A friend recently sent me an email promoting the Catholic teaching or principle of the priority of labor over capital. The Church has been promoting this view for centuries and it is to the detriment of the working poor. What they should be teaching is equity in pay, freedom of movement, and promoting education that would enable workers to become skilled. Below is my initial response to the lead in line to Pope John Paul II's "The Priority of Labor". I reserve the right to respond in greater detail.
B.D.,
Thank you for bringing the thread up again. This is part of why I think it would be interesting to explore the topic, but I am not interested in taking up positions and then defending them. I am more interested in exploring the assumptions of both sides and testing the ideas a bit. For example, the mondragon link you sent has a line "We must first of all recall a principle that has always been taught by the church, the principle of the priority of labour over capital." On the surface that seem compassionate and consistent with deferential treatment of the poor. Until that is, you consider what is meant by capital. Capital is simply stored labor. Nothing more. It is the product of labor that was not consumed but was rather saved. Understood this way there can be no preference between capital and labor. If anything, once basic needs are met, surely there should be a preference for the moral behavior of delayed gratification that enables the accumulation of capital versus the luxury consumption that is usually the alternative.
Moreover, capital, that is the saved product of labor, is the property of the producer created by their moral act of delaying gratification for the purpose of improving the well-being of their family, business, or interests. This is different than excessive profits that exploit the laborer. For indeed the working class have proven better savers (creators of capital) than the debt ridden upper class of recent years. Surely the church would not think that the labor of a financial engineer on wall street should receive priority over the lifetime savings of a grocer, plumber, or dare I say, teacher?
There is an aversion to capitalism within the tradition of Catholicism. I was raised with it and still find myself falling into the pattern of thinking that money is a corrosive element in our society. However, specialized labor leads to surpluses, which can be consumed or saved. The saved (delayed gratification) product of labor can be used to hire new workers, build public goods, or even just protect the worker from downturns in income or the vagaries of life including health crises. I think we need to reconsider the basic assumptions of what is right behavior and what the principles we hold lead to as consequences. A society or tradition that teaches labor over capital might just as well teach consumption over saving. This is the worst thing we could possibly teach the working poor if we want to help them overcome their poverty.
Thanks again for the example.
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Philosophically, your point is good - but when you start making money from money, the "stored labor" content of capital begins to degrade. It has been shown that "capital" - as the class of people or corporations who manage or own large amounts, not as the element itself - will always act to increase returns, further diluting the "stored labor" component.
When the government is committed to both inflation and borrowing, it gets worse. The net result is that "stored labor" degrades over time, almost regardless of what you do with your savings. A simple example is Social Security. I am currently, after working for 40 years, making a wage which puts me in the top 7% of individuals in the country - yet it's only about twice the salary of a starting engineer ($7200/year when I started in 1969, $45K as of 2007). If I continue to work for 10 years, it will double my Social Security benefits - i.e. the last 10 years will be worth as much as the previous 40 years. There are some mitigating circumstances, such as an extended period of of under- and unemployment, but it remains clear that the labor hours I "saved" when I was younger have been discounted. The house (government and the financial industry, which seem to be working in tandem) takes its percentage no matter what I do with my capital, and it's set at a level which insures that I will fall behind increases in living expenses.
So encouraging the poor to save is still a good idea, although it's very hard for them, particularly in a world of rising costs, opulent goods and conspicuous consumption. For it's not capital that creates jobs, it's consumption, as the US concluded after World War II - "Throw it away and buy a new one, and we'll all have jobs." But the game is rigged against them - savings will not remove them from the "working poor" - so the Catholic church is not completely wrong in valuing labor over capital - referring to the classes rather than the elements - although perhaps they should shift their focus to "usury".
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