What About My Needs!

Suppose that you are an accountant at a defense contractor working on a really hush-hush but very exciting new project to protect Earth from pesky flying saucers.

Then you go out and get married. You’re a good Catholic, and you and your wife want to have kids right away, and you do! Soon you have a bouncing baby bundle of baptized joy.

Now, accountants make a good bit of money, but with the new family, it’s time for a raise.

You go to your boss and point out that Catholic social teaching holds that in determining a just wage, both the contributions and the needs of an individual must be taken into account.

Being a good Catholic himself, he happily agrees. After all, he point out, you’re a good accountant, you have on-the-job knowledge of how this company works, and it would be harder to go out and get and then break-in a new accountant than to accomodate your request for a raise.

You’re now making (a bit) more than the other accountants in the department, who are all single (for some reason).

Then you’re abducted by aliens.

They brain-poison you so that your sense of personal prudence is severely damaged.

You’re still an ace #1 crackerjack accountant–one of several in your department–but when it comes to your personal finances, you’re now a total nitwit.

So you go to VegaVegas and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts.

You purchase a lavish mansion and a Rolls-Royce.

You adopt twenty-five special needs babies who require extensive medical care.

You purchase every product from every Internet advertisement that you run across.

Soon you need a warehouse for all the political T-shirts you have.

But then one last little prudence neuron that the aliens missed is able to send you the message that your current needs outstrip your current salary and it’s time for a raise.

You go in and explain that since your last raise, your needs have grown dramatically. The size of your new family and its medical needs alone–besides all the gambling debts, Internet purchases, and the mansion–severely outstrip your salary.

Since Catholic social teaching says that your needs as well as your contributions need to be taken into account in determining a just wage for you, you are confident that your boss will give you one.

But he doesn’t.

Though he is a good Catholic himself, your boss (whose prudence-center is still intact except when it come to building fighterplanes out of toothpicks and glue) argues that your needs now so vastly outstrip your contributions that the business cannot possibly comply with your request.

You disagree and shove the Catechism of the Catholic Church under his nose.

He suggests that what the Catechism says is meant to express a goal that ethical business should set for themselves–paying everyone a wage able to sustain them and their families in at least a modest and dignified lifestyle–but that it does not mean that an employer is called upon to pay employees what is required to cover the kinds of massive needs that you have that so vastly outstrip their contributions.

He further points out that it would be irresponsible and contrary to the virtue of prudence for the company to try to pay you the wages that you now need. With those wages it could hire not only an accountant just as good as you who doesn’t have such massive needs, it could also hire more line workers and allow them to make a decent living while they crank out even more of the toothpick fighterplanes that the nation so desperately needs in its conflict with the flying saucers.

To the extent that you have massive needs that vastly outstrip your contributions, these should be dealt with by a common entity–such as the state–in keeping with the common destination of goods. They should not fall on a single, individual employer.

He suggests that you either

A) Develop a new technology that will make you as rich as Bill Gates, or

B) file for bankruptcy protection under the provisions of civil law, return the special needs children that you have adopted to the custody of the state, sign papers turning control of your finances over to you un-brain-poisoned wife, and seek the help of neurosurgeons and psychiatrists.

What does this teach us?

That you should go buy How I Did It by Bill Gates?

That there’s a misprint in the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

That your boss is a cruel man who is in disobedience to Catholic social teaching?

No, but it does teach us that the needs-and-contributions formula is not meant to suggest that employers are to disregard the costs associated with accomodating a particular employee’s financial needs. While the needs an employee has play a proper role in his remuneration, the employer is not required to foolishly use his money to cover the needs of individuals who have made life choices that result in financial needs that dramatically outstrip the contributions that the employee makes.

The contributions that the employee makes–the value of the work he performs and not his personal needs–are the primary determinant of a just wage. His personal financial needs, while they should be taken into account, play a subordinate role.

In the real world, a person’s financial needs may be vastly greater than the value of the work he does–or vastly lower than the value of the work. Employers are not required to pay massive-need workers wages that are vastly inflated compared to the value of their work. Neither should they required to pay minimum-needs workers wages that are vastly less than the value of their work.

For employers to behave otherwise–to allow need rather than value to be the primary determinant–would completely disrupt the market mechanism for determining economic value, and thus would completely disrupt the economy, to the harm of all.

What About My Needs!

Suppose that you are an accountant at a defense contractor working on a really hush-hush but very exciting new project to protect Earth from pesky flying saucers.

Then you go out and get married. You’re a good Catholic, and you and your wife want to have kids right away, and you do! Soon you have a bouncing baby bundle of baptized joy.

Now, accountants make a good bit of money, but with the new family, it’s time for a raise.

You go to your boss and point out that Catholic social teaching holds that in determining a just wage, both the contributions and the needs of an individual must be taken into account.

Being a good Catholic himself, he happily agrees. After all, he point out, you’re a good accountant, you have on-the-job knowledge of how this company works, and it would be harder to go out and get and then break-in a new accountant than to accomodate your request for a raise.

You’re now making (a bit) more than the other accountants in the department, who are all single (for some reason).

Then you’re abducted by aliens.

They brain-poison you so that your sense of personal prudence is severely damaged.

You’re still an ace #1 crackerjack accountant–one of several in your department–but when it comes to your personal finances, you’re now a total nitwit.

So you go to VegaVegas and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts.

You purchase a lavish mansion and a Rolls-Royce.

You adopt twenty-five special needs babies who require extensive medical care.

You purchase every product from every Internet advertisement that you run across.

Soon you need a warehouse for all the political T-shirts you have.

But then one last little prudence neuron that the aliens missed is able to send you the message that your current needs outstrip your current salary and it’s time for a raise.

You go in and explain that since your last raise, your needs have grown dramatically. The size of your new family and its medical needs alone–besides all the gambling debts, Internet purchases, and the mansion–severely outstrip your salary.

Since Catholic social teaching says that your needs as well as your contributions need to be taken into account in determining a just wage for you, you are confident that your boss will give you one.

But he doesn’t.

Though he is a good Catholic himself, your boss (whose prudence-center is still intact except when it come to building fighterplanes out of toothpicks and glue) argues that your needs now so vastly outstrip your contributions that the business cannot possibly comply with your request.

You disagree and shove the Catechism of the Catholic Church under his nose.

He suggests that what the Catechism says is meant to express a goal that ethical business should set for themselves–paying everyone a wage able to sustain them and their families in at least a modest and dignified lifestyle–but that it does not mean that an employer is called upon to pay employees what is required to cover the kinds of massive needs that you have that so vastly outstrip their contributions.

He further points out that it would be irresponsible and contrary to the virtue of prudence for the company to try to pay you the wages that you now need. With those wages it could hire not only an accountant just as good as you who doesn’t have such massive needs, it could also hire more line workers and allow them to make a decent living while they crank out even more of the toothpick fighterplanes that the nation so desperately needs in its conflict with the flying saucers.

To the extent that you have massive needs that vastly outstrip your contributions, these should be dealt with by a common entity–such as the state–in keeping with the common destination of goods. They should not fall on a single, individual employer.

He suggests that you either

A) Develop a new technology that will make you as rich as Bill Gates, or

B) file for bankruptcy protection under the provisions of civil law, return the special needs children that you have adopted to the custody of the state, sign papers turning control of your finances over to you un-brain-poisoned wife, and seek the help of neurosurgeons and psychiatrists.

What does this teach us?

That you should go buy How I Did It by Bill Gates?

That there’s a misprint in the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

That your boss is a cruel man who is in disobedience to Catholic social teaching?

No, but it does teach us that the needs-and-contributions formula is not meant to suggest that employers are to disregard the costs associated with accomodating a particular employee’s financial needs. While the needs an employee has play a proper role in his remuneration, the employer is not required to foolishly use his money to cover the needs of individuals who have made life choices that result in financial needs that dramatically outstrip the contributions that the employee makes.

The contributions that the employee makes–the value of the work he performs and not his personal needs–are the primary determinant of a just wage. His personal financial needs, while they should be taken into account, play a subordinate role.

In the real world, a person’s financial needs may be vastly greater than the value of the work he does–or vastly lower than the value of the work. Employers are not required to pay massive-need workers wages that are vastly inflated compared to the value of their work. Neither should they required to pay minimum-needs workers wages that are vastly less than the value of their work.

For employers to behave otherwise–to allow need rather than value to be the primary determinant–would completely disrupt the market mechanism for determining economic value, and thus would completely disrupt the economy, to the harm of all.

This May Be A Rumor But . . .

REPORTS ARE CIRCULATING THAT SAN FRAN ARCHBISH LEVADA IS ABOUT TO GET THE STOP SLOT AT THE CDF.

EXCERPTS:

"It’s a done deal," a senior Vatican official told TIME on Tuesday, after days of rumors that the American was emerging as the frontrunner. "This was a decision directly from the Pope. Levada was already asked, and has accepted. If it ends up not happening, it means somebody got to [the Pope] and convinced him to change his mind."

Another Vatican source said the former Cardinal Ratzinger and Levada had built what he called a "hidden friendship" over the years outside of the Roman power circles, dating back to the period the American spent as a mid-level official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the early 1980s. "They would go to dinner together," the source said. "This is someone the Pope thinks he can work closely with."

Levada currently serves as one of four archbishop consulting members of the Congregation. If named to head the office, he would become a Cardinal the next time a new batch were promoted to the title.

MORE ANALYSIS HERE:

MORE EXCERPTS:

Vatican analyst Rocco Palmo, the source of the May 4 report, predicted Tuesday that Levada, 68, would get the Vatican post and then be elevated to cardinal at a June 29 Vatican assembly.

"He will be the first American cardinal named by the new pope,” Palmo said in an interview with The Chronicle. "He is about to become the highest- ranking American in Vatican history."

Palmo noted that Levada has extensive experience dealing with the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. church.

"He has on-the-ground experience in the United States," Palmo said. "That is priceless."

Levada, who worked on the Vatican staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1976 to 1982, has an intimate understanding of the issues facing the U.S. church, having served as the Archbishop of Portland from 1986 to 1995, and since then as the Archbishop of San Francisco.

During his final year in Rome, Levada worked for the pope, known then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of that key Vatican office, and has kept close ties to the German cardinal over the last two decades.

"If they want to address the ethical and moral issues in the church in Europe and North America, you have Ratzinger speaking to Europe and Levada to the United States,” said Paul Murphy, a church scholar at the University of San Francisco.

Murphy, the director of the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought, noted that Levada may serve a very liberal archdiocese, but he carries strong credentials as a doctrinal conservative.

Levada’s election would have a double impact on the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which covers San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties.

It would create an opening for the job of San Francisco Archbishop, giving the new pope a chance to put his mark on the Bay Area church.

Pham said Benedict hopes to use his papacy to strengthen ties with the Eastern Orthodox churches, which split off from Rome centuries ago in a dispute over the power of the pope.

"Levada is the academic expert on that topic,” said Pham, author of "Heirs of the Fisherman — Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession.”

The Economics of Art

3_pearsSince this is economics week I thought I would introduce part of  the mission statement from my upcoming web page that discusses the inherent worth of (good) art. Unlike apologetics, art is something I know a little about, so I feel like I can discuss it with some small degree of confidence. Economics is a subject area of which I have no knowledge at all, so I am able to discuss it with even greater confidence.

In my mission statement, I make these assertions about the economics of art:

"So, art of any kind is objectively useless, and fine art in particular (as opposed to, say, cinema) is an anachronism. And yet, people still seem to need it. I think many people with the least interest in it probably need it most. Art is a mystery, like music or story telling (whatever form it takes). It is part of what makes us human. When I hear people talk about increasing art instruction in schools because it will boost test scores, I cringe. When parents want to play Mozart for their infants solely because it will make them better at math, I shudder.

(… )

Art (good art) benefits people in a way that we can’t fully understand. We need art, but we don’t know why. Part of the dehumanizing aspect of the industrial revolution (IMHO) was that ordinary household objects were no longer made by hand, but were increasingly mass-produced in ways that favored ease of manufacture over aesthetics, ease of use over beauty, and cheapness over everything.  I believe we have suffered because of this in a number of ways. A blank, artless existence simply is not good for the human psyche. We need beauty. When God created us, he put us not in a wilderness, but in a “garden”, a place where beauty is planned, ordered and tended."

The fact that fine art is objectively useless means that making a living by doing fine art can be a bit of a trick. Especially in times of economic downturn, fine art is rightly perceived as a luxury and takes a back seat to necessities. I do believe, though, that people need art, which is why historically wherever you find people, you find art.

And beer!

But that is for another post…

A secular humanist speaks truth

Some Christians talk about “secular humanism” as if it were a bad thing.

It’s not.

Well, okay, the “secular” part is bad. It’s a euphemism for atheism, which is very bad.

But humanism — a system of thought that is predicated on the existence of human nature, and that accords value to what is specifically human, to human categories, needs, moral affections, culture, and aspirations — is very good.

God created human nature and invested it with its specific attributes. Isofar as we take what rightly belongs to human nature (as opposed to what is disordered due to the Fall) as a touchstone to how we should live and what we should value, we have a touchstone to truth and wisdom.

The real enemy today is not “secular humanism,” but post-humanism — the doctrine that there is no such thing as human nature except what is culturally constructed, and that we can reconstruct human nature and society in whatever way the prevailing winds of political and academic thought deem most appropriate and correct.

Camille Paglia agrees.

In a recent speech, she described herself as a “secular humanist… a lapsed Catholic and an atheist.” Yet because she is a humanist, she had some trenchant things to say about what she calls the “sickness” and “spiritual emptiness” of modern post-human culture (though she doesn’t use that term) — a point of view she acknowledges puts her in the company of Pope Benedict XVI. She also has some provocative and insightful things to say about art, politics, culture, and spirituality — including what’s wrong with modernist architecture in Catholic churches and what was right about Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ.

Excerpts:

I am a secular humanist. I am a lapsed Catholic and an atheist. However, I believe, as much as the new pope, that secular humanism is sick, it is spiritually empty. Part of the problem is that the left has tried to elevate politics… over all other aspects of culture…

What I would say to conservatives is that it’s really incorrect for you to laud the canon and demand for its reintroduction without embracing the other part of the canon in Western culture, and that is the visual arts tradition in the Greco-Roman line … where the nude and where the eroticism of the body are very, very important…

But then to the left, I want to say, you have vandalized art in this period of identity politics, another part of the legacy of the 1960s. Politics began to feel that art was merely a servant of its own agenda on campus. That is when the universities went very seriously astray, when the humanities began to become corrupted, and that’s how they marginalized themselves…

Art lasts… It’s a spiritual resource. But no, no, no — over the last 30 years on American campuses, the idea of the best or the greatest was just thrown out as relative, subjective, based on political considerations and so on.

Identity politics has to go. We’ve got to bring back the idea that all of art belongs to all people. And that we don’t want a situation where young women are being encouraged to read only works by women. What is the end result of that? A lot of bad poetry…

A Catholic in the old style, if you are a Mediterranean-style or Latin Catholic, will see imagery of nudity in your church. But it’s a fact that since the 1950s, American Catholic churches have been Protestantized. They’ve been remodeled. These gory statues are considered tasteless and have been removed to the cellar or donated. The new churches all look like airport waiting stations. Even the visual nurturing of young Catholics has been cut off. That’s why there was so much interesting comment about Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” because he was bringing back all the blood and the guts that were part of the old working-class ethnic view of the story of Christ.

GET THE STORY.

Girl Scouts & Planned Barrenhood

A reader writes:

Please give me some information about the Girl Scouts and their affiliation with Planned Parenthood and about their teaching on lesbianism and sex education. If anyone has anything from the Girl Scouts web site please send it.

I Googled the girl scout’s website (www.girlscouts.org) and didn’t turn up anything on Planned Parenthood.

However what looks to be the most informative thing on the subject is a study that was done by the American Life League in 2004 that turned up a significant number of links between the two organizations, though not a blanket endorsement of PP by each individual GS chapter.

Here’s a summary:

In 2004, American Life League’s STOPP International conducted a study of Girl Scout councils throughout the United States in an effort to identify which councils have a relationship with Planned Parenthood. Our study was opposed by the national office of the Girl Scouts of the USA, the leader of which publicly stated that GSUSA has no problem if its councils or troops use Planned Parenthood to impart information to the girls. After several months, we were able to get data on over half the Girl Scout Councils in the country and found that about 20% had some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood.

We have now completed this project. Based on the information we uncovered in our study, we strongly advise parents to thoroughly check your local Girl Scout troop and council before allowing your girls to participate. In addition, we strongly urge you to use the same cautious approach to other youth organizations as well. We also suggest you check out the alternatives to the Girl Scouts that may be available in your area.

LEARN MORE.

(Cowboy hat tip to the reader for patience and diligence above and beyond the call of duty regarding this query!)

Girl Scouts & Planned Barrenhood

A reader writes:

Please give me some information about the Girl Scouts and their affiliation with Planned Parenthood and about their teaching on lesbianism and sex education. If anyone has anything from the Girl Scouts web site please send it.

I Googled the girl scout’s website (www.girlscouts.org) and didn’t turn up anything on Planned Parenthood.

However what looks to be the most informative thing on the subject is a study that was done by the American Life League in 2004 that turned up a significant number of links between the two organizations, though not a blanket endorsement of PP by each individual GS chapter.

Here’s a summary:

In 2004, American Life League’s STOPP International conducted a study of Girl Scout councils throughout the United States in an effort to identify which councils have a relationship with Planned Parenthood. Our study was opposed by the national office of the Girl Scouts of the USA, the leader of which publicly stated that GSUSA has no problem if its councils or troops use Planned Parenthood to impart information to the girls. After several months, we were able to get data on over half the Girl Scout Councils in the country and found that about 20% had some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood.

We have now completed this project. Based on the information we uncovered in our study, we strongly advise parents to thoroughly check your local Girl Scout troop and council before allowing your girls to participate. In addition, we strongly urge you to use the same cautious approach to other youth organizations as well. We also suggest you check out the alternatives to the Girl Scouts that may be available in your area.

LEARN MORE.

(Cowboy hat tip to the reader for patience and diligence above and beyond the call of duty regarding this query!)

Want Some Tax With That?

If you live in Detroit, your Whopper may soon be costing you more money:

"In an effort to curb a looming $300 million budget deficit, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick last month floated what he called a ‘different budget than has ever been presented to our city council.’

"The budget includes a proposed 2 percent tax that would be levied only on sales at fast-food restaurants, among other items that would generate additional revenue for the city."

The NRA is protesting. No, not the gun lobby; the restaurant lobby that goes by the same initials:

"If approved by city voters and the state legislature, Detroit would become the first locale in the nation to impose a tax on fast-food. Consumers already are charged an average nationwide rate of 6 percent on restaurant tax, according to the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

[…]

"’We think these type of restrictive tax penalizes consumers for enjoying their favorite foods,’ said Katherine Kim, spokeswoman for the NRA.

"’In a sense, it’s almost discriminatory,’ she added. ‘It targets just a section of the food services industry. The impression is that it will restrict consumers’ free choice in participating in a lifestyle they enjoy.’"

Oh, please, Ms. Kim. I like fast food as much as the next person, but an extra few cents for a Happy Meal is not going to restrict anyone’s "free choice" or "lifestyle." Granted, I think the proposed tax is ridiculous; but let’s argue the matter on the merits and not cloud the issue with claims of victimization.

GET THE STORY.

Revenge Of The Easter Bunny!

Suppose that you are a secretary who has just been put out of work by a word processor and that you are abducted by the Seven Deadly Sins, which really aren’t mortal sins but disproportionate desires and who take you aboard their space ship.

Fortunately, two Jedi Knights come to your rescue and a stunning sci-fi action set-piece results.

Jedi Ben Ken uses his light saber to dispatch Lust and Gluttony straight away. They never have a chance to lay a hand on you. Then he uses his laser sword to intimidate Sloth into inaction. He never gets a hand on you, either.

Meanwhile, Jedi Nick Ken uses his light saber to puncture Pride, following which he and Anger have a protracted duel, which both lose–mortally wounding each other in the process.

Unfortunately, while the Jedi are dealing with these enemies (the Easter Bunny lurking sinisterly in the background the whole time), Greed bites your leg with his sharp fangs. Worse yet, Envy gives you several vicious bites.

Seeing your peril, Jedi Ben leaves Sloth and quickly dispatches these two before taking the body of his fallen comrade, Jedi Nick, to be fitted with new robotic parts, so that he’ll be more machine than man now.

The Easter Bunny, grinning evilly, then takes you back to Earth and drops you off at the headquarters of the MoveOn.Orgpeople who are currently fanning the flames of class warfare in America.

Still stinging from the (infectious!) bites of Greed and Envy and being out of a job yourself, you find yourself really agreeing with the people the Easter Bunny left you with when they heap scorn on the fact that, even though the economy is growing and wages are going up, "The gap between rich and poor is widening." They regard this as a clear "injustice," and you find yourself agreeing with them.

You go home, buy a bottle of iodine for your bite wounds, and think about all this.

Next day, a friend of yours who is an accountant at your friendly neighborhood defense plant (working on a mysterious project) calls you up to tell you exciting news! He know that you, like many secretaries, were recently put out of work by word processors, but he happens to know of an actual secretarial job that’s open!

He then recounts to you a conversation he had with a local doctor who makes $70 an hour for medical work but who has to spend half his time on secretarial work. The accountant, who was in to see the doctor following a glue swooning, pointed out that everyone would benefit if he just hired a secretary, and he agreed!

You interview for the job, get a quite competative offer of $15 an hour, and are on the verge of accepting, when a thought occurs to you based on what the nice folks that the Easter Bunny left you with told you . . .

  • Currently the doctor spends half his day, or four hours, doing medical work, which at $70 an hour means that he makes $280 a day.
  • You, being out of a job, make $0 a day.
  • The gap between him (rich) and you (poor) is thus $280 a day at present.

But what happens if you take the job offer?

  • He’ll be able to devote eight hours a day to doctoring, meaning that he’ll take in a total of $560 dollars a day.
  • He’ll pay you $15 an hour for eight hours work, meaning you’ll get $120 a day.
  • His pay will thus be $440 a day ($560-$120).
  • The gap between the two of you will then be $320 a day ($440-$120), which is more than the $280 it was before! In fact, the gap will have widened by $40 a day!

You feel Envious of that $40 that he will make and regard him as being Greedy for widening the gap in this way. He should not benefit at all by hiring you. That would be unjust. You should be just as well off as he, even though he spent eight years in medical school and racked up huge debts and is taking the risk of an entrepeneur and paying vast sums in medical malpractice insurance. All people should make the same income regardless of life choices. That’s what the nice folks the Easter Bunny left you with said. Nobody should be benefitted by hiring a new employee, but they should hire them anyway.

Smiling self-satisfiedly like the Easter Bunny, you decline the job offer and go home.

What does this teach us?

That the Easter Bunny is not to be trusted?

We need liberal concealed-carry laws so you can bring your own light saber?

Glue-swooned accountants will blab too much info?

That there is an imbalance in the Force?

Yes! It teaches us all of these things!

But it also teaches us something else: The fact that the income gap between the job-offerer and the job-holder increases is not a sufficient reason to turn down a job offer. It is better to have a job than not (unless an Easter Bunny-inspired welfare state makes this not the case).

What is important to you is how you benefit, not how someone else benefits. In every free economic transaction, whether it is a job offer or a purchase in the supermarket, both parties perceive themselves to be benefitting–and both are likely to benefit through the creation of new wealth. But if the parties start eyeing each other enviously, worring that the other party is benefitting "too much"–to the point that it disrupts the transaction–then both are deprived of the benefit they would otherwise gain through the transaction.

What matters is increasing your own benefit, regardless of how much others may be benefitting. If you refuse a transaction not because it doesn’t benefit you enough but because it benefits the other party too much then you are acting from Envy and cutting off your nose to spite your face, contrary to the virtue of Prudence.