Article II. Formulation and Arguments of the Conclusion

The true value of things flows proximately from common estimation and cannot be adequately measured by human labor.

By this value the just price of a thing is defined per se.

Nevertheless, the seller can also stipulate compensation for the special deprivation that he sustains from the cession of the thing, on account of its use or his own affection for the thing, but not per se on account of the buyer’s peculiar advantage.

342. I. State of the Question. 1. THE IMPORTANCE AND INTENTION OF THE THESIS; OPINIONS. We approach the principal question, in which the entire doctrine of agreements is at issue, as is also the judgment concerning precepts handed down in the preceding age: whether these are still to be defended, or whether, on the contrary, the positions of more recent writers are to be substituted as truer, these precepts being weakened and antiquated. But by this position of ours, we follow the doctrine of the old Catholic school, whose force, as well as that of its adversary, becomes sufficiently clear from what was said above.

For the first part posits a principle concerning the value of things which is agreed upon among all the Scholastics; and it expressly opposes both those who deny an objective rationale of value and others who by various ways are brought to think that nothing besides human labor is worthy of compensation.

The two following parts are corollaries of the former. For by them, against many Liberals and Rev. Dr. Funk, we affirm that there is per se an objectively equitable and just price, defined by true value, and that, beyond this, nothing can be compensated except the special utility or affection of him who sells the thing. Yet sellers today quite frequently attempt to exact a price according to the buyer’s special utility.

And besides Rev. Dr. Funk, to whom these practices are entirely acceptable, some other Catholics, such as Cardinal Gousset, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 840, against the unanimous consent of the Scholastics, have begun to reprove them less. Yet all pronounce him guilty of injustice who has sought a greater profit for himself from another’s want or poverty.

2. THE TERMS ARE EXPLAINED.

From common estimation, and by no means from the estimation of the contracting parties, as Rev. Dr. Funk thinks. Moreover, that estimation will be of some place or of an entire region, according as the frequency of commerce and the ease of travel define the area where one custom concerning that thing prevails.

Flows proximately, so that we may indicate those objective rationales, most of them intrinsic to the thing, upon which that estimation depends as upon a higher rule.

The true value of things. Therefore, we indeed acknowledge that the denomination of value is formally from without, but at the same time we maintain that it is truly predicated of things. It is apparent that we are treating here of the value which many call value in exchange, which was described above, no. 339, 4.

Which cannot be measured by human labor: whether that labor be understood which was in fact expended upon the thing, or that from which those procuring the thing have been freed, or that which is customarily employed. For this opinion is proposed in three modes, none of which we placed definitely in the conclusion, since we reject them all.

Adequately measured. Therefore, we by no means deny that necessary labor contributes very much per se to the valuation of things; otherwise, men would not so easily have erred by various and specious errors. But we maintain that this labor cannot be held as the adequate norm of common estimation.

By this value, therefore, with the utility which we called proper to the thing being disregarded.

Is defined per se. Per se, I say: for, under certain circumstances, the legislator could for a public cause establish a greater or lesser price; and, moreover, there are things concerning which common estimation is not occupied. What is to be said concerning these things we shall give in the corollaries, no. 350.

The just price of a thing. The price, or value expressed in money, is paid in a sale. By just we mean that which commutative justice imposes. Therefore, we maintain that one price of this kind exists, and we hand down its norm.

The seller, however, that is, he who exchanges a thing for money,

Furthermore, so that we may signify that it is a question of increasing the price, not of diminishing it;

Can stipulate, or exact by agreement;

Compensation, by means of money, the quantity of which will again have to be defined either from common estimation or, if this is lacking, from the rule to be handed down in no. 350;

For the special deprivation: special, I say, and therefore not that which is generally contained in the abdication of a thing. For the latter, since it grounds common estimation, has already been compensated by the just price itself;

Which he sustains from the cession of the thing on account of its use, that is, if the thing is particularly convenient or useful to him. Suppose, for example, that a field is in question which, because it adjoins his house, can easily be converted into a pleasant garden;

Or his own affection for the thing, as if the thing renews for him the memory of parents or of friends from a bygone age;

But not per se, or insofar as this proceeds from the force of the onerous contract of sale. The rationale will be different if there is joined either a rationale of beneficence or that of some partnership in profit;

The buyer’s peculiar advantage. Again, you should understand an advantage arising either from affection or from utility, and consequently also one which is profitable.

II. Proof.

343. A. OF THE FIRST PART. 1. The true value of things flows proximately from common estimation.

It cannot be denied that this force belongs to common estimation: that it attributes to the things which it affects an aptitude by which they become per se convertible into other things. But this aptitude, as has already been said, is a weight worthy of estimation, truly inhering in the thing and therefore engendering value properly so called in the economic order. This is so true that very many things are not sought or kept by many except on account of that aptitude.¹ For for what other cause do artisans make garments, or merchants procure wheat and oil? But as long as a thing is not commonly esteemed, it does not have that general aptitude. It happens per accidens that someone, from a certain special interest, pursues such a thing with affection and wishes to procure it for himself. Therefore, things of this kind are not desired except on account of the utility which, following the Philosopher, we called proper; and common sense itself declares them destitute of value. Hence the following brief argument is maintained:

¹ This is illustrated well enough by K. Marx in the cited chapter, as when he writes: “To produce commodities, he [man] must produce not only use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values.... Commodities ... are commodities only because they are two things at once, objects of utility and bearers of value.”

The true value of things in some society is such an aptitude of conversion in that society on account of which they become desirable.

But. An aptitude of this kind is induced proximately in things by common estimation, and by it alone.

Therefore. The true value of things flows proximately from it.

2. This value cannot be adequately measured by human labor.

a) Universal argument. Things are commonly esteemed because men commonly know that the thing is usefully possessed or procured. For, as has been said, things are worthy of estimation insofar as they serve men, while common estimation is directed toward the ownership of things. Cf. no. 339, 3.

But that utility is not adequately measured by human labor. Therefore.

To the minor. Who could doubt that very many things are so constituted that the utility of a finite supply, which it is therefore advantageous to possess, is partly inherent in them from nature itself? Hence, although human industry is perhaps necessary to transport things or to reduce them to a better form, nevertheless the degree of value cannot be exacted according to this labor, whose parts are often very slight. Let there be, for example, two veins of coal to be worked with the same labor. Will not the better coals be valued more highly on account of their innate quality? But there are six hundred examples in which, if you judge the matter rightly, you will perceive that labor has value on account of the natural qualities of the thing to which it is applied, rather than that the qualities borrow their value from the labor joined to them.

b) An indirect argument, by refuting K. Marx. He employs this principle: that for the exchange of two things it is necessary that something common to each be found, which he denies can be anything other than labor considered “quantitatively.”

He therefore establishes that things have value because and insofar as they contain human labor, “insofar as they are crystals of this common social substance.”

Yet he says that the labor contained in a commodity is to be estimated from the quantity commonly required for furnishing that commodity.

Finally, he admits that, if a shorter way of making things of some kind is discovered, value is detracted even from things which had been made before.

But now: α) As regards the principle, equally with labor, this other characteristic common to things can be said to inhere in them: aptitude for human uses. But if Marx objects that these uses vary in form, we shall reply that human labors vary in form no less. But if he argues again that labors of various forms agree in the one common character of human labor, we shall say with equal right that the various uses are all to be ascribed to human uses.

β) As regards the other conclusions, 1) They seem to conflict with one another. For if things truly have value as containing human labor, as “crystals” of that labor, the measure of this value cannot be some quantity commonly required. For the thing does not contain the mean quantity of labor, but that quantity which was in fact expended upon it. But if, from a new invention, a lesser quantity of labor is now required, how could this fact, wholly extrinsic to the thing, break those precious crystals which lay hidden in it?

For another rationale by which he disagrees with himself, cf. Cathrein, Der Socialismus [Socialism], pp. 94-96, or the note placed here below.²

² In order to understand the matter, it is necessary to recall that there is question at present of explaining a certain fact: why, for example, a certain weight of iron is exchanged for so many meters of cloth. K. Marx gives this rationale for the fact: that the same quantity of labor inheres in that weight of iron and in those meters of cloth. But if labor is the sole cause of value, it is evident that in profitable businesses the absolute increase of value must be found in that part of the money which is converted into labor, that is, in wages; while the other things which are required must be subject to no change of value and must be held as “capital” which in this respect does not change in itself. The ratio of that increase to “variable capital,” or wages, will be expressed as (i/v), if (i) signifies the absolute increase and (v) the variable capital, or the sum of wages. But in estimating the profit made, the remaining capital to be recovered by the business, (c), must be computed, so that the profit can be exhibited, for example, in this form: (l=i/(c+v)). Hence it is apparent that, if K. Marx’s doctrine is to stand, the profit itself must change according to the varying relation which (c) has to (v); that is, the smaller the fixed part of the capital is, the more profitable the business would become. This, however, is contrary to experience, which shows that the relation between (c) and (v) has no per se bearing upon profit. K. Marx had acknowledged the fact and the difficulty, and had postponed his reply until the third volume of his work. But what did he himself do in that third volume? He concedes everything and admits that things are not sold according to their value—or the labor which they contain—but that some are valued more highly and others remain below this sum. The rationale which Marx had adduced for the fact to be explained is therefore judged futile by his own mouth. Concerning these things, cf. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, chaps. 6 and 7 (French ed., chaps. 8, 9); vol. 3, sect. 2, p. 132.

2) Nor are they materially true. Crops vary both in quantity and quality, not only according to the place where they are sown but according to the weather which we experience in individual years. Now, if the quality alone changes—the same may be said of abundance—the value will vary. Yet in this variation no relation to labor, whether expended or commonly required, can be detected.

What of the fact that, later in the same place, Marx denies that formal value belongs per se to human labor, while surely, where the sad servitude of men rages, these labors are held at a price, and, even in our society, the labor by which someone, for example, guides another by the hand—to take an obvious example—is by no means without value?

What of the fact that Marx on the one hand rightly acknowledges that the proper utility of a thing is engendered at the same time by human labor and the powers of nature,³ and on the other affirms that in exchange this utility is wholly disregarded,⁴ so that he concludes that, this utility having been omitted, nothing remains in a thing except that it is the fruit of labor?⁵ By this manner of arguing an open absurdity is scarcely not committed. For from such premises—“The utility of things is the common offspring of labor and nature”; “But this utility is to be omitted”—from these premises, I say, it cannot, without absurdity, be concluded that something remains which is proper to labor or to nature, so that, according to Marx’s positions, labor alone is said to remain; but, so far as the force of an argument of this kind is concerned, either both must nevertheless be said to remain, under another respect, or neither to remain and both to have vanished together formally. And yet you should observe that, according to Marx, labor is not the cause of value except insofar as it is the cause of utility.⁶ For this marvelous philosopher, in the same place where he maintains that the proper utilities of things are disregarded in exchange, at the same time admits that value is founded upon these utilities.⁷

³ “Labor is not the sole source of the use-values which it produces.... It is their father, and the earth their mother,” p. 17.

⁴ “It is evident that abstraction is made from the use-value of commodities when they are exchanged,” p. 14.

⁵ “Once the use-value of commodities is set aside, only one quality remains to them, that of being products of labor,” p. 14.

⁶ “To produce commodities, it [labor] must produce not only use-values, but ... social use-values. No object can be a value if it is not a useful thing,” p. 16.

⁷ “In the society which we have to examine, they [use-values] are at the same time the material supports of exchange-value,” p. 14.

What are all these things, except certain empty devices, perhaps ingeniously devised to blind a truth of things sufficiently manifest, and to which no one of sound mind who has a mind free of prejudices would assent?

344. B. OF THE SECOND PART. By this value the just price is defined per se.

Apart from a law which changes the subject matter of rights, justice demands that in contracts from which the intention of beneficence is absent there be equality of what is given and received. For the justice which among private persons protects personal equality is called commutative, as that which must especially be observed in exchanges.

But. This equality is had by a price which, if this value is present, is defined by it.

Therefore. Apart from a law, and provided that this value is present, the just price is defined by it.

The major is sufficiently evident and is confirmed by this reasoning of St. Thomas: “What has been introduced for the common utility—such as buying and selling and other contracts of this kind—ought not to be more to the burden of one than of the other.” Therefore. “A contract ought to be instituted between them according to the equality of the thing.” II-II, q. 77, art. 1, corpus.

To the minor. In exchange, the thing is used according to its value.⁸ Therefore, two values are formally compared, and equality is to be observed between the values. But. This is observed by establishing a price defined by value. For since price is nothing other than value expressed in money, he who receives a price of this kind obtains the same value in money as he gave in the thing.

⁸ St. Thomas, commentary on Book I of the Politics, lect. 7.

This is confirmed by Roman law, law 63, pr., Digest, “On the Falcidian Law” (XXXV, 2), where Paul is cited as saying: “The prices of things are determined not from the affection or utility of individuals, but commonly.”

That there is a just price, and that a contract of sale ought per se to be completed freely, is already indicated by St. Maximus of Turin, in reproving purchases made by avaricious usurers: “It is good to buy, but in peace, what is sold by its owner’s will, not amid plunder. Consider the origin of the contract, the author of the sale, and the quantity of the price, and you will understand that you are the purchaser of plunder rather than of a sale.” Homily

96 (Migne, P.L., vol. 57, col. 478). Cf. also St. John Chrysostom, On Matthew, Homily 56 (57), no. 6 (Migne, P.G., vol. 57, col. 557).

345. C. OF THE THIRD PART. 1. The seller, however, can also stipulate compensation for the special deprivation which he sustains from the cession of the thing, on account of its use or his own affection for the thing.

For no one is compelled gratuitously to sustain a loss for the benefit of another.

If, therefore, per accidens, as St. Thomas says, place cited, the sale turns to the loss of the seller of the thing, who is deprived of a thing specially useful or dear to him, he can rightly exact that this loss be repaired for him by a new performance of the buyer, or by an increase of the price. Therefore.

2. But he cannot per se stipulate compensation for the buyer’s special advantage.

N.B. We shall not deny that we experience some difficulty in this matter: both because, in defending our position, we disapprove a usage which Billuart already testifies to be common and received into the customs of the people; and because we are moved somewhat toward the contrary part by an argument which is of this kind. Just as, with the proper use of the thing disregarded, and even if he perceives no utility from the thing itself, the seller can exact the price defined by common estimation, why can he not, with the proper use likewise disregarded, exact a price consonant with the right estimation of the buyer? Or, otherwise: the commonly recognized utility of the thing to be acquired grants a general faculty of exchanging which the possessor of the thing can use. What prohibits him from using the special faculty of exchanging which arises per accidens from the special utility of the acquirer? What more can common estimation do in general than the estimation of the parties in a particular case?

Nevertheless, in order that we may defend our position, we are moved not only by the very weighty authority of the doctors who approved it by unanimous vote and by the perpetual tradition of the Catholic school, but also by the weight of the rationales. Let there be, therefore:

a) An indirect argument, whose efficacy seems greatest to us. If the contrary opinion is conceded, we fall into consequences evidently absurd.

α) The just price not only can be exacted but must be paid. Therefore, if the buyer’s special utility changes the rationale of the just price, the buyer will have either to increase the price spontaneously or at least to indicate that utility, so that the seller can use his right of increasing the price. Yet no one will have said this; and buyers have recourse to various devices so that this utility may remain unknown.

β) Moreover, just as a thing can be specially useful to the buyer, so money not rarely brings the seller a special advantage of profit. Yet he does not therefore judge himself bound to detract something from the price, even if he attempts to reckon the buyer’s special utility. Are not these things wholly arbitrary?

γ) As Molina, vol. 2, disp. 348, no. 6, already argued, it would then be licit to sell more dearly to a poor man than to a rich man. For does not special need disclose a special utility? Therefore, the adversaries themselves gratuitously distinguish the case of necessity, which they do not wish to be considered by the seller, from profitable utility⁹ or utility of affection. Nor may they object that he who is pressed by necessity lacks liberty. For both he who wills to provide for his own necessity and he who desires to seize an occasion of profit are pressed by the necessity of some end or intended good to which one way lies open: the procurement of the thing. The obligation of charity can vary from this, but not that of justice.

⁹ They nevertheless concede that certain non-profitable utilities can be reckoned, as if, on account of its situation, a property increases the pleasantness of a house, or if the thing refreshes the memory of one’s parents, and so forth.

b) A direct argument. α) Someone’s special utility does not increase the value of a thing, since it is not commonly esteemed.

Therefore. It does not enter into the just price, nor can it be reckoned unless there is question of preventing or repairing a loss.

But there is no loss where the utility belongs to the buyer. Therefore.

β) The price is to be paid insofar as the thing pertains to the seller. But the thing pertains to the seller according to its value and according to the utility peculiar to himself, but by no means according to the utility which first arises with the buyer. Thus, approximately, St. Thomas and Molina, places cited.

To the rationales objected above, however, we reply:

That less attention is to be given to received customs or common sense where there is question of conclusions which are remote from principles, especially if, as here, men are easily deceived by the pursuit of their own utility. You may add, moreover, that minds have easily been disturbed by the positions of the Liberal school and have conceived a less genuine rationale of the true and the just.

Then, as regards the intrinsic rationale, the common estimation of a thing has a certain force which a person’s own estimation lacks. It gives the thing, as has been explained, a new and most useful aptitude which is designated by the name of value and is possessed together with the thing. The utility or affection of one person does not do likewise. The possessor of a thing is not prohibited from using the special faculty of exchanging any more than the general faculty. Yet the use must be right. It is right if, in the former case, he exacts the price of a quality which among all is worthy of estimation, but not if, in the latter case, he wills to exact compensation for an aptitude which is to be highly valued by the buyer alone.

346. III. Difficulties (cf. also no. 345, N.B.).

1. TRUE VALUE CANNOT FLOW FROM COMMON ESTIMATION. For true value ought to be in the thing itself. But an estimation which is wholly from without cannot place something in the thing itself. Therefore. Either there is no true objective value, or it does not flow proximately from common estimation.

Reply. I deny the assertion. To its rationale, I distinguish: true value ought to be in the thing itself as a certain physical property, I deny; as a certain moral property, almost as jurisdiction is truly in the judge, I concede. I contradistinguish the minor.

For just as, by the extrinsic designation of the prince or of him to whom the right belongs, a judge truly acquires jurisdiction, so by external common estimation a thing acquires true value. The deeper rationale of this fact is that value and jurisdiction are both contained in the intercourse of men with one another. It is therefore sufficient for the effects which arise therefrom that they can be known by men, which demands no physical mutation.

Instance. That norm is too uncertain to be capable of being employed. For it is conceded that it can be false; and it will in fact be false unless the estimation corresponds to the true utility which, in some society, the thing commonly brings to him who procures it. But this utility depends upon so many circumstances that it is most difficult to know. Therefore. This rule will always be suspected of falsity and therefore cannot prudently be employed.

Reply. I deny the assertion. And to its rationale, I distinguish: it will be false unless it corresponds to that true utility as it can be commonly known and is known of itself, I concede; it will be false unless it corresponds to the true utility as it exists objectively, I deny.

Therefore, it will be false only if men have been impeded by force or fraud from being permitted to use their own judgment. Otherwise, the judgment which men spontaneously make, deceived by no evil devices, and which consequently has not been vitiated by fear or fraud, is a certain norm of true value, which nevertheless ranges within the limits of the highest and lowest price.

2. THE JUST PRICE IS DEFINED NOT BY VALUE BUT BY THE CONSENT OF THE PARTIES. For “no injury is done to one who consents.” Therefore. A price which has been obtained by no force or fraud cannot be unjust.

Reply. I deny the assertion. To the rationale, I distinguish the antecedent. No injury is done to one who consents if the consent is full, or voluntary both simply and in a qualified respect, I concede; if the character of the voluntary is mixed with the involuntary, I deny. Then, at least sometimes, injury is not removed by consent of this kind. Cf. above, nos. 141, 146.

Unless an intention of liberality was present, the buyer certainly does not will to pay anything except the value of the thing, or the price which the other can justly exact per se. But if the latter exacts more, he abuses at least the “relative” necessity of the buyer. I call relative necessity that which arises from the connection of the thing to be acquired with the intended end or good.

3. A PRICE OF AFFECTION CANNOT BE EXACTED.

For the cause of that affection often exceeds the order of the goods of fortune. It is, for example, the memory of a friend, and so forth. But. There is no comparison of things which pertain to diverse orders. And it is confirmed: for injury to life or honor is not, strictly and of itself, to be repaired by money. Therefore.

Reply. I concede the major. To the minor: there is no comparison of itself, or properly so called and in involuntary compensation, I concede; in a voluntary exchange, I deny.

Although affection pertains to a higher order, someone can consent to undergo an inconvenience of a higher order either gratuitously or with any monetary compensation received; just as in offenses compensation of this kind can justly be imposed by the magistrate. The rationale of a voluntary exchange is therefore one thing, and that of an involuntary exchange another. Moreover, what do we hear more frequently than comparisons of this kind: “I would not wish, for a thousand coins, to be deprived of your company, to sustain this ill will,” and so forth.

4. IT SEEMS THAT THE BUYER’S SPECIAL UTILITY CAN BE RECKONED.

For he who sells a thing also procures this utility for the buyer. But. The value of the thing can be estimated according to the utility received by the buyer. Therefore.

Reply. I distinguish the major. He procures that utility through a formal communication, I deny; through a material communication, I concede. I contradistinguish the minor.

To the major. A formal communication is had when something possessed by one person passes to another. But the thing in the hands of the seller was not endowed with that utility, which consequently was not formally communicated.

Moreover, to the minor. Value cannot be estimated except according to utility received through a formal communication. For only something proper to oneself can be exchanged. But the utility which was not in the hands of the seller was not proper to him. Cf. St. Thomas, here, reply to obj. 3; and Lehmkuhl, vol. 1, nos. 1050 and 1118.

Instance. But then the seller who cannot derive the common utility of the thing ought to sell it below the true price.

Reply. I deny it. Because this utility grounds the value which is possessed together with the thing. Cf. C. de Lugo, vol. 2, disp. 26, no. 43, and above, no. 339, 5.