Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

a) Finding a Company Wage
Since every company is in competition, one must hold fast on the company level to the principle
of equal pay for equal work. The individual outputs of individual workers, however, as
well as the demands and difficulties of different kinds of work are in no way equal. Those
employed are also very distinct in terms of training, position, and responsibility. There are
unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled workers, foremen and masters, middle and upper management,
and so on. These differences must be considered in arriving at a commercial wage.
The forms of wages common today, however, strive not only for a recompense commensurate
with the work, but also for a labor output as favorable as possible to the company in question.
Along with the time wage still prevalent today in the Federal Republic of Germany, the
amount of which results from the classification into wage groups according to the agreed
wage scale, incentive pay is gaining an ever greater importance (piece-work wages according
to the Refa system and bonus wages). Even if, from the standpoint of wage justice, one cannot
advance any objections in principle against reasonable forms of incentive pay, the dangers of
the new methods of compensation must nevertheless be considered. Investigations have
shown that, above all, difficulties in the calculation of wages, the greater burden owing to
scientifically established piece-work rates, and the incentives lying in the Refa System often
lead to personal discontent on the part of the workers, especially among women, as well as to
social tensions even among the employees themselves with respect to the ‘overachievers’, for
example, or between time-workers and piece-workers.
b) Distribution between Capital and Labor
Arriving at a wage within a given company already presupposes a macroeconomic distribution
between capital and labor. The attempt to attribute to both factors fixed shares in the social
product on the basis of their performances is doomed to failure, since it is impossible to
separate out the shares of the contributing factors by causal analysis. It is not the causal, but
the final mode of consideration that leads to the goal. Here it is to be noted that, on the one
hand, wages mean buying power, which renders possible the marketing of goods produced by
the entrepreneurs, but that, on the other hand, wages also represent expenses for the entrepreneurs.
In this connection, the encyclical Quadragesimo anno emphasized in l93l that „it would
be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent
calamity to the workers“(n.72).
On the other hand, the encyclical Mater et magistra calls attention to „the system of selffinancing
adopted in many countries by large, or comparatively large firms. Because these
companies are financing replacement and plant expansion out of their own profits, they grow
at a very rapid rate. In such cases we believed that the workers should be allocated shares in
the firms for which they work, especially when they are paid no more than the minimum
wage“ (n.75). In spite of rising labor costs and social contributions and in spite of high taxes,
entrepreneurs in the Federal Republic of Germany have, since the monetary reform, actually
had considerable profits left over.
Even if wage rates in the advanced industrial states are slowly rising, the distribution of the
social product between capital and labor can nevertheless not be considered as satisfactory.
The share in the social product that falls to the non-self-employed can only be substantially
raised when employees are prepared to see in their income, not only spending money, but also
a source of capital formation.
c) Distribution between the Three Sectors
The conditions in the developed industrial societies show ever more clearly that the question
about the right wage concerns not only capital and labor, but is gaining increasing importance
for the three sectors of modern economic society also. The balance between the labor-
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