According to the "Manly Report" of the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, between two-thirds and three-fourths of the adult male labourers of the United States receive less than $750.00 a year, and the same proportion of women workers are paid under eight dollars a week. A considerable majority, therefore, of both male and female labourers fail to obtain living wages. We are still very far from having actualised even the minimum measure of wage justice.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PROBLEM OF COMPLETE WAGE JUSTICE
A living wage for all workers is merely the minimum measure of just remuneration. It is not in every case complete justice. Possibly it is not the full measure of justice in any case. How much more than a living wage is due to any or all of the various classes of labourers? How much more may any group of workers demand without exposing itself to the sin of extortion? By what principles shall these questions be answered?
The problem of complete wage justice can be conveniently and logically considered in four distinct relations, as regards: the respective claims of the different classes of labourers to a given amount of money available for wage payments; the claims of the whole body of labourers, or any group thereof, to higher wages at the expense of profits; at the expense of interest; and at the expense of the consumer.
Comparative Claims of Different Labour Groups
In the division of a common wage fund, no section of the workers is entitled to anything in excess of living wages until all the other sections have received that amount of remuneration. The need of a decent livelihood constitutes a more urgent claim than any other that can be brought forward. Neither efforts, nor sacrifices, nor productivity, nor scarcity can justify the payment of more than living wages to any group, so long as any other group in the industry remains below that level; for the extra compensation will supply the nonessential needs of the former by denying the essential needs of the latter. The two groups of men will be treated unequally in respect of those qualities in which they are equal; namely, their personal dignity and their claims to the minimum requisites of reasonable life and self development. This is a violation of justice.
Let us suppose that all the workers among whom a given amount of compensation is to be distributed, have already received living wages, and that there remains a considerable surplus. On what principles should the surplus be apportioned? For answer we turn to the canons of distribution, as explained in chapter xvi. When the elementary needs of life and development have been supplied, the next consideration might seem to be the higher or nonessential needs and capacities. Proportional justice would seem to suggest that the surplus ought to be distributed in accordance with the varying needs and capacities of men to develop their faculties beyond the minimum reasonable degree. As we have already pointed out, this would undoubtedly be the proper rule if it were susceptible of anything like accurate application, and if the sum to be distributed were not produced by and dependent upon those who were to participate in the distribution. However, we know that the first condition is impracticable, while the second is non-existent. Inasmuch as the sharers in the distribution have produced and constantly determine the amount to be apportioned, the distributive process must disregard nonessential needs, and govern itself by other canons of justice.
The most urgent of these is the canon of efforts and sacrifices. Superior effort, as measured by unusual will-exertion, is a fundamental rule of justice, and a valid title to exceptional reward. Men who strive harder than the majority of their fellows are ethically deserving of extra compensation. At least, this is the pure theory of the matter. In practice, the situation is complicated by the fact that unusual effort cannot always be distinguished, and by the further fact that some exceptional efforts do not fructify in correspondingly useful results. Among men engaged at the same kind of work, superior effort is to a great extent discernible in the unusually large product. As such it actually receives an extra reward in accordance with the canon of productivity. When men are employed at different tasks, unusual efforts cannot generally be distinguished and compensated. Hence the general principle is that superior efforts put forth in the production of utilities, entitle men to something more than living wages, but that the enforcement of this principle is considerably hindered by the difficulty of discerning such efforts.