Litany of remembrance for Sunday, September 12

Remembrance for the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001

Leader: Gracious God, in humility we ask your blessings as we remember a day of great violence twenty years ago.

People: You are the everlasting God, whose love extends to all generations. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

We remember with sadness the thousands who died on September 11, 2001, men and women of wealth, blue-collar workers, military members, government employees, airline passengers and crew - all the people who perished in flames and pain.

We are thankful for the bravery of police officers, firefighters and others who selflessly went into danger to rescue the stricken, and lost their lives or suffered injury in their service.

Continue, O Lord, to give comfort to the families of those who died, grace to those who still struggle with anguished memories or the effects of injuries.

May your Spirit rest upon each one who endured that day, and let the assurance of your presence be strong with them always.

We pray for the people of our land and lands far away, who have suffered or died in the wars of the last twenty years.

We pray for our military and their families, who have lost their lives, endured separation and hardship and for many of whom the war will never truly end.

We pray for our enemies as you commanded us to do. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ fall upon everyone who wishes us harm. May we never take your favor for granted, but strive always to abide humbly in your service.

Help us Lord, to love our enemies and do good to them.

Guide us, O Holy One, to be a nation of holy people. We confess we are not at peace among ourselves or with many peoples across the globe. Lead us of your Churches to move on to Christian perfection in this life. 

We renew our commitment to live as faithful disciples of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and we renew our obligation to you to lead others to do so also. 

We repent of our sins and pledge to devote ourselves to your Kingdom above all. 

Let there be peace on the earth, O Lord, and let it begin within us and by us starting this day.

Hear us now as we pray together the prayer that our Savior taught us:

Our Father, who are in heaven ... .

Karl Marx on the fundamental error of the $15 minimum wage

Consider:

What Ms. Cash is saying is that she thinks that the amount of work she does must determine the wage she is paid. But not even Karl Marx thought that! In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - The Process of Capitalist Production, Marx gave this explanation:

Karl Marx

Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. ... 

... The labour time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. 

[Following is the key point:] 

The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour's social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.

What Marx was saying is that as efficiencies of production increase per unit of time, the value of the labor of the "old" production correspondingly decreases. When powered looms in England doubled the rate of production, the labor value of the prior manual production decreased by half.  

What Ms. Cash and her allies need to understand is what needs to be be said over and over: the actual, real-world minimum wage is $0.00. 

When she gets a raise to $15 per hour she will not increase her production of product. When McDonalds figures out that her work can be automated - as has already happened with electronic ordering kiosks replacing human order takers - the wage value of her work will go down, not up. And she should not be surprised when her wage then drops to zero because her old job is being done by a smart machine for an amortized "wage" of less than $15 per hour.