Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Fourth. On Labor
397. Preliminary notions. 1. This mode of acquiring ownership today merits special attention, because socialists, rejecting the other modes, call this alone legitimate: for they contend that no one has ownership except of those things which he produces by his own labor.
By the name labor is understood human industry which is apt for producing goods. It makes no difference whether it is spiritual or bodily, whether it contributes mediately or immediately to producing goods, provided it consists in the use and effort of human powers, which by their nature tend to this, that they produce goods useful either to a single man or to the community.
- Now, although labor is not the sole nor the primary mode, nevertheless it is a legitimate mode of acquiring ownership.
a. And indeed, since man is owner of the actions both of soul and of body, he can employ them either in his own name or in the service of another. If the first, by natural right he is also owner of the fruits which he produces by his own labor. If the second, he has a right to a suitable wage for the labor and becomes owner of it.
b. Bodily labor, whether it is exercised in one's own thing or in another's thing, necessarily supposes already preexisting ownership of the matter in which the labor is performed and the new form is produced. Therefore it cannot be either the sole or the primary mode of acquiring ownership.
398. Assertions. 1. He who produces a new form in his own thing is owner of the thing and of the form produced, or of the whole new substance, since he has a right in the fruits of his own labor.
He who by laboring in another's thing produces a new form of itself acquires partial ownership of the changed thing: the substance is of the prior owner, but the new form, as fruit of labor, belongs to him who performed the labor.
Since man is owner of his own labor, he can hire it out to another. Now he who has hired his powers, whether spiritual or bodily, to another and therefore labors in the service of another does not acquire a right in the fruits of the labor, but in a just wage for the labor, the quantity of which will be determined below, where there will be speech concerning the contract of hiring.