You Owe Me

Do the research. You'll likely find some disturbing information. According to statistics and records and all that good stuff, prior to 1966, productivity and wages tracked pretty close. That is, as productivity increased (as it has), so did wages, and at approximately the same rate ... you know, as it should be. However, after 1966, things changed. Productivity has continued to rise and in the 21st century it did the proverbial "hockey stick", where it really spiked. Wages, however, have essentially gone flat for most of the working population. Oh, that top 10% got real income growth, but while productivity went up 70%, the everyman worker gained about 4% in wages from 1966 to 2001. Let's put this another way. In 1966, the upper echelon of workers made about 20 to 30 times the average worker. Today they make something around 270 times what your typical worker makes. In fact, it appears that 56% of the money gained from your increased productivity has gone to the top 1% , with more than a third of it going to the top 0.1%. The bottom 90% of us got just under 16% of the income growth. What's up with that?

So we, the every day workers, are ready to revolt. Those dirty rotten rich people! How can they do that to us? They've stripped us of our ability to have unions, gained through deregulation, and hold us captive by this recession. Those evil rich people.

Of course, this isn't the complete story. First, other economic experts are saying that, well, it's all wrong. We're certainly better off now than in 1966. At least 80% of us believe we're better off or at least as well off as our parents were. We are, after all, still going to the malls, still buying SUVs, still paying to see blockbuster movies. We're not that bad off. So, of course, you have to decide which argument you'll buy.

When I was considering all this, it was Jesus's parable that came to mind:

¹ "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴ and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' ⁵ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ⁶ And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' ⁷ They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' ⁸ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' ⁹ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰ Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, ¹² saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' ¹³ But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first last" (Matt 20:1-16).

Jesus asks, on behalf of the master of the house, "Did you not agree with me for a denarius?" and "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" They're the same questions I'm asking when I hear of this kind of inequity.

What is the source of the complaint? "You owe me!" But this isn't so, is it? No one forced you to take that job. The job corp didn't show up at your door and drag you to work for a company that gives more money to the upper echelon than it gives to its workers. There was no coercion. What drives us to take these jobs, then? "Well," you assure me, "it's survival. We have to have an income." Is that actually true? Or is it that we "have to" have an income that keeps us at the standard of living to which we've become accustomed? Have we succumbed to the entitlement mentality that says that we are owed something simply by virtue of our existence?

I wonder all this because we've seen hints of what would happen if things were not this way. When the number of qualified workers becomes significantly less than the number of positions to fill, big business changes. They up wages. They pad the perks. They compete for the best workers. So if we were willing to take a lower standard of living, it is my suspicion that companies would be forced to improve conditions for their employees. But ... we're not, are we?

We live in a capitalist country. Companies own themselves; the government doesn't. They are not owned by the people. They are privately owned. If we affirm capitalism and if we affirm freedom, we cannot resort to force (for instance, legislation that forces businesses to change their wage policies) to change these companies. We have to use the free market. But that would require personal sacrifice of the American worker, and, let's face it, American workers are not willing to sacrifice, are we? So we'll just complain about the inequity and hope someone will tear down those bastions of injustice ... and wonder what happened to the American economic leadership in the world ...