“That’s not fair at all!” Isn’t that the response that comes up from within when we hear this story? When we place ourselves in the position of those who began work in the vineyard in the morning, labored in the sun all day, and then come to the foreman of the vineyard to receive our daily wage, only to see these others who arrived an hour before getting the same wage, what else might we feel in addition to this injustice? Confusion? Indignation? Envy? Superiority? I don’t think it would surprise anyone that I, too, would feel these things.
By contrast, who of us would first consider what it felt like to be the worker who received the call to the vineyard late in the day, who labored as hard as the others but only worked an hour or two before receiving the same wage? Isn’t it interesting that it might never occur to us to identify ourselves first with this late laborer? I wonder why that is. But let us imagine what they must have felt when they received their pay along with the rest? Surprise. Unworthiness. Gratitude. Delight. An inspiration to treat their fellow workers to a cold beer at the end of the day to celebrate their good fortune, soften their friend’s sense of injustice and tend to their relationships in a way that is respectful, and conscientious.
This is not only interesting to consider from the spiritual point of view, which I am sure that you will do on Sunday at mass. But from the perspective of leadership, and of the prevailing values of our times, certainly I think that Jesus is teaching us to look at the nature of work, wage, and compensation in a very different light. In fact, as many popes before him, Pope Leo encourages us to look through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching and to see how the Gospel both affirms, but also challenges our prevailing attitudes and values around how we understand work.
If I’m not mistaken, many of our societies today have adopted a “meritocratic” view of human labor and compensation, i.e., the way that one’s wage should reflect one’s work. In fact, even Jesus says “the laborer is worth his wages,” (Matthew 10). The idea that there should be a reasonable relationship between how long and hard one works, or how particular and specialized skills are remunerated, is not a bad one. It reduces all kinds of customs and practices that are even more unjust: nepotism, cronyism, or “pure birth privileges,” handed down by virtue of some innate characteristic, like race, gender, etc. Meritocratic policies are intended to mitigate those forms of unfairness and introduce a sense of equality and justice into our social and economic systems. And meritocracy honors the fact that most of us are motivated by extrinsic rewards, at least to some extent, and especially for doing work that is not so desirable or which is quite challenging.
But no system is perfect. Meritocracy misses the value for essential human dignity which is the basis for our Catholic understanding of the inalienable value of every human being, no matter how capable or hard working. In this view, a person’s worth as a person can never be reduced to what they achieve or produce, nor should a person’s worth be exaggerated by their “executive status” or annual earnings. This exaggerated view of human worth has been called, “the hubris of success,” by American political philosopher, Michael Sandel. He described how this warped view of the person leads to a kind of contempt for those who “don’t earn” their keep. Thankfully, God’s view of us is not based on these values, but rather, in a love for us as children, independent of these other considerations.
For this reason, the Church stands by the importance of a “just wage,” which isn’t only dependent on the nature of one’s work, but rather, on what is necessary for a person to live and sustain a family with dignity. This value for human dignity challenges all the values that put a company’s profit before the good of people, and suggests that in God’s view, we should adjust our economic policies accordingly. No easy task. But no one said living according to God’s values would go easy on our human tendencies toward greed, competition, and extractive policies and practices that instrumentalize the person, and alienate them from the just fruits of their labors.
Pope John Paul II introduced a very important perspective to Catholic Social Teaching when he differentiated between the objective and subjective dimensions of work. On the one hand, the objective nature of work focused on external skills, actions, and production. But he emphasized that because it is us human beings doing the work, our experience, our interior motivations, satisfaction, and even joy, should be the primary consideration for how we look at labor. Pope John Paul II believed that work should offer people a chance for self expression in creativity, for meaningful contribution, and for the delight that comes from working in collaboration with others for some purpose, some common good.
This sense of the common good, which is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching, suggests that there are many things which we hold in common, and which we should avoid privatizing and commodifying so that some people can make profit and others have to pay. Examples would be clean water, or public land, or the environment. But also the profit that is created by collective work by a company or agency. In fact, some companies have the policy of “profit sharing,” that helps distribute the shared benefit of employees’ work in ways that are guided by this understanding of the common good. This helps to avoid the unjust concentration of wealth in the hands of few “share holders.”
There is obviously so much more that could be said about the ways that Catholic Social Teaching both affirm and challenge our dominant social and economic views, or about the ways that the excesses of meritocracy are damaging the social fabric of so many of our societies by reducing the value of the human person to their productivity, let alone the demonization of the poor. However, for now, let us take to heart Jesus’ story of the workers in the vineyard as an invitation to see not only through the day long and late laborers’ eyes, but God’s perspective. What does this challenge and invite from us? What metanoia, or conversion of our view of reality does this reflection inspire for our ways of seeing our fellow human beings, or for our ways of leading?
With you on the road,
