Aristotle and Aquinas on the Virtue of Money as a Preservative of Justice in Business Affairs and States

Abstract

While Aristotle’s and St. Thomas’s teachings about economics are often ridiculed today, this article argues that actually what they had to say about this issue, especially about the nature of sound currency, backed up by force of law, is quite profound. According to both of them, sound money plays an essential role in the preserving commutative justice within States. By so doing, it preserves communication between talented people who make qualitatively unequal contributions to a State’s continued existence and welfare.

Keywords

• money
• communication
• commutative
• contribution
• convention
• currency
• demand
• equality
• exchange
• hierarchy
• human
• inequality
• just
• justice
• law
• life
• measure
• natural
• nomos
• numerical
• preservation
• proportionate
• proportionality
• use
• value
• virtue