In whose name are we giving a cup of water?

I have been pondering the legislation the governor of Texas just signed into law prohibiting localities from mandating water breaks for outdoor workers like construction workers. He signed this into law while his entire state is suffering from triple digit heat.

On one hand, there should be no need to mandate this because a business owner who would subject workers to that kind of heat and not encourage them to hydrate is a foolish business person. It is not good for your bottom line to you have your workers dropping like flies due to heat stroke. I don't think it would be too strong to call that stupid.

On the other hand this legislation seems to me to be antithetical to the teaching of Jesus who talked about giving a cup of cold water in his name. People who claim to follow him, as the governor does, demonstrate the opposite when they deny a cup of cold water to someone. Georgia has the same problem with this idea that you cannot pass out water bottles when people are in line to vote. This is just despicable.

The bottom line is if you do not mandate water breaks in this kind of heat you are sending the message to workers that they are just a piece of human machinery. Karl Marx said that in crafts the worker makes use of a tool. In capitalism the worker is a tool. This legislation treats workers as though they are objects instead of subjects. It operates on the intellectual premise that that workers are chattel. It dehumanizes them.

I grew up in the evangelical tradition. I remember in my youth hearing things proclaimed from the pulpit like "Capitalism (and conservatism, and/or the Republican Party) is based on a spiritual view of life. Socialism (Marxism, and/or the Democratic Party) is based on a materialistic view of life. " I did not really question this until I went to seminary myself. But as a mature theological thinker I have concluded the exact opposite of this is true.

In the past year I have spent a good deal of time reading Karl Marx for myself. I have read The Communist Manifesto, and Das Kapital. I imagine I have read about 1000 pages of what Marx actually said. I have come to believe the world has never seen Marxism in action. Remember, Marx was a German who lived in Britain. He died in 1883, a full 34 years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. He never lived in Russia. Josef Stalin was only 5 years old when Marx died. I believe Stalin falsely laid claim to the vision of Marx, much as today's religious right has falsely laid claim to the vision of Jesus. Marx did not envision the state owning everything. His vision was for WORKERS to control the means of production. I have come away from my reading believing the best version of Marxism is employee-owned companies.

In Marx's day the average workday in a factory was 12 hours. And after roughly 6 hours, a worker had produced enough value to cover their own wages and the production costs for what work they did, for the entire day. So for the remaining six hours the worker worked solely for the enrichment of the capitalist. This is why he suggested that in capitalism the worker is a tool. I think he was correct. And one result of this is, the more productive a worker is, the less per unit the labor cost to the employer. Marx called this "surplus value," which is not totally identical to, but is roughly equivalent to, profit. By the time profits are made, that is free money to the capitalist. The capitalist, said Marx, never pays anything at all for labor because the productivity of the laborer pays the cost of labor. I think the entirety of what bothered Marx could be boiled down to this idea of "surplus value."

For the life of me, I do not see anything contradictory to Christianity in what I have read.

Like I said, it would be stupid for a business owner to send workers into triple digit heat and not require them to hydrate. But if they do require water breaks they do not get any moral credit for that anyway if their reasoning is still one of treating the worker like an object instead of a subject. A wise worker will take good care of their tools. But when you are having your workers take a water break for reasons of productivity instead of just for reasons of their humanity, you are still treating that worker like they are only a tool. This is an inherent feature of capitalism and is why capitalism is fundamentally immoral.

My mentor, Elton Trueblood, wrote about the importance of Jesus' call to offer a cup of cold water in his name. He said it's not enough to merely offer the water, we need to tell the personal why. I'm not sure I totally agree. I do think sometimes offering someone a cup of water as a humanitarian thing apart from any attempt at evangelization still has value. But I am sure Trueblood was right on one level. Denying someone a cup of cold water, especially in triple digit heat, is a pretty clear indication that you do not respect the image of God in that person at all. If the primary reason for giving a water break is because it is good for business, you certainly are not offering that cup of water in Jesus name. You are offering it in the name of the almighty dollar.