No industrial right is absolute. They are all conditioned by the possibilities of the industrial system, and by the desires, capacities, and actions of the persons who enter into industrial relations with one another. As we shall see later, this statement is true even of the right to a living wage. When the industrial resources are adequate, all persons of average ability who contribute a reasonable amount of labour to the productive process have a right to a decent livelihood on two conditions: first, that such labour is their only means of sustenance; and, second, that their labour is economically indispensable to those who utilise it or its product. "Economically indispensable" means that the beneficiary of the labour would rather give the equivalent of a decent livelihood for it than go without it. While both these conditions are apparently fulfilled in the case of the great majority of wage earners, they are only rarely realised with regard to business men. In most instances the business man who is unable to make living profits could become an employé, and thus convert his right to a decent livelihood into a right to a living wage. Even when no such alternative is open to him, he cannot claim a strict right to living profits, for the second condition stated above remains unfulfilled. The consuming public does not regard the business function of such men as economically indispensable. Rather than pay the higher prices necessary to provide living profits for the inefficient business men, consumers will transfer their patronage to the efficient competitors. Should the retail grocer, for example, raise his prices in the effort to get living profits, his sales would fall off to such an extent as to reduce his profits still lower. While the consumers may be willing to fulfil their obligation of furnishing living profits for all necessary grocers, they are not willing, nor are they morally bound, to do so in the case of grocers whose inability to command sufficient patronage at remunerative prices shows that they are not necessary to the community. The consuming public does not want to employ such business men at such a cost. Nor is the State under obligation to ensure living profits for all business men. To carry out such a policy, either by enforcing a sufficiently high level of prices, or by subsidising those who fail to obtain living profits, would be to compel the public to support inefficiency.