Question No. 1
Obviously, worker protections have come a long way since the days when young children were working twelve hours a day, six days a week, in Dickensian factories. However, the simple fact is that there are too many people who are still struggling to make ends meet, working at wages that are going to keep them in poverty. If a company is going to employ people at low wages, it should not compound the damage by giving them working conditions that are harsh and unfair. The theory of virtue ethics is one that justifies not only the passage of the terms that are still under consideration but also the idea of predictable and fair scheduling for workers, so they have an idea when they will be working from one week to the next.
When Upton Sinclair wrote his book The Jungle regarding the meatpacking industry in Chicago around the dawn of the twentieth century, it was fairly clear that the aim of the meatpacking plant owners was to chew up as many of the immigrant workers as they could and then spit them out to take in the next rubes off the boat. Wages were microscopic, and the companies were in league with swindlers who signed the new immigrants up for mortgages that started out with reasonable payments but would soon balloon well past what the immigrants could afford on those meager wages and lead to foreclosure – all on documents written in English that the immigrants could not understand. The outrage from The Jungle led to the formation and the success of many of the nation’s first labor unions.
Now that the popular tide has largely turned against unions, though, a lot of employers are trying to get as much as they can out of people without investing in those workers more than they absolutely have to. So you have managers waiting until the last minute to schedule employees for the next week of work – and only scheduling a week at a time. They often mix employees up from one shift to another, which is a real inconvenience for workers who also have to schedule child care around the shift schedule. When they get sick, those who are part time simply do not get paid; their rest breaks are not long enough to allow them to work well for the rest of their shift. The wages that companies offer are often not equitable between the genders, meaning that there are employees being cheated out of their fair share, even in comparison with what the other people in their company are making.
Here’s the deal – companies that treat their employees well end up with happier workers – and better customer service. Their operations end up running more smoothly, and the higher morale means that the company performs at a higher level. However, some companies still view their employees as assets that are consumable rather than people. The purpose of these rules is to give workers dignity – and quality of life. Some companies already see this and take pains to invest in their employees. Those companies that refuse to do so are not allowing their workers to reach their full potential – which is the whole basis of virtue ethics. Giving people a working environment in which they can build positive habits (called “virtues” in this paradigm) not only makes for a more successful company but is also the most ethical way to operate a business.
Question No. 2
When it comes to figuring out how to divvy up a surplus in the government’s coffers, the libertarian approach would be to send everyone a check for their share (in this case, $350). The idea behind this would be that government should be as uninvolved in the life of the average citizen as possible, and giving the money back would keep that surplus from tempting the government into entering into any unplanned expenditures that would violate the libertarian mandate. After all, a libertarian might argue that the government should not even be operating university systems, and so the tuition and salaries should follow the market rather than have to follow along with some sort of public mandate. The government could then find transportation funding in some other cuts that it would make in other programs that are overstepping the natural boundaries that the government should fill anyway.
The utilitarian approach would attempt to benefit the greater good with the surplus, so it is worth asking what the “greater good” would actually mean in this situation. Would it benefit people more to have that $350 check back in their account, or would it benefit people more to have upgrades in education, transportation and parks? One could argue that giving people the equivalent of what (in many cases) is one months’ car payment is going to do little to push the greater good, at least in comparison to repairing and augmenting the existing transportation infrastructure in the state, as well as improving the education system. Because changing both of this systems with additional revenues would not only improve the experience of people today but would extend into the future, it is arguable that applying the surplus to those causes is more appropriate with a utilitarian view of ethics. After all, upgrading a school not only helps the kids who are there now but also helps those who will come in the next few years, perhaps even for the next couple of generations. That benefit is much greater than helping people make their next car payment with the tax surplus.
The capabilities approach would fall somewhere between the utilitarian and the libertarian approaches to this question. The focus of the capabilities approach is a concern for making sure that opportunities are distributed equitably within a society. As a result, I would take a hybrid approach here – funneling some of the surplus into education and then returning the rest to a “rainy day fund” that would ensure that the increased spending in education would not become the victim of a later deficit in spending. The government is infamous for launching these “unfunded mandates” and also for launching initiatives when the coffers are full but then leaving those initiatives to starve financially when times turn tough once again. This would ensure that spending would remain level, at least in the relatively longer term, just in case something happened to keep the funding from remaining constant from incoming tax revenues. As a result, people who were counting on that funding for their pursuit of opportunity would not suffer from the loss of funding.
Question No. 5
While it is clear that the record of the settlement of North American by people from Europe is one that primarily harmed the Native Americans, and it is also clear that the American people are generally willing to acknowledge that harm and provide accommodations for the Native American tribes today, it is also a certainty that the European settlement, which has now become the countries of the United States and Canada, is not going to “break camp” at any time. In other words, there is no way that the people who are not Native Americans in the United States and Canada are going to pull up their roots, pack their bags, and get back into boats and head back across the Atlantic Ocean to wherever their forebears came from. The way that society has settled itself is going to remain constant, with reservations for those Native Americans that choose to live on them and then the general society for everyone else – and for those Native Americans who do not want to live on the reservations.
All of this raises the question, of course, as to how the people of Minnesota can reach a stasis with the Dakota people that would reflect a fair form of cohabitation. It is true that, in the nineteenth century, the settlers moving west under the fevered cries of “Manifest Destiny” took a great deal of land from the Dakota people, and the weapons (and the diseases) that the settlers brought with them brought a great deal of mortality to the Dakota people as well, leading to what may well be considered a form of genocide.
So how can the Dakota people and those who are not Native Americans live side by side in Minnesota under a patina of justice? One way involves moving toward a mutual cultural understanding. The use of such mascots by the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo shows that, in mainstream society there is a general disrespect toward Native Americans that remains toward this day. If Minnesotans could reach an agreement that such displays would not be a part of any gathering or event in their state, that would be a major first step.
Another step would be to ensure that the facilities available to the Dakota people on their reservation are every bit as modern and up-to-date as their counterparts outside the reservations. This means schools, roads, bridges, water and sewer system – anything linking society together. Without that guarantee, the Dakotas are going to feel like they live in a sort of apartheid that guarantees no one’s dignity.
I agree with Waziyatawin’s assertion that it is necessary to make concrete steps toward creating justice for everyone in Minnesota – both the Native Americans and the descendants of those who settled from across the Atlantic Ocean. First, there is a legacy of discrimination and genocide that needs to be addressed. Without this step, there will continue to be mistrust between the two groups of people. Second, this country has made a priority of ensuring that everyone has access to public amenities (and, more importantly, to dignity) on an equal footing. The country should do no less with the Dakotas than it has with any other group of people. Finally, the fundamental slogans and mottos associated with the United States are all about equality, liberty and freedom. Our ancestors had to run roughshod over a number of Native American tribes, including the Dakotas, to establish this hotbed of equality. It is time to end the lingering irony that this principle has had for the Dakotas.
