ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE JUST PRICE

It was at one time believed that St. Thomas Aquinas meant by the ‘just price’ a normal price dependent upon production costs rather than a fluctuating market price. This view has recently been challenged and it is now argued that the just price was the going market price. In one instance an attempt has been made to reconcile apparently divergent statements by Aquinas into a consistent whole by suggesting that the market price was envisaged as oscillating around costs in the neo‐classical manner. In this paper we shall argue that the evidence suggests that the just price was related to production costs within the medieval context of social status. On the other hand, it is also clear that at times the just price was considered to be the market price. Both versions are to be found depending upon the problem at hand; attempts to discern a single critereon of justice, even in the works of one man, may be misleading. We shall also argue that there is little evidence to show that Aquinas related the market price to production costs in the neoclassical fashion.