---
title: "History of economic thought"
chunk: 2/18
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_economic_thought"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:59:30.681827+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) was an Italian theologian and economic writer. He taught in both Cologne and Paris, and was part of a group of Catholic scholars known as the Schoolmen, who moved their enquiries beyond theology to philosophical and scientific debates. In the treatise Summa Theologica Aquinas dealt with the concept of a just price, which he considered necessary for the reproduction of the social order. Similar in many ways to the modern concept of long-run equilibrium, a just price was just sufficient to cover the costs of production, including the maintenance of a worker and his family. Aquinas argued it was immoral for sellers to raise their prices simply because buyers had a pressing need for a product.
Aquinas discusses a number of topics in the format of questions and replies, substantial tracts dealing with Aristotle's theory. Questions 77 and 78 concern economic issues, primarily what a just price might be, and the fairness of a seller dispensing faulty goods. Aquinas argued against any form of cheating and recommended always paying compensation in lieu of service obtained as it utilized resources. Whilst human laws might not impose sanctions for unfair dealing, divine law did, in his opinion.

=== Duns Scotus ===
One of Aquinas' main critics was Duns Scotus (1265–1308), originally from Duns Scotland, who taught in Oxford, Cologne, and Paris.  In his work Sententiae (1295), he thought it possible to be more precise than Aquinas in calculating a just price, emphasizing the costs of labor and expenses, although he recognized that the latter might be inflated by exaggeration, because buyer and seller usually have different ideas of a just price. If people did not benefit from a transaction, in Scotus' view, they would not trade. Scotus said merchants perform a necessary and useful social role by transporting goods and making them available to the public.

=== Jean Buridan ===
Jean Buridan (French: [byʁidɑ̃]; Latin Johannes Buridanus; c. 1300 – after 1358) was a French priest. Buridanus looked at money from two angles: its metal value and its purchasing power, which he acknowledged can vary. He argued that aggregated, not individual, demand and supply determine market prices. Hence, for him a just price was what the society collectively and not just one individual is willing to pay.

=== Ibn Khaldun ===

Until Joseph J. Spengler's 1964 work "Economic Thought of Islam: Ibn Khaldun", Adam Smith (1723–1790) was considered the "Father of Economics". Spengler highlighted the work of Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) of Tunisia, though what influence Khaldun had in the West is unclear. Arnold Toynbee called Ibn Khaldun a "genius" who "appears to have been inspired by no predecessors and to have found no kindred souls among his contemporaries...and yet, in the Prolegomena (Muqaddimat) to his Universal History he has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place." Ibn Khaldoun expressed a theory of the lifecycle of civilizations, the specialization of labor, and the value of money as a means of exchange rather than as a store of inherent value. His ideas on taxes were similar to supply-side economics' Laffer curve, which posits that beyond a certain point higher taxes discourage production and actually cause revenues to fall.

=== Nicole Oresme ===

French philosopher and priest Nicolas d'Oresme (1320–1382) wrote De origine, natura, jure et mutationibus monetarum, about the origin, nature, law, and alterations of money. It is one of the earliest manuscripts on the concept of money. His treatise argues how money or currency belongs to the public, and that the government or sovereign of the economy has no right to control the value of the currency just so that they can profit from it.

=== Antonin of Florence ===
Saint Antoninus of Florence (1389–1459), O.P., was an Italian Dominican friar, who became Archbishop of Florence. Antoninus' writings address social and economic development and argued that the state has a duty to intervene in mercantile affairs for the common good, and an obligation to help the poor and needy. In his primary work, "summa theologica" he was mainly concerned about price, justice and capital theory. Like Duns Scotus, he distinguishes between the natural value of a good and its practical value. The latter is determined by its suitability to satisfy needs (virtuositas), its rarity (raritas) and its subjective value (complacibilitas). Due to this subjective component, there cannot only be one just price, but a bandwidth of more or less just prices.

== Mercantilism and international trade (16th to 18th century) ==

Mercantilism dominated Europe from the 16th to the 18th century. Despite the localism of the Middle Ages, the waning of feudalism saw new national economic frameworks begin to strengthen.  After the 15th century voyages of Christopher Columbus and other explorers opened up new opportunities for trade with the New World and Asia, newly-powerful monarchies wanted a more powerful military state to boost their status.  Mercantilism was a political movement and an economic theory that advocated the use of the state's military power to ensure that local markets and supply sources were protected, spawning protectionism. According to the historian Alex M. Feldman, mercantilism was coefficient with feudalism since the same laws that governed access to land ownership were also those that governed access to bullion ownership, rendering the Roman economy or the Byzantine economy functionally and structurally similar to the roots of the economies of the empires of the Atlantic World and also the economy of the Russian Empire.