Should third-parties tell you how much you should pay your employees?

This is a question I have for the religious community that believes that it is their place to step into the economic arena and blast employers for not paying their employees what the third-party deems sufficient, while religious organizations and churches have a social and moral obligation to care for the less fortunate I do not believe that they have the right to call for boycotts of employers for not being “nicer” to their employees. What prompts this question? None other than my surprise at being mentally assaulted when I stopped in at church the other night to pick up my boys from Faith Weavers, only to find a stack of flyers on the table in the back of our fellowship hall promoting a screening of the so called documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” produced by Brave New Films.

In an email to my pastor I wrote, "I do hope that our congregation is not participating in this Communist backed project to subvert Capitalism and American Business." Yes I said Communist backed for that is exactly what it is, a simple stop at the WalMartMovie.com website clearly has a link to ACTIVISTS and on that page they proudly show all of their supporters to include ACORN, MoveOn.org, and a dozen other communist backed and anti-American groups.

Apparently, these organizations are only concerned about the employees of Wal-Mart and that they are somehow not being paid a living wage, but what is a living wage? The living wage is a fashionable notion that “the wages of a single person will support a family of four,” I don’t know about you, but if that is the case, then I do not make a living wage and I would bet that very few people in my congregation does either. Thomas Sowell addressed this same topic in an essay several months ago in which he asks:

“The question we must ask ourselves is; are people to be paid according to what they ‘need’ or are they to be paid according to what their work is worth?

If their work is not worth enough to pay for what they want, is it up to others to make up the difference, or is it up to them to upgrade their skills in order to earn what they want? Are they supposed to be subsidized by Wal-Mart's customers through higher prices or subsidized by Wal-Mart's stockholders through lower earnings? After all, much of the stock in even a rich company is often owned by pension funds belonging to teachers, policemen and others who are far from rich.”

As a person who invests in his retirement, through my participation in a 401k program as well as other investments, why should I have to expect lower returns on my retirement accounts just so these third-parties can feel better about what Wal-Mart is paying its employees? After all, if their value as employees is worth more than they are being paid, why isn’t some other employer recruiting them? Nor are they enslaved to Wal-Mart for life, many entry-level jobs are a stepping-stone, whether within a given company or as experience that gets them a better job with another company.

I believe that Brave New Films and its alliance have duped the religious community into thinking that they have an “obligation” a “social responsibility” if you will, to speak out against Wal-Mart, for simply being successful and that third parties like themselves should be determining how much somebody else should be paying those who work for them. My answer to that belief: BULLSHIT!