Wage discrimination occurs where people are paid different rates for the same job. In an open market this would not be possible but if there is a monopsonist- a single buyer of labor- then 'surplus value' (i.e. the difference between what one is paid and what would one have accepted) is extracted from the worker by the employer.
Wage discrimination is unfair. It is a 'market failure' caused by local monopoly power. There generally are laws against it- more especially if the thing is done on the basis of race or gender. Yet, we find it in the Bible. A landowner hires labor at the beginning of the day for a penny. Later he finds he needs more help and hires more people for a penny. But these guys are working shorter hours. Their pro rata wage is higher. Finally the gets in some extra workers at one penny so as to bring in all of the harvest. The workers who had toiled all day should, clearly, be paid more because the per hour wage rate increased. This caused 'marginal' workers to take up employment. Wage should be equated with marginal product. Clearly, the 'rate for the job' is what the per hour rate for the last hired.
The landowner however will only pay what he promised. He says ': ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.’
What will happen next year when this dude needs to hire laborers? Nobody will join work at the beginning of the day because they believe he will be bound to raise the rate so as to save his harvest. His sharp practice will end up costing him dearly.
John Ruskin, who was stupid and mad, wrote a silly book called 'Unto this Last' where he suggested that if employers pretended they lurved their workers and were shedding their blood for them, then maybe the workers would work for free or even pay for the privilege.
Gandhi was given Ruskin's worthless book by a White Missionary who may not have known that Ruskin and Carlyle (another Guru of Gandhi's) had supported Governor Eyre whose reign of terror in Jamaica had rolled back the civil and political rights of 'colored' people. I may mention that Kamala Harris's paternal family was radicalized by this. But Indians too were dismayed that Eyre was not indicted and put on trial in England. Thus they turned their backs on Eyre's defenders- Ruskin, Carlyle, Tennyson, Dickens- and embraced his opponents- Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley & 'Harbhat Pendse' (Herbert Spencer who became hugely popular in Maharashtra). Gandhi, cretin that he was, chose the opposite side- though, to be fair, this was because he was stupid and ignorant rather than vicious or (like Ruskin & Carlyle) a wanker who couldn't even consummate his marriage.
Phiroze Vasunia, a Classicist, observes 'We might surmise that, with his paraphrase of the Apology, Gandhi retains the ambiguity in Ruskin’s title and interprets it not just in the terms of equal pay to all workers but also in the terms of a principled commitment to be upheld to the very end of one’s life, that is, unto the last or unto death. Gandhi is certainly aware of the Biblical significance of the phrase and observes in his version of Unto This Last that he employs the title Sarvodaya, rather than a literal translation, since the expression from the New Testament will ‘be understood only by a person who has read the Bible in English’
The problem here is that the Biblical story- which is about how if you convert you get everything in the next world more virtuous converts of longer standing get- describes an unfair practice in this world by which workers getting shafted now by a stupid landowner practicing wage discrimination who does not realize that he's going to lose much more money than he gained by this sharp practice the very next year.
God's economy is different. Paradise is entirely a gift which is not earned in any way. You can give a gift to anybody you please. If you contract for labor and there is an asymmetry of power then if the reward is unequal, the contract may be considered unconscionable and set aside.
In Jewish law, the hired worker (poel) though considered a 'day-laborer', is actually paid by the hour. If he started work in the morning, he may quit at mid day. There is a strict obligation to pay him fully before sunset. Local custom can override a verbal agreement if that is more equitable to the weaker party. Now, it is true, in the parable, the landowner presents himself as gratuitously rewarding the last hired workers. He is saying 'I said I'd pay them fairly but did not specify any fixed sum as I did with you who came to work at the beginning of the day. Maybe I've erred by overpaying the late-comers- but that is my business'. The problem here is that the 'custom of the land' might be that 'the fair payment' is the best pro-rata rate- i.e the wage should equal the marginal product. This is because this is the 'repeated game' solution. If it is not enforced, then workers won't start work at the beginning of the day, hoping to get higher pay later on as the employer becomes desperate. This would cause 'market failure'. Uncertainty would have increased. Laws exist so as to prevent this sort of coordination breakdown.
Why does this parable feature in the Gospel? The very next passage concerns Lord Jesus predicting his own horrific death which was meant to humiliate his flock who would endure much persecution before Rome itself became the citadel for Christ's Church. In other words, put up with horrendous unfairness in this world so as to reap a big reward in the world to come.
Gandhi appears to be saying 'the meaning is we must first concern ourselves with the weakest and most vulnerable.' But this means being obedient to those above you and asking them to reward not you but those who are poorest. The people at the top get the reputational benefit of the self-sacrifice of the middling sort while those at the bottom gain by becoming more productive. If they too show the same self-sacrificing spirit, then Thrones and Palaces become safer and more luxurious. Ruskin, of course, was a great believer in the Empire. He'd have been delighted if a little brown barrister had actually taken up his creed. Sadly, the Tatas- who are Parsis as I imagine is Vasunia- gave Gandhi lots of money to organize the Indian workers in South Africa. So he didn't end up serving the Whites, as Ruskin would have wanted, but Gujarati and Marwari and Jain businessmen in India. He was a good and faithful servant to them. But he was a crackpot. Still, it must be said, the Gujerati contribution to Indian National Politics has tended to be good and wholesome. At any rate, Modi & Shah have made it appear so. Morarji Desai, on the other hand, was an unmitigated disaster. I look forward to Vasunia discovering the influence of Socrates or Heraclitus on that urine drinking shithead.
This is how Vasunia concludes his little essay on Gandhi & Socrates. 'Many of Gandhi’s interlocutors, opponents, and gaolers would have had a far deeper knowledge than Gandhi of Plato’s Greek and a more wide-ranging familiarity with Plato’s dialogues (and, for that matter, of Ruskin’s work). Gandhi could not read classical Greek. But it was he, and not they, who perceived the transformative potential of the Apology in an English translation of the Victorian period and who thereby came to a better understanding of satyagraha, the truth-force that brought an Empire to its knees'
The Empire was brought to its knees on three different occasions
1) After the first world war, Britain was reliant on Indian troops in the MENA. It was losing to both the Bolsheviks and then the Turks. Ireland was in flames. Egypt was in a similar condition. Afghanistan, though losing the third War, could not be occupied. The head of the British Army, Sir Henry Wilson titled his speech to the War College- in 1921- 'the end of Empire'. Britain didn't have the troops or the money to hold India or Egypt or Ireland or even- if there was a Bolshevik threat- England itself. Thankfully, Gandhi surrendered early in the next year so India did not get what Ireland and Egypt and Afghanistan got. I suppose this suited his financiers. Consider the case of Ghanshyam Das Birla. As a young man he'd had to go into hiding fearing getting caught up in the Roda cartridge case- i.e. being sent to prison for contact with Revolutionaries. Supporting Gandhi financially helped Birla gain respectability and the friendship of Tegart- the Police Commissioner who had slaughtered the Jugantar revolutionaries. After retirement Tegart became a director of Birla's holding company in London. Birla himself did very well both under the Raj and much more so in independent India.
2) After the Wall Street Crash when Labor had once again come to power. Even the Tories admitted that India had to be placated. Thankfully Gandhi completely screwed everything up and managed to unite everybody against the Congress at the Second Round Table Conference. Still, his financiers got the Modi-Lee agreement while the Brits got to unilaterally dictate the pace and scope of the transfer of power.
3) After the fall of Singapore. Gandhi's stupidity was the 'Day of Deliverance' for the Muslim League. Quit India failed completely. Gandhi had become irrelevant save in so far as he could still collect money and blackmail his acolytes. Then a Hindu shot him- the fucker kept promising to fast to death but seemed set to live for ever, unlike Socrates whose 'practicing death' involved actually dying- and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. True some Chitpavan Brahmins were massacred in revenge but nobody really liked them.
Gujeratis- Gandhi & Jinnah- had done their best and the outcome was the worst possible one. Not till Modi became P.M did Indians lose their prejudice against the smug, sanctimonious Gujju who might suddenly start babbling about Socrates or urine drinking or some other such shit.
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