The Right to Work

“Where there are revenues the demagogues should not be allowed after their manner to distribute the surplus; the poor are always receiving and always wanting more and more, for such help is like water poured into a leaky cask. Yet the true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy; measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as this is equally the interest of all classes, the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm, or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry.” Aristotle, “Politics“, Book VI, Part V.

“It is also worthy of a generous and sensible nobility to divide the poor amongst them, and give them the means of going to work. The example of the people of Tarentum is also well deserving of imitation, for, by sharing the use of their own property with the poor, they gain their good will.” Aristotle, “Politics“, Book VI, Part V.

“Mencius replied, 'They are only men of education, who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them;-- this is to entrap the people. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man?” Mencius, Chapter 2.

The purpose of this paper is fivefold, 1) demonstrate that the right to work is appropriate to a democracy and that while in some forms it is a socialist right, in other forms it is a democratic right and not socialist, 2) demonstrate that the right to work is a natural right of mankind of the type specified in the Declaration of Independence akin to the right to life and liberty, 3) demonstrate that the right to work is a traditional American right, that infringement of the natural guarantees of this right present at the time of the Revolution was one of the complaints of the Founding Fathers against the British Crown and one of the causes of the Revolutionary War and that in one form or another that natural right has been traditionally exercised by American Citizens for most of our nations history, 4) demonstrate that the right to work is a necessary right, i.e. a right that must be guaranteed for the continuance of liberty and the republic, and 5) demonstrate that the right to work is fulfillment of Biblical Law and traditional moral and Natural Law.

1) SOCIALIST AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS

Socialist rights are discussed in the section of this book with that title. The USSR has a selection of rights which appear to be the same as the US Bill of rights save that they are limited in a manner that occurs in the US Bill of rights only when referring to persons under active military service or time of war. Some are specifically limited to promotion of communism, as in the right of association, a limitation which in practice also limited the other rights. Conspicuously missing is the right to keep and bear arms. A section of the USSR Bill missing from the US Bill is the section listing the duties of citizens. These differences establish clearly the difference between Liberty in a Democracy and liberty in a Socialist State where the ‘rights’ limit freedom of the citizens by prescribing how they must act. In a Socialist State, the citizens are held, by their constitution under a discipline that in a Democracy only applies to the military and in some instances to Civilians in time of war or national emergency. The third section of the Soviet Bill, like the list of duties is missing from the US Bill of Rights. This section guarantees not freedom from state interference in their lives, but material benefits from the state. It guarantees as rights, work with pay, rest, health care, welfare, housing and education. In other words it guarantees material well-being. As these rights are missing from the US Bill of Rights, they must be considered as solely socialist rights. Thus, the statement, a socialist right is one which guarantees the material welfare of the citizens follows.

We now know what a socialist right is. What is a democratic right? This question may be answered by examination of the US Bill of Rights. The rights guaranteed fall into three main categories, things the citizens can do, things the state cannot do and things the state must do. All are designed to guarantee the liberty of the citizens. They fall into two other categories, natural rights, i.e. rights that are necessary to man because of his nature, and necessary rights, rights that are necessary to a citizens in a democracy to forestall tyranny and ensure liberty, which in detail are known to be necessary from the history of tyranny.

Freedom of religion is a natural right, freedom of assembly and guarantee of trial by jury are necessary rights. Thus democratic rights define what a state cannot do, must do, and things the citizen can do, and they are rights because they satisfy a natural human need or are necessary to protect liberty and guard against tyranny. What, however, is the difference between a socialist right and a democratic right?

By guaranteeing liberty and freedom from tyranny, democratic rights guarantee the right to try, they guarantee opportunity, they do not guarantee success. Socialist rights guarantee material security. It is by examining a right, in the light of this difference that we can determine if a right is a socialist right or a democratic right.

Let us look at the right to work in the Soviet constitution.

"Article 40 [Work]

(1) Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance with the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society."

Is there a guaranteed material outcome? Maybe, depending on how you read it, the outcome is dependent on the willingness to work. Or, regardless of work, a certain minimum will never be violated. It is not surprising that a right appropriate to a democracy appears possibly socialist when in a socialist document.

Let's try a democratic version.

The right to work of a citizen shall not be abridged where possible, and where federal and local laws have abridged this right, the right will be guaranteed to the citizen, work will be provided and if the citizen performs the work he shall be paid.

Is there a guaranteed material outcome? No, unless work is done, no money is gained. The material gain from a job is not the job, it's the paycheck. When the paycheck is conditional upon the citizens earning it, it is not guaranteed. Thus, this is not a socialist right.

Is it a democratic right? Well, we noted above that democratic rights are either natural rights or necessary rights. Also that they either specify things the state cannot do, or things the citizen can do, or as in trial by jury, things the state must do.

It falls into the category of things the state cannot do. The state cannot deny citizens the right to work indirectly through excessive emphasis on the right to property or other rights. The excessive exercise of liberties or rights is license and not legitimate. It falls into the category of things the state must do, in situations where laws would incidentally deny the right to work the State must act. However, this does not make it a democratic right. In order to be a democratic right, is must also be either a natural right, as freedom of religion, or a necessary right, as jury trial. As has been demonstrated these two words natural and necessary are always practically speaking the same. Natural rights derive from natural laws of political philosophy akin to the natural laws of physics and it is necessary to obey those laws making all natural right necessary rights and all necessary rights being necessary by those laws are therefore natural rights.

Economically it is a close parallel to the right to trial by jury, as it specifies actions the state must undertake, at expense to the state and thus to taxpayers.

Therefore it is possible to say that it could be a democratic right. In order to be one it must be either a natural right necessary from the nature of man, or a necessary right, demonstrated by history to be necessary to defend liberty from tyranny and maintain the republic. These things will be demonstrated.

Does this right automatically force the state to provide employment for its citizens? As worded, this only becomes necessary if federal and local laws are violating a citizens natural right to work. In order for the federal government to be obligated to provide work under this right, it would be necessary to demonstrate that federal and local laws are infringing the right to work in a manner that they did not at previous times in the history of the United States.

This will also be demonstrated.

2) NATURAL RIGHT

A natural right is one that derives from the needs of man dictated by his nature. To define natural rights, one must first define that part of the nature of man which the right applies to.

In order to define man, we must consider evolution, and mans natural state as a hunter gatherer to determine what nature provided and which society therefore should not deny. In a hunter/gatherer society, everyone has a job provided by nature. In order to go to work, one must only start hunting or gathering. There is no need to go job hunting first. Every human being is prepared by instinct to expect that if they get up, do the necessary tasks, they will be able to provide for themselves barring acts of nature like flood, etc. Man in his natural state has a job guaranteed to him. The right to work is provided in nature.

Nature does not provide a man sitting and doing nothing with food, it does not provide him with shelter, it does not give him free medical care. He must work for all of these, however, the chance to acquire these things by work is supplied in nature. He is never denied by unemployment, economic problems or other artificial social effects the opportunity to work for his keep.

Having evolved in this circumstance, man has a need for this automatic guarantee of work.

The right to work is a natural right. As you can see when compared to other socialist rights in a natural state, the right to work is clearly in a very different class, and a very different kind of right than those which are really socialist rights. It is not a socialist right. Does man have a need to work? Certainly, working is the natural way through which he satisfies his other needs. The right to work is a natural right of man and a democratic right.

At this point, we have run into a problem. Nature does not provide a man with food, clothing, shelter, etc. without effort. Yet we stated earlier that a natural right is one derived from the needs of man dictated by his nature. It is mans nature to need food, water, clothing, etc. Does he then not have a natural right to these things?

Nature does not provide him with these things without his own effort. He must work and strive to attain them in nature. Obviously he has a natural need for the opportunity to work for them, with a reasonable guarantee of success in most circumstances, for this is what nature provides and is natural to him.

Being guaranteed these things by the state when they are not contingent upon his effort is not natural. He does not have a need for these things given to him without work, for nature supplies them only through his efforts. Thus natural law does not support his natural rights to these needs being satisfied by the labor of others independent of his own labor.

Socialist rights which attempt to offer such a guarantee are not natural rights, and indeed contrary to natural law.

It is plausible to suppose that an artificial and unnatural environment will prove harmful to a life form where it differs from nature. It is therefore plausible to suppose that socialist rights, creating an artificial and unnatural means of obtaining natural needs is harmful to the mental and emotional health of the citizen. For, by supplying these things independent of a citizens own efforts, it denies the citizen his appropriate natural right to earn them by his own efforts as his nature requires for his own well-being, and with them to achieve self respect, and a sense personal worth and independence. This argument has been developed at greater length earlier in this book. The guarantee of material goods destroys the natural relationship between action and result. It creates an arbitrary environment where what one gets is not related to what one does. This is harmful in many ways to the Citizens of a State depending on precisely how it is implemented.

It is likewise plausible to suppose that a right to work which attempts to duplicate the guarantees in nature is beneficial to the mental and emotional health of the citizen, allowing him greater self respect and independence than total dependence on the state does.

In summary, socialist rights are bad for the mental and emotional health of the citizen, are not natural rights and are contrary to natural law. The right to work, a democratic right which guarantees a measure of opportunity to earn ones own support by ones own effort approximately equal to that of nature is a natural right, and denial of this right to a citizen is a violation of natural law.

However, in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are termed unalienable rights. How does the right to work compare? Liberty implies the right to work, for without work and the benefits so obtained, how can one exercise ones liberty. Without work one cannot be free of economic dependence on others especially the State. Work is likewise essential to the pursuit of happiness, for how can one pursue happiness without the emotional, psychological and economic benefits of work? The rights to liberty, work, and pursuit of happiness are all aspects of one larger right, the right to a guarantee of opportunity in life by society similar to those offered by nature. One cannot be lost without crippling or destroying the other two. The right to work is clearly an unalienable right in the same category as the rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness. For the Social Contract or State to deny this opportunity is a violation of its implicit purpose and a perversion of the State as demonstrated earlier.

3) A TRADITIONAL AMERICAN RIGHT

The right to work is guaranteed to man in a natural state. This guarantee derives from nature. It is not specifically guaranteed in the bill of rights of the United States. This is because it was guaranteed by two things at the time the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Congress, and the approval of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. It was guaranteed by a primarily rural population and the existence of the frontier. Any person living on a farm could get up, plow and sow, and work to earn his own subsistence. Any person not owning a farm could walk a few miles further west, and make his own farm.

There was no conceivable way, short of binding men in chains, of stopping someone willing to work for their living from working for their living.

However, the British Crown did attempt to do so. It attempted to stop further expansion into the frontier by, to quote from the Declaration of Independence

“HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”

This attempt to stop further expansion westward was one of the major complaints of the Colonies against the Crown. Through most of the history of the United States, the population has been largely rural, and expansion west has continued until it could do so no more.

The violation of the right to work by the British Crown was one of the causes of the Revolutionary War, and it has continued to be exercised through most of the history of the United States.

The right to work was one of the natural (unalienable) rights fought for by our Founding Fathers in the Revolutionary War and one that has been exercised traditionally in our history by all Americans willing to face the challenge of doing so.

As such, it is protected by the 9th Amendment of the Constitution.

“IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,

shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

In other words, those rights traditionally exercised by the people are still guaranteed to them even though not specifically listed.

In the absence of the frontier and a primarily rural population, the right to work is subject to violation in a way inconceivable at the time of our nations founding. It must be protected, or the American Spirit, the willingness to work and take life on our own shoulders will wither and die. If on the other hand, the opportunity to work is guaranteed, then most persons will work, and the habit of working and making ones own way will remain a part of the American Character.

4) A NECESSARY RIGHT

Our Senate is named after the Senate of Republican Rome. Cicero one of the noblest orators and most republican statesmen of Rome described the government of Republican Rome in his work, “Of the Commonwealth”. Many of the fundamental features of the government of the United States are clearly laid out in this document. There is a division of powers, different branches of government, and other features showing the elements of classical government theory which have stood the test of millennia to be eventually incorporated in our own government. In general, the provisions in the government of the United States provide all things that Cicero specified as necessary save one. Cicero maintained in his “Of the Commonwealth” that an appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons must exist.

As we have already seen, this guarantee was provided in our early history by the right to work. Which was guaranteed by the frontier and a rural economy. In these areas, however, Imperial Rome was more like the United States today than in our early history as Republican Rome was more like the US in its earlier days. Republican Rome was largely agricultural, Imperial Rome was primarily urban. Its population was urban, and unable to farm its own food. Frequently Roman stability was threatened by the failure of the city to bring grain from the provinces to provide bread for its people. The appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons provided by Rome has become infamous throughout history as Panem et circenses, “Bread and Circuses”. The circuses were the famous bloody sport of the Coliseum where gladiators slew one another and wild beasts, and Christians were fed to the lions. The ugliness of Bread and Circuses was not obvious in Cicero’s day. Christ had not yet been born. It was the tool of tyrants used to buy the favor of the mob. It was a welfare system, akin to the ‘socialist rights’ of communism. The offer of a guarantee of food and entertainment for nothing but political support, not ones own labor.

As we have seen several times in this book, such a provision is unnatural and plausibly unhealthy for men designed by nature to make their own way and earn their own keep. A mob which takes its bread by threatening to riot is like a bandit who steals food from a farmer. It works for an hour or a few minutes to steal what another spent months sowing and reaping. All of its labor is violence. Ruling by brute force itself, it is itself prepared by its own nature only to be ruled by brute force.

Being a tyrant, it understands and accepts only tyranny as its government. There is no sense of fairness or of justice for it gets its bread by violence, and cannot conceive of such matters. Cicero, who was in many ways a wise and noble man, believed that the appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons practiced by the Republic was a good thing. Cicero suffered the great tragedy of seeing his beloved Republic fall into the hands of tyrants and the lesser tragedy of being assassinated by a tyrant.

This was the product of bread and circuses.

Can we then ignore Cicero’s point that a state must provide an appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons? No. Classical discussion of government is based upon a unique opportunity for the study of different modes of government. Greece was divided into city states, a person could travel from one city to another, and in the space of a few years observe many different kinds of government, and see, in the course of a lifetime what caused their rise and what caused their fall. This unique opportunity, taken advantage of by the Greeks and nicely summarized in his “Of the Commonwealth” by Cicero has provided much of the basis of our own government. One that has been remarkably successful.

To ignore the idea that an appropriate guarantee of the welfare of the commons is necessary for social stability in a highly urbanized state is unsafe. The history of the nineteenth and twentieth century clearly prove this. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century created a highly urbanized population with no guarantee of welfare for the commons.

Working conditions were inhumane to a point that is inconceivable in our day, except in the prison camps of dictators. This led to a revolt, on the part of both the intellectuals and the masses. Communism and Socialism were born, and the history of the twentieth century has been entirely forged by the struggle with these forces. Hitler was an anticommunist dictator, without the threat of communism, he might well have never risen to power. Stalin and Mao, responsible for the deaths of more than 50 millions between them were communist dictators.

Like the tyrants of ancient Rome, these dictators came to power by promising the people bread, regardless of whether they earned it or not.

The history of the twentieth century clearly confirms that if an appropriate guarantee of the welfare of the commons is not provided to a highly urbanized population, that population will revolt when times get bad, usually placing a dictator in charge. We cannot ignore the need for an appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons.

If our Founding Fathers were today to descend from the heavens in which I am confident they reside, and be apprised of the history of communism and the history of the twentieth century, they who modeled the United States so closely upon classical government theory would immediately recognize that an appropriate guarantee for the welfare of the commons was needed. Yet, they did not slavishly follow the model of Rome when they laid out the foundation of our government, and they would not slavishly follow it in this instance.

Instead, they would debate on what was truly appropriate to a democratic nation. A guarantee of bread, absolutely necessary, but bread without work, absolutely not. Having themselves fought the British Crown for the right to work guaranteed by the frontier when it was violated, they would be willing to, and almost certainly recognize the necessity of guaranteeing bread to those willing to work for it.

The Constitution was written at a time of national emergency. The authors addressed the problems confronting them in their day, and so far as work was concerned they faced a shortage not an excess of labor.

Adam Smith addressed these economic conditions in “The Wealth of Nations” published in 1776.

“The labour of each child, before it can leave their house, is computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them. A young widow with four or five young children, who, among the middling or inferior ranks of people in Europe, would have so little chance for a second husband, is there frequently courted as a sort of fortune. The value of children is the greatest of all encouragements to marriage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the people in North America should generally marry very young. Notwithstanding the great increase occasioned by such early marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of hands in North America. The demand for labourers, the funds destined for maintaining them, increase, it seems, still faster than they can find labourers to employ.”

The vast frontier provided an endless source of property for new farms and new industry which simply could not be exhausted in the foreseeable future. So while a right to work would have been theoretically familiar to the Founding Fathers from their knowledge of political philosophy, it would not have been a problem they felt a need to address in their foreseeable future. Other more pressing problems like a huge national debt to foreign nations, a failure to have a unified foreign policy, the shortage of labour itself, and the growing movement to abolish slavery were all much more pressing affairs for them to deal with. Still, knowing what they knew, being well schooled in the history of political philosophy, and largely guided by the works of men like Locke and Smith, if they saw the conditions prevailing today, a right to work proposal would very probably seem to them nothing less than an obvious necessity.

The Right to Work has been proposed as the solution to poverty by a fairly unanimous consensus of the greatest lights of political philosophy throughout history. It has been classified as different in kind from guarantees of material welfare or socialist rights from the very beginnings of the body of political philosophy on which our system of government is based. Solon of Athens made a law excepting children who were not taught a trade by their parents from any legal requirement to provide support for their parents. This was a law designed to ensure that all Citizens had a trade with which to earn a living. He also made laws helping to recreate and secure in their Citizenship the farming middle class. Aristotle as shown by the quote at the beginning of this section suggested similar measures. The Greek City States and Rome attempted to provide employment through grants of land. Though frequently critical of each other in other issues, on this issue the political philosophers who have made the most significant and lasting contributions on which our system of government is built generally agree. This policy was followed during the history of the US during the entire period of the existence of the Frontier.

People are the product of evolution. If you provide a guarantee of opportunity roughly equal to that guaranteed to a hunter/gatherer by nature, they will be content and not revolt. If you provide a guarantee of bread without work, they will become a political mob, and seek more and more for less and less eventually setting the tyrant who promises the most in charge. If you refuse to provide any guarantee at all, they will revolt, and again probably raise up a tyrant to set over them.

Only by providing a guarantee of opportunity roughly equivalent to that in nature, only by providing a guaranteed right to work can you defend yourself from eventual tyranny.

A right to work is like a plow, appropriate to the husbandry of a free and democratic republic. Socialist rights, bread and circuses, are like a sword, a sword that tyrants will use to slay liberty and destroy the republic. If a right to work is not implemented, and left laying unused in the field, then in times of trouble, tyrants will arise, and using the promise of bread like a sword will slay our sacred liberty and destroy our republic.

Going from the welfare system to a right to work is like beating the swords of tyrants into the plowshares of liberty and self reliance.

The right to work is a necessary right, one that must be implemented, protected, and indeed guaranteed if our democratic republic is to survive.

5) BIBLICAL LAW

It is apparent to the reason of the faithful that all natural rights must have been provided for in ancient Israel by God, for he is a loving Father and would not deny his Chosen People that necessary for their needs. Thus, God must have provided for the right to work of those in Israel who would otherwise have been deprived of it. Israel was a land of milk and honey, for most able bodied men, the opportunity to work was guaranteed by being farmers, shepherds, etc. There were, however, the strangers, the homeless and the poor, who being unable to work for their own food on their own land were provided for thusly:

Leviticus 19:9 And when ye reap the harvest of your land thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am the Lord your God.

By making this law, God provided to the poor of Israel a guarantee of the right to work almost exactly the same as was guaranteed a hunter/gatherer in a natural state. Nature and man having been created by God.

He did not say, gather the gleanings of the fields and carry them to the poor where they sit idle and jobless and watch them trade the gleanings for drugs. He said to leave the gleanings in the field, and let the poor gather them with the labor of their own hands.

Even in the Garden of Eden man had a job to do.

Genesis 2:15

There are other provisions for charity in the Bible for those who are in need. This was Gods provision for the welfare of the able bodied poor. Give them the right to gather their own food. God knew that work was as necessary to men who he had created as food, and that food earned by effort is better for the man than that received without work.

The right to work is indeed the law of God, not bread and circuses, not welfare, but the right to work. The taxes paid to guarantee such a right are the gleanings from the fields of the taxpayers. They are an investment in the continued stability of the Social Contract which is a necessary guarantee of all legitimate property rights. Above all the Wealthy should be, as Aristotle pointed out, concerned with guaranteeing such a right.

SUMMARY

I hope that I have plausibly demonstrated the five points I set out in the beginning that 1) the right to work is appropriate to a democracy and that while in some forms might be a socialist right, in other forms it is a democratic right and not socialist, 2) the right to work is a natural right of mankind of the type specified in the Declaration of Independence akin to the right to life and liberty, 3) the right to work is a traditional American right, that infringement of the natural guarantees of that right was one of the complaints of the Founding Fathers against the British Crown and one of the causes of the Revolutionary War and that in one form or another that natural right has been traditionally exercised by American Citizens for most of our nations history, 4) the right to work is a necessary right, i.e. a right that must be guaranteed for the continuance of liberty and the republic, and 5) that the right to work is fulfillment of Biblical Law.

These things having been demonstrated, it should be clear to all that an appropriate guarantee of the right to work is necessary for our future.