A Just Wage: Equality, Proportionality, and Solidarity in the American Economy

What is due in justice to the wage earner? I argue that the Thomistic-Aristotelian categories of justice, as interpreted through Catholic Social Teaching, may fruitfully be applied to the contemporary American economy. Commutative justice requires equality in exchange, not in that both parties benefit exactly alike, but in that each is bettered by the transaction, both through subjective valuation and the objective offering of a living wage. Distributive justice, which understands workers in firms and citizens in an economy to be true members of social bodies, requires due order and due proportion, with firms’ profits proportioned out to workers through an equitable minimum and society’s commitment to free labor upholding the rule of law to make this normative. Finally, social justice, which gives form and content to solidarity, requires that citizens be committed to the common good, willing to make what sacrifices are necessary in order to ensure that each of their purchases contribute towards the provisioning of living wages.