Liberatory Values in Business, Pt. 1: Pay Your Team Well

When we consider how we can incorporate liberatory values in our businesses, the first step is to look within. Start with you and your team.

Yes, this runs contrary to what our culture obsesses over: making a BIG impact.

We’ve been trained to think that our one extraordinary idea has the power to change the world. We’ve been taught that making an impact is about accumulating individual wealth and power first.

Our world is in such dire need of help that it’s understandable why humans want to be ambitious. The idea that a truly outstanding idea or person can change the world is alluring. That we can just flip a switch and make everything better.

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. The way to do that is collective action.

In order to achieve that, we need a greater awareness of class consciousness.

We need to understand that achieving what our society deems as “success”—accumulating wealth—through our current system doesn’t make us the savior. It makes us the oppressor.

If we truly want to build a better world, we need to do what we can to shift culture, locally. To redefine what success means. To untether it from the pursuit of profit above all.

Businesses have been a major source of exploitation in our society for a long time now. (That doesn't have to be the case, however.) We can choose to do things differently.

We can identify patterns of oppression within our own organizations and root them out.

Where do you start? With wages.

We live in a society where wage labor exists. There’s no two ways about it. As long as that’s the case, we should make sure that we’re paying people more than a fair wage.

The exploitation of labor is a key characteristic of capitalism. One of the most counter-cultural things we can do to resist is to make sure it’s not happening in our businesses.

We will not engage in the exploitation of labor.

We need to pay ourselves and our team more than a living wage. (For those in the US, consult the MIT Living Wage Calculator.) I emphasize more because a living wage doesn't even include money for eating out, entertainment, and vacations.

Everyone deserves access to leisure.

As calculated, the living wage estimate accounts for the basic needs of a family. The living wage model does not include funds that cover what many may consider as necessities enjoyed by many Americans. The tool does not include funds for pre-prepared meals or those eaten in restaurants. We do not add funds for entertainment, nor do we incorporate leisure time for unpaid vacations or holidays.

Source: About the Living Wage Calculator

Fair pay is just one consideration. We can go further in acknowledging people’s work.

Profit is the fruit of everyone’s labor within an organization. Why not share it?

Time is even more precious than money. Give people more paid leave. Holidays. Mental health days. Sick days and parental leave. Sabbaticals.

Treat people like human beings, not machines.

It’s not easy.

Individuals can’t solve systemic problems. I want to name that truth.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do what we can to disrupt oppressive structures where we can.

In an ideal world, things would start at the top.

Huge multinational corporations have no excuse not to pay a living wage to all its employees. Frankly, it’s not even about the size of an organization. Any company where those at the top are earning a substantial salary while other workers are barely scraping by is perpetuating exploitation.

There’s nuance here, of course.

Reality is messy. Individually, we’re all dealing with mountains of pressure and stress.

The journey to building a business that is aligned with our collective liberation is not a straight line.

Most of us do not own big corporations.

When it comes to many small business owners, finances can be more complicated. People are just trying to survive in many cases.

Paying people a living wage might not be possible now.

There’s room for grace. There’s no point in shaming people who are trying to survive.

But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be the goal. That we are absolved of responsibility. That we leave it off the roadmap.

Reality doesn’t excuse any exploitation that’s happening… but getting to where we want to be can take time. Multiple truths can exist.

We can acknowledge people’s intentions in trying to make things better, one small step at a time.

Agitating for change is a choice. Keeping things the way they are is ALSO a choice.

The status quo is not inevitable. We can say no.

We can challenge social norms. We can question why things are. We can begin to create new norms. Shape the future.

As a culture, we value businesses more than we do human beings. Is that right?

• Why should businesses that do harm exist?

• Why should businesses have more legal protections than human beings?

• Why should people exist to serve businesses? Why should businesses exist to serve people?

For those of us who want to make a difference in the world, it’s essential for us to remember that our businesses can never serve a higher purpose if it's exploiting the very people that are the reason for its very existence.


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