“Now comes deceit betwixt merchant and merchant. And thou shalt understand that merchandise is in many sorts; that one is bodily, and that other is ghostly; that one is honest and lawful, and that other is dishonest and unlawful. Of that bodily merchandise that is lawful and honest is this: that, whereas God has ordained that a reign or a country is sufficient to himself, then is it honest and lawful that of the abundance of this country, men help another country that is more needy. And therefore there must be merchants to bring from that one country to that other their merchandises. That other merchandise, that men exercise with fraud and treachery and deceit, with lies and false oaths, is cursed and damnable”
Chaucer, “The Parson’s Tale”
Is wealth acquisition by people engaged in perfectly legal business ever immoral? For example, if the price of oil rises because of a disruption to the supply chain or production, there are loud cries of price gouging. The accusation of price gouging hinges on the idea that there is an inherently “just price” that the seller is departing from. Price gouging is thought to be immoral because buyers are being charged far more than the appropriate price. One implication of this view is that making a profit (especially a large one) is wrong because it probably means that the seller is charging far more than the good’s “just price.”
This idea that selling goods for more than the just price is immoral is ancient, and it was expounded by a variety Christian thinkers beginning with the Church fathers and culminating in Aquinas. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales illustrates this view, giving examples of how greed and desire for profit are morally blameworthy. As we will see, the “just price” framework doesn’t map neatly onto economies, but its legacy lingers on anachronistically in today’s economic debates.
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