For this reason, Aquinas allows profit, if profit is not an end in itself but a compensation for the work of the merchant.Īside from purchases and sales, in general Aquinas condemns usury in an absolute way. Continuing on the previous example, the seller is a merchant whose profession is to trade, and only through the profits he makes can he can support his family and, if possible, help the needy. But the most important and valid reason to set a higher price is when the seller sells and makes profit to support his own family or to help the poor. You can also charge more than the fair price because of transport costs or modifications to the object.

If the object provides the consumer with a lot of utility, he could pay a price higher than the fair price similarly, if the seller does not want to sell the object, then the buyer could pay more than the fair price in case of emergency. With this definition, Aquinas considers that usury and profits are sins still, he puts certain conditions under which one may charge at a different price than the fair price when selling objects, i.e., make profit. Thomas, in the same way as Aristotle, sees the just or fair price of a good as the price which corresponds to the true value of said object.

Thomas Aquinas and why does he think that profit is not usury? It follows that, for Aquinas, it is evil to sell goods at prices which are higher than their just price yet he still allows merchants to make profits from their merchandise – which means that they have increased the original price of the goods they are selling. The price of the use of money is what Aquinas calls usury because when one charges for the use of a good, one charges for more than the fair price of the good. Thus Aquinas makes the distinction between the true price for a good or service, and the illegitimate price for the use of such good or service. For him, if money is used to acquire goods or to obtain services, then it is not fair to ask for more money than is worth the service or good itself. Thomas Aquinas considered money as a non-durable good, which by definition should be destroyed when exchanged / consumed, and thus should not be used to generate even more money. “Main use of money is its consumption or investment”įrom the above quote and his works, we know that St.

Aquinas summa