While it is impossible to define with mathematical precision the degree of personal development that is necessary to satisfy the claims of personal dignity, it is entirely practicable to state with sufficient definiteness the minimum conditions of such development. They are that quantity of goods and opportunities which fair-minded men would regard as indispensable to humane, efficient, and reasonable life. The summary description of a decent livelihood at the end of the second last paragraph, would probably be accepted by all men who really believe in the intrinsic worth of personality. _The Claim to a Decent Livelihood from a Present Occupation_ The claim of a worker to a decent livelihood from the goods of the earth does not always imply a strict right to a livelihood from one's present occupation. To demand this would in some circumstances be to demand a livelihood not on reasonable but on unreasonable terms; for the persons in control of the sources could not reasonably be required to provide a decent livelihood. Their failure to do so would not constitute an unreasonable hindrance to the worker's access to the earth in such circumstances. In chapter xvi we saw that not all business men have a strict right to that minimum of profits which is required to yield them a decent livelihood: first, because the direction of industry is not generally the business man's only means of getting a living; second, because the community, the consumers, do not regard the presence and activity of all existing business men as indispensable. Of course, the community is morally bound to pay such prices for goods as will enable all the necessary business men, whether manufacturers or traders, to obtain a decent livelihood in return for their directive functions; but it is not obliged to provide a livelihood for those business men whose presence is not required, who could vanish from the field of industrial direction without affecting either the supply or the price of goods, and whose superfluous character is proved by the fact that they cannot make a livelihood at the prevailing prices. They are in the position of persons whom the community does not desire to employ as business men. In refusing to pay prices sufficiently high to provide these inefficient business men with a decent livelihood, the community is not unreasonably hindering their access to the common goods of the earth. Such men are really demanding a livelihood on unreasonable terms. _The Labourer's Right to a Living Wage_