We think that the Consuming Class is bound to assume the obligations that the direct employers have neglected. And we are going to support this contention by four arguments. These arguments are:
I. The devolution of duty argument: the direct employer has failed to fulfill his duty, and this duty thereupon devolves upon the indirect employer, the Consuming Class.
II. The value argument: ideally, the buyer of an article is bound to pay its value, and, as a general rule, if proper economy has been exercised in its production, this must be sufficient to pay a living wage to the men engaged in producing and distributing that article.
III. The co-operation argument: the direct employer is guilty of an injustice in which the Consuming Class is bound not to co-operate.
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.