BIEL, Gabriel.

£15,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Tractatus de potestate & utilitate monetarum. First separate edition of Biel's treatise on money from the moral or casuistic view, originally published as part of his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and containing his views on price and utility.A professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen, Biel (c.1420-1495) was a follower of William of Occam and one of the last scholastics. "Biel's progressive economic views were first pointed out by Roscher, who introduced Biel to modern students of economics. His advance beyond his predecessors is illustrated particularly in his views on just price and on the morality of merchandising. The equality which justice demands in exchanges is not determined by anything intrinsic to the contract but by the utility of the goods for human life. A price fixing law should take into account human needs, the scarcity of the goods and the labor and difficulty of obtaining them" (Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences)."Though inferior to Oresme, the other distinguished scholastic economist, in penetration and clearness of thought, he shows a sound understanding of the fundamental principles of the theory of money" (Palgrave).Included is a copy of the 1930 English translation, Treatise on the Power and Utility of Moneys.

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