ABSTRACT
Sir Alexander Gray At one time it was regarded almost as a truism that by the ‘just price’ the schoolmen, including St Thomas Aquinas, were referring to a ‘normal’ price dependent upon costs of production, rather than a fluctuating price dependent upon the chances of the market. Production costs, it was believed, were determined by a deserved standard of living on behalf of the producers, and would not of course include interest (Ashley 1896:500).1 Recently, the debate has been re-opened and the circle has made a complete turn. The idea that the just price was directly related to costs is now denied by some authors. It is argued that the just price was the going market price, and particular emphasis was placed on demand and utility (Noonan 1957:84-6). Others agree that the price determined in a competitive market was considered by the main stream of scholastic thought to be the just price; however, passages exist where it would seem that cost ratios play an important role. It is therefore argued that ‘beyond doubt…he [Aquinas] considered the market price as just’ but the market price would ‘tend to coincide with cost or to oscillate around this point like the swing of a pendulum’ (de Roover 1958:422).
