NEW LOOK AT OLD VIEW ON JUST WAGE

Most libertarians insist that just wages are fixed by nothing more and nothing less than the free consent of the hireling. If it is agreed upon, then all is well. So long as there is no coercion involved, then we have a just wage

I do not believe that this is .satisfactory. While the wage may be agreed upon, it leaves out a few important factors. It ignores the fact that when one works he or she is doing so in order to obtain what is necessary for self-preservation. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Rerum Novarum, a man's labor has two characteristics that must be considered by employers wishing to provide a just wage. The first is that work is personal. Someone is exerting time and energy. Secondly, labor is necessary for self-conservation. The person is not merely working for the sake of work; a person is working in order to live, move, and have his being.

With these two factors in mind, the libertarian notion of just wage is lacking. It's being voluntary, in and of itself, does not make it just. Justice requires that the employer provide for the employee the means necessary to live while the latter contributes valuable (and finite) time and effort to the betterment of the former.

The libertarian may respond by asking what is necessary for a man to live. The issue here is not with luxuries but with frugal living. No laborer has a right to luxuries. But the dedication of their time and effort is most certainly worthy of the sustenance necessary for self-preservation. This would be a living wage; a wage that allows man to live, move, and have his being. It should be sufficient for housing, food, and clothing.

Now, I am by no means endorsing federal wage laws. America is rather diverse, and different regions have different costs of living. This should be dealt with at a local or regional level. Even the state level would be ineffective, given the fact that the cost of living greatly varies from city to city or region to region.

Furthermore, one could make a case that such living wages could be procured by labor associations. These associations should by no means seek anything beyond what is necessary. It is due to the stupidity and selfishness of various labor unions that employers and employees end up with far less than they could have were they to seek only that which would provide for sensible housing, food, and clothing. In lacking the kind of moderation and self-restraint that would be advantageous to such associations, labor associations have possibly done more harm than good to those they are bound to assist. A return to sensible leadership and modest requests would do much more than absurd demands and political pandering.

Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where unions are more interested in political power than the basic needs and wellbeing of their members. We also live in a time when everyone turns to the federal and state governments to do for them what they should be able to do for themselves. Until we begin looking at this issue from a more personal, local, or regional perspective, I don't see the American worker making any significant movement towards a just and living wage any time soon.

BETWEEN WALL AND MAIN

As much as I hate to say this, I fear that the influence of special interest groups and lobby firms is radically disproportionate in light of the number s of people they actually represent. Wall Street has more influence than Main Street, and K Street has more power than Middle Class Boulevard. I sincerely believe that this has been problematic, regardless of the benefits such enterprises may occasionally benefit us.

Then again, this conundrum is very familiar to me. It is a tension I have lived with for a long time. I have wandered for many years on the dividing line between paleolibertarianism and paleoconservatism. Whether it be free trade or tariffs, open or closed borders, localism or nationalism, populism or federalist, capitalist or agrarian, I have found myself between a rock and a hard place. Good arguments all around, heroes and villains in both camps.

So why is this? I think that a large part of this has to do with my upbringing, both where I lived and the family values cherished within the home. As a middle-class Michigander I also see things from a middle-America perspective.

Take agriculture as an example. On the one hand we understand that farming tends to be work very few wish to do. On the other hand, we have seen corporations destroy family farming and jobs that were once offered to those with little immigration go to those with no documentation of citizenship.

Then we have trade. As middle-class people we certainly enjoy our Meijer's and Walmarts. We like the fact that what we buy doesn't cost us too much because we have seen our incomes go too far down. Then again, most of us in Michigan have our incomes go down because our jobs are being offshored and outsourced. NAFTA, CAFTA, and other so-called free trade agreements have assures that Michigan's number one export is manufacturing jobs.

This has resulted in a rise in populist sentiment. People are beginning to see that the real war going on is the one between corporatist and the Johnny Q public, capitalists and economic nationalists, as well as between foreign interests and the jobs over at local UAW.

The war is really between the abstract and that which we personally experience every day. It is a war between idealism and realism. More importantly, it is a war between a vision of what a minority hope the world may become over against a perspective that sees the world as it has been and how it ought to remain.

So here we are, between Wall St. and Main. We stand between the rock of special interest groups and the hard place of the realization that our nostalgia for things past may be nothing more than a phantasm. Where should we go? I am not sure. One thing I am certain of is that I don't enjoy this ride, and fear that we may be traveling the road to national ruin.