Justice and just price in Francisco de Vitoria's Commentary on Summa Theologica II-II q77

Following Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria's analysis of justice in exchanges takes place by commenting on the corresponding questions of the Summa Theologica. The identification of the just price with that of common estimation occurs under a sufficient concurrence of sellers and buyers. A high level of concurrence limits the ability to take advantage of the need on the other side of the market. This fact guaranties a full consent of the parties involved in trading. Under conditions of market power or when some authority fixes a legal price, just price should also be taken as a normative ideal.

Reflections on the ‘Just Price’ in Times of Crisis (with Reference to Coronavirus … but not only)

The debate about the ‘just price’ has ancient origin and returns forcefully to the scene when, in the event of crises of various kinds, there is a rapid and significant increase in prices of given goods or services. The main issue is whether price increases of such a nature could, or should, be considered illicit and ground the issue of sanctions against the firms increasing prices, thus focusing on a macro-systemic level of analysis. The central part of the article reviews different theories on what a ‘just price’ should be and focuses on the idea that a price is ‘just’ when it functions as an index of relative scarcity in free markets. It is claimed that such a function deserves protection by Italian and EU law. Therefore price adjustments in response to shocks cannot and should not be considered illegal: it is unacceptable to sanction private firms by attributing them the wrong of not having substituted themselves, at their own expense, for the exercise of a public function (that of making sure that price increases do not put at risk solidarity and other constitutional principles).

Markets and Contractual Fairness

Contract is the quintessential legal institution of a market economy, but the contemporary philosophy of contract law is dominated by promissory and autonomy theories that tend to treat contract’s role in facilitating commerce as little more than a happy accident. It is thus striking that in his ambitious effort to generate a purely transactional theory of contract law Peter Benson places markets at that center of his account of transactional fairness. His argues that the abstract equality of contracting parties requires equality of exchange, an equality mediated by the just price. Echoing the scholastic tradition, Benson identifies the just price with the competitive market price. We thus have a fascinating example of an anti-functionalist, anti-distributive theory of contract that nevertheless incorporates the market as an important theoretical element. In this essay, I evaluate Benson’s use of markets, placing it within both the broader discussion of markets in contract law theory and in the larger argument that he is making about contract law. Ultimately, Benson justifies the appeal to markets not because of any attractive distributional features of competitive prices but because such prices have a formal structure that satisfies the demands of Benson’s formal theory. It is an ingenious and subtle argument. However, I am not ultimately persuaded. While I think that the rule for unconscionability cases that Benson extracts from his concept of equality of exchange is defensible, I am not persuaded by Benson’s formal approach to the fairness of markets. Rather, I will argue that competitive markets often do not have the formal features that Benson ascribes to them. Furthermore, a key aspect of his understanding of transactional fairness is best understood as resting on an attractive distributional feature of competitive markets rather than on their formal structure.

EXERGOECONOMIC APPROACH TO THE PROBLEMS OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION ASSESSMENT IN HOUSING AND COMMUNAL SERVICES OF UKRAINE

An attempt to use the base thermodynamics and exergoeconomic aspects of decision tasks of energy efficiency and energy saving with the examples of in heat-, gas- and watersupply in housing and communal services of Ukraine is presented. The methodology of forming the analytical dependences of account and payment of the got and used heat is presented as a result of this approach. This system of account has the followings advantages: 1) the sum of payment takes into account not only an amount but also quality of energy flows; 2) efficiency of work of all elements of this system is taken into account. The operating presently system of tariffs on natural gas does not take into account current composition of gas and exergy of gas. Dependence, which takes into account the real exergy of natural gas which is supplied, is offered in relation to the minimum exergy of natural gas, which is foreseen DSTU. At forming of cost of water-supply in dependence for determination of sum of payment for water is suggested to enter a constituent, which takes into account the exergy of stream of water, which influences the amount and pressure of the given water. Realization in practice of the exergyeconomic going near tariffs on energy which is consumed in housing and communal services of Ukraine allows from single power positions objectively to estimate efficiency of functioning of all elements of the systems heat-, gaz- and water-supplys. It allows practically to carry out market approach to forming of tariffs on heat-, gaz- and water-supply and to mobilize producers, suppliers and users of services, in this sphere of housing and communal services of Ukraine on an energy-savings and energy efficiency. It is necessary to expect that introduction of these principles has social influence because it is a step which unites the citizens of Ukraine in the decision of tasks of establishment of transparent and just price policy of the state in housing and communal services of Ukraine and improvements of situations with ecology in our country.

Force of Invisible Hand, Labor, and Just Price: Basic Principles of Sorting and Matching Under Wage and Price Dispersion

If the consumer realistically evaluates the efficiency of his efforts on labor and search, the purchase any quantity demanded will be optimal. Under equilibrium price dispersion suboptimal satisfying purchases represent corner solutions. A buyer who does not claim the optimal purchase either leaves the market or buys optimally. The invisible hand stops the buyer’s search in time and at the place where and when the purchase price allocates his time optimally between labor, search, and leisure and thereby maximizes the utility of his consumption-leisure choice. The producer does not know how much time the consumer has spent on search and what is his willingness to pay. But it is enough for him to know the quantity demanded in order to accurately determine not only the price but also the meeting point. His working time is divided between the actual production and services, for example, the delivery of goods, which saves the consumer's leisure time. A virtual frontier of production possibilities arises where the manufacturer optimally sells goods and leisure to the consumer. Any point on the frontier represents the trade-off between the time spent on search by the consumer and the time spent by producer on the delivery. Sorting sellers and buyers by their industry and diligence, local markets segment the production opportunity frontier. The force of the invisible hand, i.e., the rate of mutual interest, is increasing with seller’s productivity and buyer’s wage rate. The matching occurs at the just price level, which provides the market equilibrium. This price optimizes the distribution of the buyer's time between labor, search, and leisure, and the seller’s time between production and delivery; it equates the producer’s marginal costs with his average cost and maximizes the buyer's consumption-leisure utility. In every local market, a just price also equates the seller’s markup with the actual buyer’s purchasing power. The concept of just price proposed in this article is consistent with both the theory of marginal utility and the labor theory of value.The transformation of producer’s time into consumer’s leisure time discovers the rate of their mutual interest or their gravitation, where its force is directly proportional to the product of quantity supplied and quantity demanded, and inversely proportional to the product of times the parties to the transaction have spent on it.

Historical-economic background

First, this chapter distinguishes between an ethics of individual behavior that focuses on the individual’s actions and an ethics of conditions that focuses on the circumstances under which the individual is supposed to act. It is emphasized that much of today’s ethics was developed against the background of premodern societies, which implies the absence of economic growth and a high social control, both of which are in stark contrast to modern conditions. The ethical benefits of markets and competition are outlined. The market is interpreted as an instrument for the use of distributed and local knowledge, a method of discovery, an engine of innovation, a control mechanism, and an instrument of disempowerment and of self-discipline. Traditional concepts of business ethics are illustrated by the historical examples of the just price and the prohibition of lending money at interest.

As fontes da teoria quantitativa do dinheiro no Manual de Confessores de Frei Rodrigo do Porto (1549)

In this historic essay we have investigated the origins of the Quantity Theory of Money in Portugal the middle of the Golden Age. We have found out the origins of this theory in the first Portuguese book of moral theology Manual de Confessores e Penitentes that was composed by the Franciscan Portuguese friar Rodrigo do Porto and was printed in the University of Coimbra in 1549. Also we have found out the inspiration from father Rodrigo do Porto for the formation of economic thought (the theories of just price and the quantity theory) of the great Spanish thinker and true discoverer of the Quantity Theory doctor Martinho de Azpilcueta Navarro. Resumo: Neste ensaio histórico investigamos as origens da Teoria Quantitativa do Dinheiro (Moeda) em Portugal do meio do Século d’Ouro. Temos encontra-do as fontes desta teoria na primeira suma portuguesa da teologia moral Manual de Confessores e Penitentes que foi composto pelo franciscano portu-guês frade Rodrigo do Porto e foi impressa na Universidade de Coimbra em 1549. Também temos encontrado a inspiração de frei Rodrigo do Porto para a formação do pensamento econômico (das teorias do preço justo e da teoria quantitativa) do grande pensador espanhol e verdadeiro descobridor da Teo-ria Quantitativa do Dinheiro doutor Martinho de Azpilcueta Navarro. Palavras-chave: Teoria Quantitativa do Dinheiro (Moeda), Século d’Ouro, Ma-nual de Confessores (1549), Rodrigo do Porto, Martim de Azpilcueta Navarro Keywords: Quantity Theory of Money, Golden Age, Manual de Confessores (1549), Rodrigo do Porto, Martinho de Azpilcueta Navarro

Economic Effects Of The Philosophical Concept Of Community

Introductory textbooks in the History of Economic Thought in use at colleges and universities devote little space to Scholasticism and its influence. Even those that do not start straight with the Physiocrats, Thomas Aquinas appears stuck between Ancient Greek Philosophers and Thomas Mun. Scholasticism with “medieval” economic thought characterized as primitive and focused on “obsolete” issues like usury and just price. Sometimes it is even categorized among the schools that promote State intervention1. This was not the opinion of F.A. Hayek, who appreciated some Scholastic authors as part of the individualistic tradition of Western civilization rooted on the legacy of Ancient Greeks and Romans like Pericles, Thucydides, Cicero and Tacitus2. In his famous Road to Serfdom (1944) F.A. Hayek assumed that Western Civilization had abandoned the right road and the individualistic tradition by the last quarter of the XIX Century. The abandoned road that Hayek refers to is that grounded on Greek, Roman and Medieval tradition and later paved by the ideas of authors like Cobden, Bright, De Tocqueville, Lord Acton, Adam Smith, Hume, Locke or Milton3. Hilaire Belloc4 located the abandonment of the liberal tradition around the same historical time. He would have agreed with most of the names in Hayek´s list, especially Cobden and Bright, but would have added those of radicals like Fox and Cobbett. Regarding more far away sources of Western thought, he would have included Aristotle, Aquinas and the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez.Some of the authors mentioned above represent different traditions in the political philosophy. These traditions could be referred as the “old” and the “new”, following Leo Strauss in the idea of Machiavelli as the turning point. This essay approaches the influence of the political philosophy in the changes referred by Hayek and Belloc by examining the differences between the old and the new concept of community.

PRICE INCREASES DURING THE PANDEMIA AND EU COMPETITION LAW

The debate about the “just price” has ancient origin and returns forcefully to the scene when, in the event of crises of various kinds, there is a rapid and significant increase in prices of given goods or services. In this article it is examined the problem of whether price increases of such a nature could, or should, be considered illicit under EU competition law. The central part of the article reviews different theories on what a “just price” should be and focuses on the idea that a price is “just” when it functions as index of relative scarcity in free markets. It is claimed that such a function deserves protection by EU law. Therefore, price adjustments in response to shocks cannot and should not be considered illegal: it is unacceptable to sanction private firms by attributing them the wrong of not having substituted, at their own expense, for the exercise of a public function (that of making sure that price increases do not put at risk solidarity and other constitutional principles).