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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: FR. JOHN A. RYAN AND THE MINIMUM WAGE MOVEMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2011

J. DANIEL HAMMOND
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Abstract

Fr. John A. Ryan (1869–1945) was one of the early advocates of minimum wage laws in the United States. The thesis of this paper is that in three respects Fr. Ryan stood apart from other advocates of the minimum wage. First, during the period of his work, economics was developing on the basis of the positivist conception of science. Fr. Ryan’s case for the minimum wage combined economics with “non-scientific” theology and philosophy. Second, most religiously motivated American reformers were Protestants, and their advocacy was grounded in the Protestant Social Gospel movement. This was different from Fr. Ryan’s grounding in the social encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI, which themselves were grounded in the Catholic Church’s constant teaching that man is made in the image of God. Third, many reformers were motivated not at all by religion, but by the utilitarian calculus that had become the foundation of the social sciences. Although Fr. Ryan made utilitarian judgments in his analysis, he was not an ethical utilitarian.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 449 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2011

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