than the available alternatives. So why pick on Walmart?
Do ask what the working conditions are for the dishwasher at your favorite coffe shop? It’s just easier to wax indignant about a big successful company.
This all reminds me of the small town where I went to law school. The town was very toney and afluent – filled with university types. Yet it was surrounded by a very middle class to lower class area of mixed agriculture and dying manufacturing. The town fathers made sure any big discount outfits were as far from town as possible – using some of the same, we care about workers arguments. Anyway, one of the most popular restaurants in town was this health food place – very crunchy and very “in.” I had two classmates who worked there, and both only lasted a few months because the place was run like a salt mine and the staff treated like slaves – often being cheated out of pay. I don’t think the open-minded professors and grad students who went there knew this, but more to the point, I doubt they cared.
It just seems to me that so much of this is resentment about success than it is about social justice. Moreover, a lot of it is just plain bunk. I have read some of the comments above about Walmart’s operations, and it is pretty clear that most of you haven’t set foot in one – at least recently. On the “unhealthy” food – they sell what every other grocery store sells – the healthy and the unhealthy. And as to shoddy goods – I’ll grant you that my $4 t-shirt that I work out in might not last as long as a $40 Under Armour shirt, but not ten times less. Besides, the sell the underarmour shirts too. If all they sold was garbage, they couldn’t have been as successful as they have been. Look at all the discount stores that have gone out of business or scaled back.
Other things I have noticed about Walmart is that they seem to employ a lot of people who other companies won’t touch, like the mentally or physically handicapped and elderly.
The next time you buy your fair trade coffee, you might want to ask who’s watching their company and whether they could stand up to the kind of critical scruting that Walmart does.
and Bill M -
Interesting approach – I’m all for the Church’s teachings so long as it aligns with my reading of the Gospel – neat trick that
Matthew, I wrote: “I can say that not one of these nations [Taiwan, France, Germany] is offering any substantially different economic alternative to liberal economic policy. Some are simply further along the globalization trend than others.”
You might think that Europe is offering a substantially different economic model but I consider the differences between the United States and Europe (with Canada in between) infinitively small compared to the complete rewiring of the economy some people espousing Catholic Social Teaching and ‘The living Wage’ would require in order to make the system completely ‘just’. As I noted, globalization (which includes multi-national corporations building empires) is a trend and the trend is spreading. It is erroneous to think that because a few areas are further behind the trend they are offering a substantially different economic model.
It should also be noted that the ‘Centre Villes’ of France and Germany do have small shops but hardly thriving shops. The ‘Centre Villes’ in old Europe are historical centers with Churches and public squares and stone buildings centuries old. They feed mainly off of tourism and the Carrefours are outside of town (hence the name) where the suburbs shop. Excursions to the historical centers of town ,even for locals, are usually for cultural experiences like going to a cafe or a boulangerie artisanale. If France appears to be behind the globalization trend, than it is by architectural necessity and a consumer culture that values a certain facon de vivre. Yet their culture (as all cultures) is changing.
Now I don’t know if globalization is a ‘net good thing’ or ‘net bad thing’ but I do know that all empires fall, including Walmart. There have been very few instances in history where the dismantling of an empire is not accompanied by great social suffering, and this is especially true when the empire is not replaced with anything and a power vacuum ensues. So to quote Chesterton (who’s own distributionism is an interesting though unworkable theory) we shouldn’t go tearing down fences until we know why they are there, and if they will need to be replaced.
Jim noted the Church frequently fails to live up to their own standards. A Walmart in Quebec attempted to unionize and Walmart simply closed the doors. In fact, a Catholic high school in Vancouver did the same thing and the Archdiocese responded in the same way. I work at a Catholic high school for roughly 80% of my unionized counterparts in the public sphere. A choice I made and would make again in a flash. Though Rerum Novarum speaks of the right to unionize, it also speaks of a much more important bargaining method, and that is to replace the confrontational approach with mutual agreement and dialogue.
and Bill M -
Interesting approach – I’m all for the Church’s teachings so long as it aligns with my reading of the Gospel – neat trick that
Sean,
What are you smoking? I wrote that Capitalism has many good points. It is when I plunder and make a lot of money and then decide to play fair is the problem. Money is a distinct advantage as many, many born rich will tell you. This is why the estate tax is a very good idea.
“So why pick on Walmart?”
Again, I’m not advocating we legislate Walmart out of business. But, in my view, shopping at Walmart is not in my best interests or those of my community.
Walmart buys goods from overseas where employees may work in unregulated and dangerous conditions. Walmart undercuts Mom and Pop businesses and it stifles small enterprise. It draws business away from city centers. And the stores are just damn ugly. You can say this about many–perhaps most–other national chains.
Am I “picking” on Walmart or being unAmerican for not shopping there? I hardly think so.
“Money is a distinct advantage”
Bill–I think is where we first parted ways on the path, and it has made all the difference.
Then there is the inescapable words of Jesus from today’s gospel.
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”
Jean
No one is saying it is “unAmerican” – you have a right to shop where you want of course. I will say, that for most communities, Walmart’s success would indicate they do think it is in their best interests.
But is it right to assume the mom and pop store is treating its employees any better anyway? My own experience in my younger days was that I was treated better and paid better working for a big chain than say a small family owned restaurant.
Besides, what’s done more to hurt those small businesses? Walmart being successful by providing middle and low income people what they want or the state by taxing and regulating the bejeezus out of them?
One could make the argument that Sam Walton has elevated more people out of poverty than almost any individual in the last 50 years.
Bill–
It ssems you are arguing against yourself when I read your 3:41 pm post and your 10:53 post? Or do you have an evil twin?
Sean, I have clearly stated (at least twice) that I’m not in favor of legislating against Walmarts and other chains.
But in my view, Walmart provides low and middle-income people with cheap goods–and keeps them in low and middle-income brackets by trading largely with overseas firms which do not provide jobs here at home. As a low-income person myself, I find better quality items and prices shopping at second-hand stores locally, or hitting Mom-andPop’s for sales.
In the several years, our village lost its hardware store to Home Depot, its drug store to Rite Aid, its rental center to a larger chain, its dime store to Dollar General, and a small music store to chains that sell music supplies–all of these located in another town.
When local business tanks, that means less tax revenue for schools, libraries and emergency services (which increases the tax burden on residential and remaining businesses). It means the locals have to drive 10-25 miles to work (which often eats up whatever pay differential they get at the big chains).
I’m repeating myself here, I realize, which is a sure sign to shut up. But I like to think that citizens think about the consequences of where they trade and try to keep their community’s (and their own) interests at heart. You and I may come to different conclusions about how to serve those interestes, but I’m sure you agree with my general point.
“Sam Walton – Patron Saint of the Poor”. That has a very nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
A problem with Catholic social theory is that it looks sort of like a system and therefore it get compared to other systems as such. But all serious people know that capitalism, for all of its defects, is the best possible system to date. So Catholic social theory, as a system, always loses the argument.
So let’s look at is another way. As Christians we are obliged to treat all people as deserving of the same love that we give to the people we actually love. If one grasps this, then there should really be no reason to list all those things that Catholic social theory lists. “By “love” the Church means food, shelter, safety, etc.)” Rather pathetic really that we still live in times where basic needs have to be spelled out.
We have every reason to believe that Wal-Mart employees are not treated in any sort of loving way as defined by Christianity. And while individual managers can mitigate the effects of corporate polices, we also have every reason to believe that it is Wal-Mart policy to mistreat their workers in the way that they do. One may argue that “the market” requires this; that Wal-Mart’s evident success in the market and Saint Sam’s billions vindicate them. But saying that these people are not actually slaves because unlike slaves they can either take it or leave it; that they are being benefited by Wal-Mart in having jobs in the first place; that the workers are compensated by Wal-Marts every day low prices; and that in fact the workers deserve what they get, because they are too lazy to have gotten the education they need or whatever to all become lawyers or something deserving of high salaries is simply obscene.
Catholic social theory is a crappy but necessary statement in a world so jaded and greedy that it can no longer see the obvious.
But is it right to assume the mom and pop store is treating its employees any better anyway? My own experience in my younger days was that I was treated better and paid better working for a big chain than say a small family owned restaurant.
Sean,
The traditional conservative view is that small businesses are are of paramount importance to society and the economy. Now when people criticize WalMart for destroying small businesses, it turns out that small businesses treat their employees like slaves and pay them poorly.
Besides, what’s done more to hurt those small businesses? Walmart being successful by providing middle and low income people what they want or the state by taxing and regulating the bejeezus out of them?
The argument here is not that WalMart doesn’t destroy small businesses. The argument is, “I am not going to say WalMart is bad . . . but the government is worse!”
If you think Catholic Social Teaching is unrealistic and that letting market forces determine everything is the best way to handle economic matters, why don’t you just say so? It seems to me that any employer who paid a man with a family more than a single woman when they were doing exactly the same job would be (a) acting according to CST regarding a living wage and (b) opening himself up to a discrimination suit. To advocate a living wage seems, to me, to endorse at least in part the concept of “to each according to his needs.” Let us just admit that that is a concept that neither conservatives nor liberals advocate in the United States.
Someone on Vox-Nova recommended a book to me titled Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium. I have not read the book yet, but creative fidelity is presented as a good thing, since of course documents of the Magisterium have to be weighed and interpreted. But it does seem to me fidelity can get so creative that the teachings being interpreted get turned on their head.
Popes are not sociologists or economists or businessmen, and the more specific they get about what the role of government out to be and how an economy ought to be organized, the farther they get from “infallibility.” Why not admit that when it comes to general moral principles, the popes are very authoritative, but when it comes to practical application of those principles in a very complex world, they scarcely know what they are talking about?
“Why not admit that when it comes to general moral principles, the popes are very authoritative, but when it comes to practical application of those principles in a very complex world, they scarcely know what they are talking about?”
What not admit that it would be easy to be a Christian, if only it were practical?
What not admit that it would be easy to be a Christian, if only it were practical?
Unagidon,
I know it is not a new discovery that people disagree with each other, but lately I have been wondering what the point is of the kind of discussions that go on here and over at Vox Nova. I have heard from any number of people that when they have a family get-together, they avoid topics such as politics and religion, since the arguments that ensue only make people angry, and nobody ever changes their mind. When opposing groups within the Catholic Church see things like Catholic Social Teachings as liberal, when they are politically liberal, and conservative, when they are politically conservative, and when there is always just enough “wiggle room” to make your own arguments, I begin to wonder what the point is.
Interestingly, from very conservative Catholics at the moment, there is an attack on the USCCB for being in bed with the Democratic Party and contributing to organizations that promote gay rights and abortion. What is amazing about this is that other Catholics also believe the USCCB is in bed with the Republican Party.
Every once in awhile, I raise the question of whether it is possible to be a good Catholic and a good American, too. The usual reaction is, “How dare you ask such a question?” But it seems to me that the free market is worshipped in the United States by both liberals and conservatives (although moreso by the latter) and any implication by CST that the free market doesn’t make everything come out all right must be explained away. We have five Catholic justices on the Supreme Court, and conservative Catholics think abortion is the gravest evil in the history of the world, but they will defend the justices sticking to their own interpretation of the constitution even if it means upholding abortion rights.
What I think may be the case is that the Catholic Church compromised the teachings of Jesus very early on, cooperated with the state, and now we have a world where it really is not merely impractical to follow the teachings of Jesus — it’s impossible. So there is a tremendous tension between living in the world Christianity has been very influential in making and living according to the teachings of Jesus. It may be the case that being a Catholic in any position of real power (Supreme Court justice, president or vice-president, CEO of a major corporation) causes you to choose constantly between being faithful to the teachings of Jesus and carrying out your role in government or your corporation in the manner expected. Sometimes I wonder if the Amish or Hassidic Jews don’t have the right idea to live in relatively isolated communities where they don’t have to compromise their values so much. Jesus was always denouncing the rich and powerful, but it seems to be the Christian view in America that all the sayings about the rich don’t really apply. But, as with everything else, there is enough “wiggle room” to argue that despite the sayings of Jesus, there is nothing problematic about being Catholic and being enormously wealthy and powerful in the United States today.
David, I tend to agree with you.
Christianity isn’t about systems. It’s about conversion. I think that there is a sort of circular logic that goes “If one loves God, one will love God’s people (and all people are God’s people). If one loves God’s people one will tend to act in a certain way. If one tends to act in a certain way, then one can create rules to “capture” the way one should act. If one can then get people to follow these rules (in whatever manner is possible), people will act like they love each other and it will almost be like they are in fact converted.” Systems capture rules and attempt to assert order. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this, except that it entirely misses the point.
Since Christianity has been able to operate well within any economic system, it would seem that it isn’t linked to any one of them in particular. The thing about capitalism isn’t that it is an unjust economic system. They all are. It’s that capitalism presents itself as somehow morally “neutral” driven by impersonal market forces that in fact represent some kind of democratic consensus of what constitutes any value. And that the system fairly rewards the good and justly punishes the bad and that to say otherwise or to suggest any kind of redistribution is to unjustly punish the deserving and unjustly reward the undeserving. All values are located in the sovereign subject exercising his or her free choice. Of course, people have always had free moral choice, but it is characteristic of capitalism to repackage things that people already possess and present them to them as though they are appearing for the first time. “Choice” becomes a fetish and values then become commodities. Religion is either forced to expand until it too becomes a commodity or to contract as some kind of freedom limiting set of purely personal values. Capitalism is, in other words, an alternative religion because it is an alternative total value system.
Any true religion is built on the idea that there are real values that actually exist. I’m not talking about “moral values”; I’m talking about values as such and the definition of what is good and what is a good. The thing that capitalism does is not that it replaces one set of values as such with another. It’s real evil is that it replaces the idea that there are (or at least might be) values as such with the idea that free choice requires that there are no values as such. It is an efficient destroyer of worlds. So of course it follows that we are all pitted against each other defending these little decrepit positions, these squalid little moral outposts of the Left and the Right arguing the interminable argument of preference against preference.
David
Small businesses are important to the economy, but so are businesses like Walmart.
I don’t say Catholic social teaching is unrealistic, but I don’t think that it proposes an economic system like you and unagidon seem to think. It is a set of principles. The question is how best to acheive them.
I freely admit that no economic system perfectly acheives them, but it seems to me that progressive are unwilling to admit the weaknesses in their own proposals. Catholic social teaching is not just about material well being, but human dignity. Do you think the welfare state has promoted that? It seems that if you are a liberal, all that matters are intentions, not results. If I want to be kind, then anything I propose is moral regardless of the result, but if someone’s motive is profit, then even if the net result is beneficial it is against Catholic social teaching.
“Catholic social teaching is not just about material well being, but human dignity. Do you think the welfare state has promoted that? It seems that if you are a liberal, all that matters are intentions, not results. If I want to be kind, then anything I propose is moral regardless of the result, but if someone’s motive is profit, then even if the net result is beneficial it is against Catholic social teaching.”
I suppose that I wasn’t explicit enough in saying that the opposite of capitalism is not the welfare state. The so-called “welfare state” is a component part of modern capitalism. It is part of the necessary politics of modern monopoly capitalism. It’s part of what makes it work. The idea that there is the free market on one side and “the government” on the other is part of the politics surrounding the artificial creation of “conservatism” and “liberalism”. The idea that the welfare state is opposed to the idea of profit is nonsense.
I didn’t say that Catholic social teaching is a system. I said that people talk about it as though it were a system which they juxtapose to capitalism and since it is NOT a system it always comes off second best.
Catholic social teaching may be a set of principles, but capitalism is also a set of principles. The principles are in opposition. Capitalism isn’t about human dignity at all. It’s about making profits. Sometimes it may be profitable for capitalists to claim that they are concerned with human dignity. Sometimes it isn’t. But “human dignity” in this equation is, like everything else in capitalism, simply a tool to be manipulated.
I disagree with Sean’s indictment of the welfare state if he is lumping all welfare/social programs together.
And I would agree with unagidon that capitalism is about making profits.
I think there’s a lot of middle ground, though.
I’ve worked with many corporations who are good corporate citizens. Do they make public relations hay off it? Sure they do! One of my many current employers matched my gift to Catholic Relief Services to Haiti (and the donations of all other employees to various relief funds). In publicizing the move, they gained some PR, but they also encouraged more employees to donate.
Moreover, larger organizations often have the wherewithal to make accommodation for handicapped workers that moms-and-pops don’t have.
My beef is not with capitalism or even all big chain stores (though I still think they’re ugly), but with Walmart specifically.
I agree with you Jean that there is a lot of middle ground. But corporations would plow the middle ground under in a hot second if they thought it would be more profitable to do so.
Well, there are large holding companies and financial institutions that make impersonal decisions unfettered by worries about who’s going to get hurt, I’m sure. And there are companies large and small run by people who seem to have little moral grounding. But there are also those that feel a vested interest in the community in which they live.
So making blanket statements about American corporations strikes me as dicey at best (or, as Blake like to say more bluntly, “To generalize is to be an idiot”).
It’s akin to making blanket statements about “the welfare state” without regard to individual programs that might work, that might be necessary to help those who will never be able to help themselves (the mentally ill, the severely handicapped).
Well, ouch.
I wasn’t making a blanket statement about corporations. I was making a blanket statement about capitalism, and all I said was that the logic of capitalism is contrary to the logic of Christianity. Corporations can be better or worse depending upon who their managers are. Since some of us are managers, it is up to us to be better or worse. But when a system is fueled by the profit motive, then profit gets the last call about what constitutes better or worse.
But when a system is fueled by the profit motive, then profit gets the last call about what constitutes better or worse.
I work for a major corporation which is, all things considered, quite benevolent. For example, it quite routinely makes the list of 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers compiled by Working Mother Magazine. However, the last thing I can imagine happening is someone getting more money because he or she needed it more than another person. Ages and ages ago (1960s) I worked for another major corporation — a household name — and I remember they kept an elderly man on the payroll. He had worked for the company for decades, and instead of letting him go, they kicked him upstairs, and he did things like give little talks about how important it was to keep our desks neat. I can’t imagine they do that kind of thing any more.
My wife once worked for a company, a huge multinational, whose stated goal was to become the World’s Best Employer. They wanted to have a benefits package and working environment that was second to none, on the theory that this would attract the best workers, and they viewed human capital as the secret to their success.
That was about 20 layoffs ago, though (my wife being included in one of them). The word “success” would never be used in the same sentence or paragraph with this company.
I will say a word for profit. It is necessary. Not only this economy, but all possible economies, would soon break down without it.
Profit is what engenders growth in the economy. When a company hires new workers, it is because it is profitable and/or has a plan to become profitable.
This is true not only for large corporations but for small businesses and family farms. It was true of those farmers in Jesus’ day for whom tax collector was the most despised of professions.
There are many, many small and medium-size businesses in the US that are owned and run by families. They are not run with the single purpose of maximizing their profits; in many cases, their real goal is to provide employment and income for members of the family. (There are professional sports franchises that fit this description). But profitability is a necessary component for those enterprises, too, even when it isn’t the controlling principle.
Jim,
I don’t think anyone who works for a company, large or small, does not want his or her employer not to make a profit. It’s how they make the profit, and what they do with it.
There is an interesting article in Newsweek that ends with the conclusion:
Profits are necessary, and companies that would otherwise fail obviously have to have cutbacks. But “downsizing” has been a fad for years now, and it looks like the empirical evidence shows it does more harm than good.