Cardinal Capecelatro has said that each one has "a right to raise himself towards the infinite, a right to the intellectual nourishment of religion, and, therefore, a right to the time necessary for the worship of God, a right to repose, a right to honest enjoyment, a right to love in marriage, and the life of the home. In woman Christianity recognizes with her function of child-bearing in Christian marriage, a right to the time for the nurture of her children. In children it recognizes a right to the supreme benefit of health, given them by God, but endangered by overmuch work. In young girls it recognizes a right to such moderation in their duties as may assure them health and strength. In all, finally, it acknowledges the immortal soul, with its rights to education, to salvation, to the time that these things need."[5]
Now when Pope Leo and the other authorities quoted used the words "right," "just," "duty," what did they mean? These words are often employed vaguely and carelessly, but we may be sure that here they were taken in a strict and well-defined sense, such as usually found among Catholic ethicists.
A right, as it is thus ordinarily defined, is "a legitimate power of doing or acquiring something for one's own good."[6]
The word power is not taken here in the sense of physical ability. It means that moral potency or capacity without which nothing can be acquired or recovered: for a person may have a right to do what he has not the physical power to perform. "Legitimate" means granted by or conformable to law: hence we have not a right to do everything for which we have the physical power.
Once we get this idea of "right" firmly fixed in our minds, the concepts of "justice," "injustice," and "duty" easily follow. For "justice," in a definition of Ulpian that has been accepted all down the ages since, is simply the constant and perpetual will of giving to each one his right.[7] And injustice, naturally, is merely a voluntary violation of another's right.
A "duty" is simply the obverse of a right, it is the obligation corresponding to a right. Or as Bouquillon put it, it is "something reasonably due from one person to another because of a necessary connection between the end to be attained and the means used."[8] As the end varies between justice and charity, so does the duty. In the one case, our object is to fulfill the precept, "love thy neighbor as thyself"; in the other, to give to each man what he has a right to have.
The fundamental concept of a "right" may be looked at from four points of view: (a) the subject, or who has the right; (b) the matter, or content of the right; (c) the title or reason for the right; (d) and finally, the term, or who has to respect the right.
Asking these questions about the right at present under consideration, we find that the subject of the right is each individual who contributes to the production or distribution of the articles purchased by the Consumer. The content of this right we have already given in the words of Leo XIII and others. Briefly, it may be summarized as the right to a decent living.
On what grounds have employees these rights? By the very fact that they are men; that is, intelligent beings destined for a supernatural end. Therefore these rights are connatural, as belonging to them by their nature; inalienable, because they cannot be renounced; perfect, because so strict that the duties corresponding to them are matters of commutative justice.
And who has the duties corresponding to the workman's right to a decent living? Primarily, the direct employer. He has a strict duty of justice in the matter. If he fulfill it, then no one else is bound. But in the case before us, we assume that the direct employer has failed to do his strict duty of commutative justice to his employees. It makes no difference whether the direct employer be formally guilty or not. He may be unable to perform his duty, or he may wilfully neglect it. That does not matter. De facto, he does neglect it. What then is the duty of the Consuming Class?