Article III. Supplements to the Doctrine

397. The true origin of new value. Therefore, new value arises immediately from the industry of men, who generally labor usefully with the aid of capital upon a thing furnished by nature.

But just as Quesnay erred when, confusing new things and new value, he asserted that the land alone, because it alone generates things, was the source of wealth, and perhaps did not attend sufficiently to the fact that this very fecundity of the soil is increased by human labor, so the socialists err when, considering especially that no fruit is had without the labor and industry of men, they omit to observe what is added to the power of human labor by capital. They are also deceived when they reduce every causality to the immediately efficient cause alone.

Nor without reason does Liberatore, work cited, nos. 39–41, censure the usage by which economists are accustomed to enumerate three efficient causes of wealth: natural things (agents naturels [natural agents]), capital—in the stricter sense; cf. no. 389—and human labor. For these three possess neither an equal necessity nor a similar causality. Capital in the strict sense is required less absolutely, for since capital itself is the fruit of a prior efficiency, the first businesses or works had to be undertaken without capital. The causality of the three is dissimilar: for while efficiency properly so called must be ascribed to the powers of nature and to human labor, capital possesses only material causality, or at most instrumental causality, or the rationale of some necessary assistance. Cf. no. 394. Nevertheless, Liberatore is in no way opposed to our conclusion, which he himself defends in pt. 2, chap. 5, art. 2.

Finally, there is no reason why we should take capital so strictly that it does not contain natural things, unless you wish again to fall into that error¹ by which the powers of nature were said to be furnished gratuitously and not to become one’s own.

¹ Carrey, Bastiat, and Henry George were deceived by this error. Cf. no. 181 at the end, and nos. 200–201.

398. In what manner money belongs to capital. Money, as Rev. Fr. Weiss observes, Soziale Frage [The Social Question], vol. 2, p. 700, does not as such become capital, but only in the equivalent which is obtained by means of it and to which there belongs either natural fecundity, as to an estate or manual labor, or instrumental fecundity, as to machines. In this manner, therefore, it produces industrial fruit.

399. St. Thomas agrees with us, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 114, art. 1. For since there is no price except of a thing sold or let, he tacitly concedes the letting of labor by describing a wage: “That which is recompensed to someone in return for a work or labor, as a certain price of it.”

400. The option permitted to one undertaking a business. One who wishes to attempt something and needs either another’s money or another’s labor is not compelled per se to admit anyone as a partner, just as the latter are not bound from justice to consent to a loan or to the letting of labor. But such will often be the condition of affairs that a worker, who would provide for himself in vain in another manner, accepts the inferior condition and lets his labor.

401. The mutual roles of managers and workers. While some unjustly disparage too greatly the persons of the administrators, to whom the first place must undoubtedly be accorded, others, by a certain contrary error, seem to acknowledge almost no merit of the workers in a business successfully conducted.

But just as, without prudent administration of the business, the industry of the workmen would be of little avail, so the one who is master in the partnership needs suitable workers; and even now it is of no little importance which men are assigned to operate the machines. Moreover, from the parts of the work being divided among many, it comes about that each person, being more attentive to his own part, acquires greater skill for himself. Therefore, so long as the contract is one of true partnership, a twofold reason forbids you to ascribe any profit to one party alone, for example, to the manager: a) Because the things which he has devised will bring no fruits unless the workers have diligently attended to their execution. Cf. Cauwès, no. 799. b) Because that art of better managing affairs and selling merchandise is due, at least in part, as to a mediate cause, to the activity of others. Therefore these things cannot be neglected in a just estimation.

402. On rewards and a portion of profit granted to workers.² Once a true letting of labor has been made, provided that the justly agreed wage is paid, nothing of the profit, even if immense, is due per se from justice to the workers. But it will be equitable that they receive something moderate, especially if the profit has increased beyond what is customary.

² Cf. concerning these matters our other work, Manuel social [Social Manual], pt. 2, vol. 2, § 5, p. 349 ff. (1st ed.).

Accordingly, this manner of remunerating is of no little profit for fostering peace and the mutual friendship of the various orders.

Moreover, it is accustomed to add incentives to wage-earners so that they labor energetically. Therefore, in not a few factories rewards for diligence or fidelity are established, which the workers merit either from the quantity of things, from the quality of the works, or from the very length of their service. Lest they become an occasion of complaints, it is necessary that the cause and manner of the estimation be easily and clearly evident.

Also greatly celebrated today is that kind of institution by which a proportionate part is deducted from the profit made, to be divided among either all the workers or those of particular merit. There is no doubt that this can be most useful. Nevertheless, several things prevent you from thinking that a universal remedy is placed in this practice. For profit is not always at hand; the rationale of estimating what falls to the workers is not free from difficulty and suspicion; and today most are not so disposed in mind that they grasp the true rationale of this institution. Moreover, in many arts workers are already accustomed to demand that, as the price of merchandise rises, the wage of each rise, and thus they indirectly acquire for themselves a portion of the profit.

But what must especially be observed by us, who write concerning justice, is that unless managers bind themselves from justice to furnish such things—that is, so long as the true species of a reward strictly understood is retained—these must be given above a just wage and cannot be considered a supplement to the just sum.

And the rationale is the same for other advantages which, without stipulation, are customarily granted to workers from a certain humanity.