Hispanic-American Scholasticism: counter side of Mercantilism

Abstract

In parallel with the development of Mercantilism during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there appeared in Salamanca and Hispanic America a school of thought formed by Catholic priests who sought to understand how the Thomistic principles of just price and commutative justice applied to in an economy characterized by trade at an international scale. Two early contributions to economic theory appear: the autonomy of economics with respect to authority and a perspective of a country's prosperity based on the well-being of its inhabitants seen as consumers. This “alternative discourse" is recovered in the twentieth century as an anticipation of the principles of Marginalism.

Keywords

• history of economic thought
• hispanic american scholasticism
• just price
• market
• marginalism