Shark v. SolonKR, Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.

I will define “just”, explain that freedom constitutes fairness, explain the underlying tenet of freedom, and will render government compulsion to provide a living wage unjust based on the idea of freedom of contract. Definitions Given the accepted definition of “justice” as “fairness or reasonableness,” or as “giving each their due,” we must examine what those definition themselves mean in order to give a fair definition of the word “just”. First, we must establish justice as distinct from morality, although intertwined. Morality is “Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior” (1). Justice, by the given definition, is a practical examination of morality; it is a practical examination of fairness, “the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable” (2), rather than an abstract consideration of right and wrong. Thus, the moral framework for my argument must be a practical one relevant to fairness, and I will consider anything just as moral, and anything not just as immoral. The final question that must be asked, then, is this: What does it mean to treat people equally? I posit that it represents a guarantee of personal liberties and freedom. Many cultures define justice in completely different ways, so either there must be an objective solution, or there is no such thing as a just government. I will not argue the latter; instead, I will argue that there is an objective solution—the solution of freedom. The idea that all humans are endowed equally with innate and inalienable rights is the only one that guarantees true equality, as more statist ideas unequally favor government officials, and more anarchistic ideas unequally favor the strongest in a society. It is not fair, and therefore not just, to restrict the rights of people of free speech, free religion, and of their contracts, among many others. P1. Freedom, as the Just Basis of Government, Establishes Liberty of Contract Let’s go back to the Enlightenment. The social contract theory, advanced primarily by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, but born as a concept much earlier, argues that the mandate of governments is derived from the masses, who in effect exchange some of their products for some of the privileges of an organized state through a social contract (3). This theory is a fair one in that the “contract” obligates the government to provide services, among them protection, education, and healthcare, depending on the specific country and time, in exchange for certain services on the part of the citizen. The rights are inherently considered to be inalienable and not to be arbitrarily restricted, primarily, according to Locke, the rights of life, liberty, and property. This framework of the contract is the way in which freedom can be reconciled with the sometimes restrictive acts of governments today. To look at the concept of “contracts” in action, we should examine the state that, unlike the states of Europe, which slowly changed to adhere to values of freedom, was founded with the social contract theory as a primary ideal: the United States. The Declaration itself states, “[a]ll men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (4). Note that the “pursuit of Happiness”, in practice, is practically identical to “property” (6.581). In Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, states are prohibited from “impairing the obligations of contracts” in what is known as the contract clause (5), referring to legal contracts. While the right to freedom of contract has not been constant in the United States, it is important to examine the ideals behind it. Liberty of contract existed as a right for approximately the first thirty years of the twentieth century, but its basis was in much earlier times—the American Revolution. The rise of private contracts was in fact a unique development of the revolution (6.575). According to James Madison, property is “every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage.” (6.582). A contract of employment may be included within this definition—a contract is the principle on which the government was founded, so man has a right to contract, and man places value on contract due to the exchange of services rendered by it. As property rights are clearly protected vigorously by the Constitution and the early courts, so too are contracts (6.587). P2. Liberty of Contract, as a concept of the just system of freedom, renders any sort of minimum wage unjust. With that established, let us examine employment. Employment is established in the U.S. through contracts; if not explicitly through an actual contract (with or without collective bargaining), then implicitly through the agreed upon exchange of wages for services. In effect, though, forcing employers to provide a living wage, which requires an establishment of a higher minimum wage (7), violates the sanctity of the contract; the right of the employer to offer a lower wage and the right of an employee to accept that wage is infringed upon. The former may not be willing to pay a higher wage for certain services, and the later may be willing to accept a lower wage for those same services, but the presence of a minimum wage destroys the ability of the employer to negotiate the difference. For an example of this principle in action, examine the tale of Gravity Payments, a firm which established a yearly minimum salary of $70,000. While this was not forced by the government, it demonstrates the effects of what happens when employee salaries are not more freely distributed—the long-time hires and more educated workers became furious at being paid the same as new hires, and left in droves (8). Had this been the case everywhere due to government intervention, though, their right to establish a fair contract based on the services they provide would be devastated by this wage. In summary, the liberty of contract which just governments hold as a principle is violated by establishment of a forced living wage, and this wage mandate is thus unjust and therefore immoral; just governments should avoid forcing employers to provide a living wage at all costs. Sources 1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... 2. http://dictionary.cambridge.org... 3. http://www.iep.utm.edu... 4. http://www.archives.gov... 5. http://www.law.gmu.edu... 6. http://www2.law.mercer.edu... 7. http://www.pbs.org...;8. http://www.nytimes.com...