Ryan & the living wage.In "Bare Minimum" (February 10), Andrew Lustig observes: "Don't confuse our arguments about a minimum wage with Catholic musing about a living wage. The two are not the same." Confusion between the two began with Msgr. John A. Ryan. To show how Pope Leo Pope Leo was the name of thirteen Roman Catholic Popes:
Rerum Novarum was an open letter, passed to all Catholic bishops, that addressed the condition of the working classes. , might be implemented, Ryan commissioned a series of budget studies and found that to support a family the average worker needed a monthly income of $50. Deploying the kind of reasoning that came to be typical of the New Deal, Ryan then concluded that as protector of natural rights the state should compel employers to pay such a wage. The living wage thus becomes the legally mandated wage. It is significant that Ryan's interpretation of Rerum is missing from the second of the social encyclicals, Quadragesimo anno Quadragesimo Anno is an encyclical by Pope Pius XI, issued 15 May 1931, 40 years after Rerum Novarum (thus the name, Latin for 'in the fortieth year'). Written as a response to the Great Depression, it calls for the establishment of a social order based on the (1931), where Pius XI Pius XI, 1857–1939, pope (1922–39), an Italian named Achille Ratti, b. Desio, near Milan; successor of Benedict XV. Prepapal Career Ratti's father was a silk manufacturer. He studied in Milan and at the Gregorian Univ. identified a new species of moral virtue and gave it the name social justice. This specific virtue imposes a particular kind of moral obligation. Contrary to what is now the popular understanding, social justice is not to be confused with distributive justice DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. That virtue, whose object it is to distribute rewards and punishments to every one according to his merits or demerits. Tr. of Eq. 3; Lepage, El. du Dr. ch. 1, art. 3, Sec. 2 1 Toull. n. 7, note. See Justice. . Social justice is that virtue which requires the individual not only to obey the law but also to make his due contribution to rectification of the law. Pius XI uses the concept of social justice to clarify the teaching on the living wage. As Fr. William Feree explained in The Act of Social Justice (1941), the worker does not have a right to a living wage. What he does have a right to is implementation of those changes in the institutional matrix that will cause the day-to-day operation of the labor market labor market A place where labor is exchanged for wages; an LM is defined by geography, education and technical expertise, occupation, licensure or certification requirements, and job experience to yield a living wage. This analysis makes no reference to statutory enactment as the procedure for achieving wage justice. It is ironic that Ryan, labor priest, folk hero, and adviser to presidents--his biographer referred to him as the Right Reverend New Dealer--seems to have misunderstood the very doctrine for which he was most famous. STEPHEN T. WORLAND Nashville, Tenn. The writer is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. |
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