This week in church when S. asked about Food Stamps in relation to the Sitz im Leben of Ecclesiastes 4-6, I mentioned the Iron Law of Wages, defined simply as the theory that in an industrial economy, wages will tend toward subsistence. In other words, basic labor (think those at or below minimum-wage full-time work) will be rewarded finally with no more than a subsistence living like one might produce on a small family farm of a few acres. I stated that in the low-wage sector, we are within $2000 dollars of this outcome today.
Perhaps I was being optimistic. The article here shows the steady decline of private sector job benefits, and specifically those to low-wage workers. At the same time, private sector low-wage workers are depending increasingly on public (i.e. government) subsidization. All the while, Walmart, in a 2004 study, was the recipient of $1 billion in government subsidies, which they don't deny, but claim is a boon (as from the gods) to the communities that pay for them. Add to this the general degradation of food quality and economic incentivization of even poorer food choices, and we may see even greater subsidization of this particular mode. So my revised statement would be as follows: perhaps in a significant way, we have defied the Iron Law after all and reached below subsistence as the low-water mark for industrial wages through debt-laden public subsidies. Heretofore, it was unthinkable that a worker could be paid less than a living, but no more! The Malthusian prediction for such an impossibility would be a decrease in population. See article here. Thoreau calculated, albeit roughly, that six weeks of labor was sufficient for a man's yearly subsistence on a few acres of arable land. That works out to an hourly wage from the gracious hand of YHWH Himself of at least $25, or $50,000/year in full-time terms. If his figures are accurate (or if not) I think I'd prefer to work for God than Sam Walton, s'il vous plait. Compare, si vous voulez, a Biblical gleaning economy of the poor, including the basic right to land use, to the enticements of wage-slavery promising consumer status on the ethos of envy. I submit this to you all as information. The writers and producers of the linked articles do not necessarily or at all represent my own views on the subject. I am merely trying to connect some data sets in a meaningful way to illustrate the need for an entirely alternate economy. I'm hoping that I do so in a more accurate and less self-deluded way than Glen Beck. The irony that much of the criticism toward Walmart for so many of its workers being on public welfare programs (Medicaid being the most expensive) comes from a political sector which generally favors fully publicly subsidized and government administered universal health care is not lost on me. I'm also no fan of labor unions as I believe they are an obstacle to actual labor-ownership of the means of production and a sad acknowledgement of the status of the corporation as enjoying what are meant to be incommunicable attributes of the state, both legitimate and otherwise. There, of course, exists a peaceful solution to this and other abnormal realities. We can work in peace with our neighbors in meaningful ways having little to nothing to do with this system of supplies, its coercive model of redistribution, or the false systems of worship it imposes on the unwitting devotee. We could let Caesar keep his icon and render to God that which He requires. I'm not forcing anyone to opt out of the beast as fully as I intend to do, but we may all consider at the level of policy, how far we are from the natural prescription and question any politician who moves us into the direction of "mandatory or forbidden" as all-inclusive categories based on what is pragmatic for some, but hardly the universally good Natural Law. End the Fed, Lance
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LanceLance doesn't like to publish his writing, as he reserves the right to change his mind. =P Archives
April 2013
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