미국 생활임금 논의 재고찰

Reconsidering the Discourse on the Living Wage in America: Could the human centered wage labor possible?

When the living wage movement emerged in the late 19th century in response to an increasingly market-oriented country wherein the Republican values still prevailed, it expressed the transformation of 19th century republican into 20th century industrial America. They living wage advocates merged wage labor with citizenship, abandoning the view that hey were incompatible. They promoted consumption not as a site of embourgeoisment but as a locus of political power. Therefore, the living wage enabled workers to reground a republican morality in the modern world of the wage labor economy. While ownership and production were the sure sign of citizenship, living wage advocates reconstructed citizenship around high wages and consumption. The living wage did not merely reflect economic concerns but also built on a link between material and political well-being. However, while the living wage legacy lingered on the minimum wage movement, by the 1930s, the liberating vision of the living wage all disappeared.