We have now considered the arguments advanced to prove that justice binds the Consuming Class to see to it that goods are made under fair terms. These arguments may be summarized as follows:
I. Because as indirect employers the Consuming Class are bound to maintain just conditions for those whom they indirectly employ.
II. Because as buyers the Consuming Class are first bound to pay the full value of the article, which must include sufficient to give the persons employed in its manufacture and distribution a living wage, etc.; and secondly, because the Consuming Class are bound not to buy an article to which the seller has not a just title, the seller of an article made under unjust conditions not having a just title since there is work in the object for which he has not paid.
III. Because the Consuming Class would co-operate in an injustice in three ways: (A) by receiving the goods made under unjust conditions; (B) by furnishing the means for committing the injustice; (C) by urging such production by this practical financial support.
IV. Because the Consuming Class are bound to seek the social good, and that demands the payment of fair wages.
II
So far we have considered only the arguments for an obligation of justice on the part of the Consuming Class. But may there not also be a duty of charity?
Certain general considerations relating to this second of the two greatest commandments, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," must be referred to before answering that question.
The precept of charity requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And by the term neighbor we mean everyone. No religion, "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" removes a man from the category of our neighbor. A Christian's love must be all embracing. T. H. Green has well said that progress in civilization has been an enlargement of the meaning of neighbor and neighborliness. The meaning of these terms, once confined to one's relatives, then extended to one's city, tribe, nation, has now widened out until it embraces the world.