| ▲ | Cyph0n an hour ago | |
Did religious edict also eliminate child labor, give us more humane working hours, and establish labor laws? Or was that because of unions? | ||
| ▲ | BoxOfRain 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | |
Both, actually! Nonconformist Christianity was one of several key influences on the labour movement ideologically speaking. At least in the UK the Labour Party is often said to owe more to Methodism than Marx for its original ideological foundations. There's a long history of this, in the aftermath of the English Civil War a group called the Diggers more or less independently invented agrarian socialism out of the New Testament, and a great deal of calls for humane conditions for workers over the centuries were motivated explicitly by Christian teachings. The New Testament is pretty clear in its condemnation of repressing workers, James 5 for example: > Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. This isn't an exclusive or situation, nonconformist religious influence helped create the ideological environment that allowed unions to exist in the first place. | ||
| ▲ | dotancohen 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
Deuteronomy 24:14-15 says not to oppress a poor hired worker and requires his wages to be paid the same day, before sunset. | ||
| ▲ | dotancohen 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | |
No. I answered one incorrect statement. Why try to pile the world on a single statement. | ||