What would you do without?

“The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly.” _{Proverbs 18:23}


A mother stands in front of me at the Pick and Pay. The LCD monitor on the wall showing the weather forecast belies the dilemma she faces. The pay she received for her work isn't enough to pay for the meager collection of staple foods she has placed in her basket to feed her family. This even though bread is subsidized, and a loaf of delicious wheat bread tasty enough to satisfy even this Gelson's client runs a mere 5 rand ($0.70).


South Africa is made up of two economies. The trappings of the first economy suggest that the country has more in common with the first world (even with America) than its African brethren; there is plenty of fresh fruit and great food, entertainment, movieplexes, good roads, big warm houses. Even those great symbols of American culture, fast food and the shopping mall, are ubiquitous here.

A second economy coexists virtually alongside the first. It is an economy of poor nutrition, poor or nonexistent healthcare, dependence on hired "taxis" and foot for transportation, and tiny houses in crime-ridden self-contained slums.

The wealth of the first economy is built on abundant cheap labor supplied by the second. I suspect that the unique thing about South Africa is not that this is the case, but only that the relationship is so visible - it is a unique place where the veil between the two worlds is so thin that the story that we who live in the first economy like to tell about why the world is the way it is can be directly checked against the observable reality.


According to the free market, the value of a typical laborer in SA is something under R10/hr (It may even be the case that this is a generous wage.) Here is where some kind of equilibrium between supply and demand has been reached, such that employers suffer little turnover.

I know people who reason that, regrettable though these market wages are, that the poor quality of the life they enable is the best motivator to work hard, gain skills, and seek better employment. The answer, they claim, lies largely in training workers for more highly skilled employment.

Although I think training is an essential part of the solution, particularly over the mid to long-term, it seems to me that this does not preempt our responsibility to those who work for us. It is often easy to treat the condition of poverty as an abstraction. In this place, it is not possible without closing your eyes to reality; it is simply too real and concrete to allow pretense.


What are the elements of a decent, basic living?

Nutritious food?
Safe and hospitable shelter?
Warm clothing?
Medical care?
Time to spend with children?
Something to put aside to care for yourself when you can no longer work?
Perhaps even something spare to help care for others in your family (or maybe even your broader community) who cannot meet their own needs?


The hard truth is that market wages here don't come close to covering even a majority of these needs. This even though bread is subsidized, and housing is usually in the form of a shack sharing a tiny plot of land with housing for many others.


Is it morally permissible for us as Christians to pay someone who works for us at a rate that forces them to choose which of these needs they will forego, even if we have the ability to pay them more?

Christ said:

"Do to others as you would have them do to you." _{Luke 6:31}


The obvious question this raises is "If we were in their shoes, is this how we would be treated?"

If so, what essentials would we do without?


On a purely pragmatic level, it should be clear that failing to pay a wage that allows the employed to meet these needs means that they must either be met in some other way (likely through some form of governmental support) or go unmet. The first is at best inefficient. The second will be intolerable unless we are willing and able to close our ears to the plight of the poor.


“Those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor, will also cry out and not be answered.” _{Proverbs 21:13}