"Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner."

The second half of Leo XIII's classic encyclical offers a defense of the right of association, exhortation to preferential option for the poor, emphasis on the importance of Sabbath rest, as well as an explication of the principles of a just wage.

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