On Labor Day, we should praise employers as well as workers. In our economy employers make much of our labor possible by paying us wages. They make it more productive by arranging its structure most efficiently. They make it more forward looking by coming up with ideas for the next new product and service and by supplying the capital to get these ideas off the ground.
Yet many fail to acknowledge what a deeply moral act employing someone else in productive, legal work can be. By giving someone a job, an employer is not only providing a wage, but a framework of discipline and often a satisfying life that not everyone can provide for themselves. And large employers, like Walmart, do most of all by employing millions and creating paths for career advancement that would not otherwise exist.
In contrast, most of the shrill critics of companies like Walmart are academics and others who have never employed anyone except perhaps a nanny. They have done little to put bread on the table of their fellow man or set the less well off on a trajectory to a more ample livelihood.
