IV. _The social argument_: it is for the common good that the average employee should be paid a living wage. And since the Consuming Class is merely the body politic, from one point of view, it is bound to sacrifice the advantage of cheap buying for the sake of the rounded advantage of the whole. I. We have explained briefly to what every employee has a right--that is to say, what every employer must give his workmen, or commit injustice. We have assumed, further, that the employee often does not get what he has a right to have. Now, this is not always the employer's fault. Often an employer would be glad to raise wages, to improve sanitary conditions, to shorten hours, but the stress of competition prevents him. But the employer being unable or unwilling to pay a proper wage, etc., what becomes of the employee's right? Does it cease? Has he no claim upon anyone else? Those who would fix an obligation on the Consuming Class say that the employee's right does not cease. He has a claim, they contend, upon all who in any way benefit by his labor, the strength of the claim depending upon the closeness of the relationship, the importance of the benefit derived, and the injustice suffered. First of all, they point out, there is the rent-taker. But for the labor of these men (assumed to be underpaid, etc.), there would be no return out of which to pay rent. For the mere fact of ownership, which in itself may not stand for any addition to the ground's productive capacity, these men are allowed to take a part at least of what would be necessary to raise the condition of the men producing the wealth to a just standard. Therefore, because the rent-taker seems to receive the most gratuitous benefit from the employee, the duty of the employer devolves first upon him. If the employer fail, wilfully or not, to fulfill his duties to his men, then they become binding upon the rent-taker. Should he, too, fail, the laborer still has a claim. There is another very important sharer in distribution--the interest-taker. It is true that the product is the joint result of labor and capital. But when there is the case of anonymous, impersonal capital receiving interest, and living, breathing, human machines being under-fed and unprotected, then humanity's claims supersede those of capital.[9] The inalienable rights of the laborer, which Cardinal Capecelatro has so excellently summarized, replace the alienable rights of the individual capitalists based upon the mere possession of property. The interest-taker is bound to give even the whole of his share to maintain a just standard of wages, etc. And this principle is admitted in civil law by making wages a first lien upon the product and exempting wages from legal action.[10]