Article VI: On Exchange and Trading

S. Th. II-II, q. 77, a. 4.

537. Exchange (echange, troc; ruiling) is a consensual contract by which the contracting parties give to one another some thing, namely, merchandise, in order to have another (a. 1702 and 1703). It differs from sale: for in this latter, money is given for merchandise; in the former, merchandise for merchandise. It is ruled by the same laws as sale (a. 1707); nevertheless rescission is not conceded on account of lesion (a. 1706).

538. Trading is an action by which someone procures wares for himself with the intention of selling them with gain. It is distinguished into trading broadly and strictly so called, according as things are procured so that, transformed or changed, they may be sold more dearly, or whole, without any change, they may be sold more dearly (C. Com., a. 2). This latter, according to St. Thomas (a. 4), is of coins for coins (exchange), or of things for coins for the sake of seeking gain, so that the coin and gain are the end of the commutation.

Trading strictly so called of itself is not honorable, nor is it illicit, because it does not imply anything vicious, but something indifferent, although evil-sounding and blameworthy; because, so far as it is of itself, it serves the cupidity of gain and has a certain baseness insofar as it does not imply an honorable end. Hence, that it may be licit, it must be rendered honorable by ordering the gain to an honorable end, for example, to the sustenance of the household, the relief of the needy, public utility lest things necessary to the fatherland be lacking. Yet it is dangerous, because someone easily intends gain alone as an end, and it is often an occasion of deceit, fraud, and injustice.

Nor should it be said that it is against justice because someone sells more dearly than he bought, or buys more cheaply so that he may sell the thing more dearly than it is worth. For "not everyone who sells something more dearly than he bought it is trading, but only he who buys for this purpose, that he may sell more dearly. But if he buys a thing, not that he may sell it, but that he may keep it, and afterward for some cause wishes to sell it, this is not trading (strictly so called), although he sells more dearly. For he can do this licitly, either because he improved the thing in some respect, or because the price of the thing is changed according to diversity of place or time, or because of the danger to which he exposes himself by transferring the thing from place to place, or even by having it carried. And according to this neither the buying nor the selling is unjust" (ad 2).

The abuses which Pius XI recently denounced are to be attended to here, as we noted in n. 536, 4.

539. Observation. Let it be noted that trading strictly so called is forbidden to clerics and religious, because they must abstain from those things which have the appearance of evil, and because trading entangles one in secular cares and thus draws one back from spiritual things (can. 142 and 592).