IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aop/jijoss/v11y2022i1p13-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equality in Exchange: A Rehabilitation of The Classical Concept

Author

Listed:
  • Lukáš Augustin Máslo

    (Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze)

Abstract

The author makes an effort to rehabilitate the classical concept of the equality in exchange which lies in the foundations of the theory of just price and the scholastic criticism of usury. The author supplies a proof that the non-equivalent contract of “exchange” is 1) a contradiction in terms because it represents a combination of a basic contract and a super-contract which contradict each other; and 2) an act of commutative injustice because the contractor negates implicitly within the super-contract what he declares explicitly in the basic contract. The following objections are being settled dialectically: objection of an isolated exchange, objection of voluntariness, objection of Paretovian efficiency, objection of rating, objection of greater evil. The author presents a proof that the just price in an isolated exchange is equal to the reservation price of the seller. The author contends that requiring a transfer from anyone becomes commutative injustice if this requirement is accompanied by 1) external direct pressure or 2) external indirect pressure or 3) deception. The external indirect pressure is defined by the author as a situation when a subject makes a transfer a condition for his consent to a basic contract within the super-contract. The contractor consents to the non-equality in “exchange” only if he wants to give a gift anyway. Since the injustice originates in the agent and benevolence of the sufferer does not cancel the injustice, the non-equivalent contract of “exchange” is an act of commutative injustice even if the sufferer wants to give a gift out of his benevolence. The author claims that the state can adopt four different positions in the question of non-equivalent contracts of “exchange”: 1) to prosecute the perpetrator, 2) to declare the unenforceability, 3) to tolerate the private enforcement, 4) to enforce. Since the enforcement and toleration go against the purpose of the state, the author puts forward the following legal solution: the state declares the non-equivalent contracts of “exchange” unenforceable, nevertheless, it does not automatically prosecute the subjects which commit injustice for making such contracts but, on the other hand, it protects the subjects which suffer injustice if they ask for it.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukáš Augustin Máslo, 2022. "Equality in Exchange: A Rehabilitation of The Classical Concept," International Journal of Social Sciences, European Research Center, vol. 11(1), pages 13-28, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aop:jijoss:v:11:y:2022:i:1:p:13-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eurrec.org/ijoss-article-117002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://eurrec.org/ijoss-article-117002?download=2
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray N. Rothbard, 1995. "Economic Thought Before Adam Smith," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 377, December.
    2. Silvia Szilagyiova, 2019. "Exploitation of payday loan users: Fact or fiction?," International Journal of Economic Sciences, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 8(2), pages 127-147, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cervera-Ferri, Pablo & Insa-Sánchez, Pau, 2022. "Rareness in the intellectual origins of Walras’ theory of value," OSF Preprints 5nwcb, Center for Open Science.
    2. Vergés Josep C., 2000. "The Political Economy of the Just Price: What the School of Salamanca Has To Say in the Age of Corruption," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-33, June.
    3. Jean-Louis Peaucelle, 2006. "Adam Smith's use of multiple references for his pin making example," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 489-512.
    4. Cendejas Bueno, José Luis, 2016. "Ordenación de la actividad económica, ley natural y justicia en Aristóteles y en Santo Tomás [Ordination of economic activity, natural law and justice in Aristotle and Saint Thomas]," MPRA Paper 73585, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Sep 2016.
    5. Toon Van Houdt, 1998. "'Lack of money': a reappraisal of Lessius' contribution to the scholastic analysis of money-lending and interest-taking," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1-35.
    6. Garello Jacques, 1999. "Hayek's Unconventionalism," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-17, December.
    7. Robert Ekelund & Robert Tollison, 1997. "On neoinstitutional theory and preclassical economies: mercantilism revisited," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 375-399.
    8. Garello Jacques, 1999. "Hayek's Unconventionalism," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 513-528, December.
    9. Giovanni PATRIARCA, 2020. "On the Scottish distinctiveness from late scholasticism to the Scottish enlightenment a preliminary perspective," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 513-520, December.
    10. van Dun Frank, 1995. "The Lawful And The Legal," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 6(4), pages 555-580, December.
    11. Dorn James A., 2016. "China’s Challenge: Expanding the Market, Limiting the State," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 23-41, June.
    12. Peter Hans Matthews & Andreas Ortmann, 2002. "An Austrian (Mis)Reads Adam Smith: A critique of Rothbard as intellectual historian," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 379-392.
    13. Matteo Menegatti, 2016. "On some ‘Austrian’ misreadings of Cantillon's notions of intrinsic value and market price," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 173-197, April.
    14. Samuels Warren J., 2004. "The Market: Social Constuction and Operation," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-20, December.
    15. repec:jpe:journl:691 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. van Dun Frank, 1995. "The Lawful and the Legal," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 6(4), pages 1-27, December.
    17. repec:jpe:journl:92 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Ludwig Van Den Hauwe, 2000. "The Case for Supply-Side Economics Revisited: The Effect of Time Preference," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 139-160, September.
    19. Benito Arruñada, 2003. "Specialization and rent-seeking in moral enforcement: The case of confession," Economics Working Papers 653, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2009.
    20. Benjamin Powell & Edward Stringham, 2012. "Radical scholarship taking on the mainstream: Murray Rothbard’s contribution," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 315-327, December.
    21. José Luis Cendejas Bueno, 2021. "Justice and just price in Francisco de Vitoria's Commentary on Summa Theologica II-II q77," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 14(1-2), pages 1-32, November.
    22. Marian Eabrasu, 2008. "An Assessment of Subjectivism. Its Meaning and its Limits," ICER Working Papers 01-2008, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    equality in exchange; commutative justice; voluntariness; Pareto-efficiency; usury; just price;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aop:jijoss:v:11:y:2022:i:1:p:13-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jiri Rotschedl (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ijoss.eurrec.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.