IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fan/spespe/vhtml10.3280-spe2019-002002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Money as a political institution in the commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle?s "Ethica Nicomachea"

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Brollo

Abstract

Often, contemporary studies maintain that mediaeval thinkers regarded money as a commodity, a metal valuable only according to its intrinsic value; however, a thorough textual examination reveals that they were first and foremost concerned with its institutional dimension as a nomothetic moment of community building. This contribution aims at clarifying the late mediaeval conceptualisation of the nature of money as it emerges from the commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle?s Ethica, V.8. "Talis fluxus et refluxus gratiarum commanere facit civitatem", notices Albert the Great, portraying money as an institution that guarantees this flow of mutual reciprocation. Money was then seen as the institution which brought together the different parts of the productive community, whose perpetuation was ensured via the government of the monetary system, allowing for balance among the interests of debtors and creditors, producers and rentiers, merchants and labourers.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Brollo, 2019. "Money as a political institution in the commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle?s "Ethica Nicomachea"," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 8(2), pages 35-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/spe2019-002002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=65738&Tipo=ArticoloPDF
    Download Restriction: Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Monroe, Arthur E., 1923. "Monetary Theory Before Adam Smith," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number monroe1923.
    2. Lopez,Robert S., 1976. "The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950–1350," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521290463, January.
    3. Barry J. Gordon, 1964. "Aristotle and the Development of Value Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 115-128.
    4. Knapp, Georg Friedrich, 1924. "The State Theory of Money," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number knapp1924.
    5. Ingham, Geoffrey, 2004. "The nature of money," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 5(2), pages 18-28.
    6. André Lapidus, 1994. "Norm, Virtue and Information: Individual Behaviour and the Just Price in Thomas Aquinas' Summa theologica," Post-Print hal-00344928, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. L. Randall Wray, 2014. "Outside Money: The Advantages of Owning the Magic Porridge Pot," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_821, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Dini, Paolo & Kioupkiolis, Alexandros, 2019. "The alter-politics of complementary currencies: the case of Sardex," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2013. "Observations on the legal theory of finance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 331-337.
    4. Eric Tymoigne, 2017. "On the Centrality of Redemption: Linking the State and Credit Theories of Money through a Financial Approach to Money," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_890, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Garzón Espinosa, Eduardo & Cruz Hidalgo, Esteban & Medialdea Garcia, Bibiana & Sanchez Mato, Carlos, 2023. "Money or Crypto-Gold? Problematics and Possible Worlds for Cryptocurrencies," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 76(3), pages 429-452.
    6. Ament, Joe, 2020. "An ecological monetary theory," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    7. Grahame Thompson, 2011. "Financial Globalization? History, Conditions and Prospects," Chapters, in: Jonathan Michie (ed.), The Handbook of Globalisation, Second Edition, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Joe Ament, 2019. "Toward an Ecological Monetary Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, February.
    9. Reynold F. Nesiba, 2013. "Do Institutionalists and post-Keynesians share a common approach to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)?," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 10(1), pages 44-60.
    10. Vladan Hodulák & Oldřich Krpec, 2015. "Francouzsko-Německé monetární vztahy - pnutí v základech eurozóny [Franco-German Monetary Relations - Tensions Built Into the Eurozone Core]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(4), pages 413-435.
    11. Pavlina R. Tcherneva, 2016. "Money, Power, and Monetary Regimes," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_861, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. John Smithin, 2013. "Credit creation, the monetary circuit and the formal validity of money," Chapters, in: Louis-Philippe Rochon & Mario Seccareccia (ed.), Monetary Economies of Production, chapter 5, pages 41-53, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Umlauft, Thomas, 2018. "Is Bitcoin Money? An Economic-Historical Analysis of Money, Its Functions and Its Prerequisites," MPRA Paper 99302, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2018.
    14. Bibi, Samuele, 2023. "Money in the time of crypto," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Hyojin Kim & Sangmook Lee & Gumkwang Bae, 2021. "Functions of Currency before and after COVID-19: Is Bitcoin Sustainable for Tourism?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Fleischman, Tomaž & Dini, Paolo & Littera, Giuseppe, 2020. "Liquidity-saving through obligation-clearing and mutual credit: an effective monetary innovation for SMEs in times of crisis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107529, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/4vc7skecu3q7u7s984pi2eaan is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Josh Ryan-Collins, 2015. "Is Monetary Financing Inflationary? A Case Study of the Canadian Economy, 1935-75," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_848, Levy Economics Institute.
    19. Martin Watts & Timothy Sharpe & James Juniper, 2014. "Reformation or exodus: Assessing the future of the Euro," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 465-483, September.
    20. Jörg Bibow, 2013. "Lost at Sea: The Euro Needs a Euro Treasury," IMK Studies 35-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    21. L. Randall Wray, 2012. "Keynes after 75 Years: Rethinking Money as a Public Monopoly," Chapters, in: Thomas Cate (ed.), Keynes’s General Theory, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B11 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Preclassical (Ancient, Medieval, Mercantilist, Physiocratic)
    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/spe2019-002002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stefania Rosato (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario.aspx?IDRivista=121 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.