59 WAGES AND OPPRESSION Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee (Deut. 24:14-15).
This was an extension of Leviticus 19:13: "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." Here, the sin is identified as oppression. The theocentric focus of this passage was two-fold. First, God pays us what He has agreed to pay us, and He pays us on time; His people should imitate Him. Second, God is a protector of those who cannot protect themselves; His people should imitate Him. This was not a seed law or a land law. It was a cross-boundary law.
I could refer the reader to Chapter 13 of Leviticus: An Economic Commentary. This would save a lot of space. But some readers may not have a copy of the earlier commentary. I have decided to reproduce my earlier comments.
Withholding Wages Withholding a worker's wages beyond sunset, i.e., the end of the work day, is a form of oppression. In the Leviticus passage, this was identified as theft. Why? If the worker agreed in advance to wait longer than a working day for his pay, why should the law of God prohibit the arrangement? Or does it?
The text deals with paying a debt. The employer-employee relationship reflects God's relationship to man in this respect: the employee is dependent on the employer. Unlike God, however, the employer is dependent on the employee to some extent. So, the employer-employee relationship is not identical to the God-man relationship, but with respect to the provision of capital, it is analogous. God provides us with an arena: life and capital. Similarly, the employer supplies an employee with capital that makes the employee more productive.
The laborer has worked for a full day; the employer is required to pay to him at the end of the work day. The employee has fulfilled his part of the bargain. The context is clear: rapid payment for services received. God employs us as His stewards. He gives us the tools that we need to serve Him and thereby serve ourselves. He always pays us on time. So should an employer. The employer who withholds wages from his employees is making a symbolic statement about God's relationship to man: God supposedly delays paying man what is rightfully owed to him. This symbolism is incorrect. It testifies falsely about God's character.
A Position of Weakness
The wage earner is in a position of comparative weakness, just as we are weak in comparison to God. This employer-employee relationship reflects God's supremacy as the sovereign employer and man's subordination as a dependent employee. If the wage earner is not paid immediately, then he is being asked by the employer to extend credit to the employer. The employer gains a benefit -- the value of the labor services performed -- without having to pay for this benefit at the end of the work day. The Bible allows this extension of such credit during daylight hours, but not overnight.(1) This law teaches that the weaker party should not be forced as part of his terms of employment to extend credit to the stronger party. God acknowledges that there are differences in bargaining power and bargaining skills, and He intervenes here to protect the weaker party. This is one of the rare cases in Scripture where God does prohibit a voluntary economic contract.
What if the worker says that he is willing to wait for his pay if he is given an extra payment at the end of the period to compensate him for the time value of his money (i.e., interest)? This would be an unusual transaction. The extra money earned from two weeks of interest would be minimal in comparison to the amount of the wage. In any case, to abide by the terms of this law, such a voluntary agreement would have to be a legal transaction publicly separate from wage earning as such. There would have to be a public record of its conditions. It would constitute an investment by the worker. But the worker would have to pay his tithe and taxes on this money before he could legally lend it to the employer.
The law here specifies that an employer who hires an individual to work for a period of time has to have the money available to pay that individual on a daily basis at the end of each work day. This is the employer's standard requirement. There would be no confusion about this in a Christian covenanted society. There is no doubt that in the modern world, such an arrangement is not economically efficient. Checks must be written, checks must be delivered to individuals, account books must be kept, and so forth. If this had to be done daily, it would add to the expense of running a firm.(2) The larger the firm, the more difficult such an arrangement would be. Nevertheless, the employer is required by God to abide by this law. The question is: Can he lawfully substitute a more convenient payment scheme and still meet the requirements of this law?
Debt and Credit: Inescapable Concepts If the employer decides that it is too much trouble to pay each worker at the end of each work day, he must advance the funds for the period of employment prior to the next payday. Thus, if the average period of employment between paydays is two weeks, the employer must bear the risk of paying an individual for work not yet received. The employer must extend credit to the worker. This is another way of saying that the worker must assume a debt obligation: two weeks of agreed-upon labor services.
Payments for a stream of continuous services cannot be simultaneous, although this limitation will change when the use of electronic cash becomes widespread.(3) Therefore, one of the two parties in this transaction must go into debt in this system, while the other must extend credit. There is no escape from debt and credit apart from the technology of continuous payments. What this law authorizes is an extension of credit by the worker to the employer for a maximum of one work day. At the end of the work day, the account must be settled; credit is no longer extended by the worker, so he receives his day's wage.
What if the worker is paid in advance for a week or two of labor? He then necessarily becomes a debtor to the employer. He is required to deliver the work that he has been paid to perform. This places the worker in a debt position, but it is not a long-term debt. It is not considered a form of slavery, but there is no doubt that the worker has voluntarily accepted payment in advance, and this creates an obligation on his part. This debt position is limited, however. The law's presumption is that the employer is not going to pay a person in advance for months of work except in very rare circumstances.
The Bible teaches that we are not to become indebted to others: "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" (Rom. 13:8). This must not be interpreted in an absolutist fashion. We know this because every person is in debt to God, and also to the perfect man, Jesus Christ, as a result of Christ's atoning work at Calvary.(4) This rule of debt-free living should be interpreted in a non-utopian sense. It means that we are to avoid debt contracts that threaten our continuing legal status as free men. It does not mean that we are to become hermits who separate ourselves from a division-of-labor economy. (It surely does not mean that we are required to become household slaves.)
The restraining factor against the extension of too much credit by the stronger party is the employer's fear that the worker will either quit before his term of service ends or else not produce competent work. It is too expensive for the employer to sue the average worker for damages; court expenses plus his own time in court exceed the money owed.(5) The economic judgment of the employer is the restraining factor. He suspects that he will not be repaid if he extends too much credit.
What this text specifies is that the worker must not be asked to work for a week or two in order to receive his wage. There is always a risk of default on the part of the debtor, whether he is the employer or the worker. This law specifies that the risk of default for this form of debt -- wages beyond one work day -- must be born by the employer, not by the worker. This law prohibits a form of robbery: by the employer and also by the employer's accomplice, i.e., the worker who can afford to accept a delayed-payment contract, thereby excluding the poorest workers from the labor market.(6)
The employer must not become a thief by withholding anyone's wages.(7) By forcing the employer to make restitution to his employed workers who had seen their wages withheld, the law reduces the amount of such robbery of those unseen by the judges: future workers who are too weak even to compete for the delayed-payment job.(8)
Worker vs. Worker An offer by a worker to accept delayed payment gives this capital-owning worker a competitive advantage over destitute workers who need payment immediately. This law establishes that competition among workers must not involve the employer's acceptance of such an offer by any worker. The biblical standard of payment is specified: payment at the end of the work day. There may lawfully be payment in advance by the employer but not delayed payment.
When this law is enforced, destitute workers in the community are not replaced in the labor force by less destitute workers who can afford to forego immediate payment. All workers are to be allowed to compete for jobs, irrespective of any worker's possession of reserves sufficient to tide him over until the next payday. So, one idea behind this law is to make job opportunities available to the destitute workers in the community. Everyone who is physically able to work is to be allowed to compete for a job on a basis independent of his asset reserves. The destitute man's poverty is not to become the basis of his exclusion from the labor market. His competitors are not allowed to use their ability to extend credit to an employer as a way to offset his only assets: his willingness and ability to work.(9)
Weaker Parties The worker needs protection. An employer might hire him for a period and then dismiss him without pay. Jacob's complaint against Laban was that Laban had changed his wages repeatedly, meaning retroactively (Gen. 31:7). To protect the worker from this sort of robbery, the Bible requires the employer to bear the risk of longer-term default on the part of a worker. The employer bears the risk that the worker may turn out to be inefficient and will have to be fired before he has fulfilled his contract. The worker may even cheat the employer by walking off the job before his term of employment is over. That is the employer's problem. He can minimize this risk by paying workers at the end of each day. In doing so, he does not allow them to become indebted to him. If he chooses to have more infrequent pay periods, then he must bear the risk of paying people in advance who turn out to be inefficient or corrupt workers.
It is not immediately apparent that this law deals with the robbery of the poor by the somewhat less poor. This law seems to have only the employer in mind as the agent of theft. But the employer cannot act alone in this act of theft. He needs accomplices, even if they are unaware of their economic status as accomplices. An employer who wants to discriminate against destitute workers by forcing them to extend him credit beyond one working day cannot do so without the voluntary cooperation of other workers. He cannot hire people to work without daily wage payments unless some workers are willing to work on these terms. The text identifies this practice as a form of robbery, but it is not merely the robbery of those workers who voluntarily agree to accept the terms of the contract; it is also the indirect oppression of those workers who cannot afford to offer their labor services on these terms. It is above all the oppression of those who are excluded from the employer's work force, not those who are included. But it requires some knowledge of basic economics to discover this fact. This law's protection of the destitute worker's ability to bid for jobs is implicit in the text, but not explicit.
On what legal basis does this law apply to the free market? Why should a voluntary contract -- delayed payment -- be prohibited by civil law? What makes the practice of delaying payment judicially unique, and therefore legitimately subject to interference by the civil government? Answer: the principle of priestly pricing. The closer we get to life-and-death transactions, the less valid is the economic pricing principle, "all the traffic will bear," i.e., "high bid wins." God does not sell salvation by means of "high bid wins." The law against delaying the payment of wages is an application of the ethics of priestly pricing. A destitute worker is not to be excluded from any labor market by an employer's policy of delaying payment. Delayed payment is a policy of excluding workers. There are biblical judicial limits on voluntarism.(10) No employment contract contrary to this law is legal in God's eyes. The civil laws of every nation should prohibit such delays in the payment of wages.
The typical employer is trying to minimize his risk when he hires competent workers rather than substandard workers. He delays payment because he wants to see each new worker prove himself before getting paid. This delay in payment pressures workers with little capital to quit early or never even apply for the job. The practice of delaying wages is therefore primarily a screening device. It favors workers who have capital in reserve. These capital reserves serve the employer as a substitute for other screening techniques. The employer's economic problem is his lack of knowledge about the competence of the new worker. The employer uses a delayed payment scheme in order to minimize his search costs in estimating the competence of new workers. Accurate knowledge is not a zero-price resource. Employers try to obtain such knowledge as cheaply as possible. They use the new worker's willingness to accept delayed payments as a cost-effective substitute for more detailed information regarding the worker's abilities and his willingness to work.
Conclusion The case law deals with theft from economically weak workers and also (indirectly) the most impoverished workers in the community. The most impoverished workers are those who cannot afford to extend credit to their employer. They need to be paid at the end of the work day. The employer is required to do this or else pay them in advance for a longer term of service.
This law proves that Mosaic Israel was not a debt-free society. There were creditors and debtors. A legitimate biblical goal is to reduce long-term debt, but God's civil law does not mandate absolutely debt-free living. Debt is basic to society, for society implies a division of labor. Debt will exist in a division of labor economy until such time as an economically efficient means of making moment-by-moment wage payments becomes universal.
The employer who delays payment to his workers is defrauding them. But to do this, he is inescapably providing an opportunity for some workers to oppress their competitors. The worker who can afford to work without pay for a period is given an opportunity by the employer to steal a job away from a worker so poverty-stricken that he cannot survive without payment at the end of the day. This form of competition is illegitimate, this passage says. It is unfair competition. This passage calls it oppression. God's civil law makes it illegal for an employer to act as the economic agent of any employee against a destitute competitor. There are very few cases of unfair competition specified in the Bible, but this is one of them.
A judge can impose a restitution penalty on the perpetrator. There is also a hidden element of oppression: the excluded workers. To become subject to civil law, oppression must be identifiable as a criminal offense. There must be definable criteria that make the act a crime. The indirectly oppressed, excluded worker is not the victim of a crime. Ironically, the one who has oppressed him, the employed worker, is the victim of a crime: delayed payment. Even more ironically, if the oppressor brings a lawsuit against his assailant, the employer, he thereby makes it less likely that he and his employer will be able to oppress the weakest party: the excluded worker. He therefore may refuse to press charges. This is why I think an excluded worker or the State acting on his behalf can bring a lawsuit against the employer to have the practice stopped.
If it is immoral to discriminate against the weakest worker, then what of trade union practices that exclude these same low-bidding weak parties, referred to by union members as "scabs"? Can this case law legitimately be extended to make all exclusionary trade union screening practices illegal? That is, should we define indirect economic oppression in such a way that all exclusionary hiring practices become crimes? If we do, then we violate a fundamental biblical principle: the predictability of the civil law. The law identified as criminal -- robbery -- an easily specified act: delaying payment overnight. Only when such oppressive acts are easily specified and prosecution becomes predictable by all parties should this case law be extended to create new civil laws. But the oppressive character of the contract should be recognized, and no legislation should be passed that imitates the "delayed payment" contract, with its exclusionary side effects. This would surely include laws mandating that employers negotiate with trade unions or laws prohibiting employers from hiring non-union replacements when union members walk off the job. The element of State coercion should not be imposed for the benefit of the oppressors, i.e., workers who are members of unions that seek monopolistic above-market wages for their members by excluding others from joining or by calling on the State to forbid employers from making bargains with non-union workers.
Footnotes:
1. By implication, the night laborer is under the same protection: he must be paid before the sun rises. The idea is that he must be paid by the end of his work day.
2. In the final stages of the German inflation in 1923, workers were sometimes paid cash in the morning. Wives would accompany them to work, take the cash, and rush to spend it on anything tangible before it depreciated during the day. This inflation devastated workers and employers alike. On the daily payment of wages in the second half of 1923, see Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse (London: William Kimber, 1975), pp. 149, 191.
3. It is technically possible today to deposit money electronically into a worker's account on a moment-by-moment basis, just as it is possible for him to spend it on the same basis, but the cost of doing so is too high to make it feasible. This cost constraint will probably change in the future as computer technology and the cost of using computer networks both decrease. Kevin Kelly, "Cypherpunks, E-money, and the Techniques of Disconnection," Whole Earth Review (Summer 1993).
4. This debt always involves common grace; sometimes it also involves special grace. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), ch. 6.
5. God does sue workers who default on His advance payments. Some are sued in history; all are sued on the day of judgment. Court costs are irrelevant to God.
6. Gary North, Boundaries and Dominion: The Economics of Leviticus (computer edition; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 13, sections on "A Case of Economic Oppression" and "Bargainers: Strong, Weak, and Weakest."
7. Ibid., ch. 13, section on "What Did the Employer Steal?"
8. Ibid., ch. 13, section on "The Limits of Judicial Knowledge."
9. An apprentice who knows little or nothing about the job may lawfully work for no money or very low wages until he becomes competent.
10. This fact does not constitute a legitimizing of an open-ended socialism, including some modernized version of medieval guild socialism. Biblical law, not socialist slogans, is the source of our knowledge of such limits on voluntary exchange.
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