histofthought1

From Middle Ages to Renaissance 77Oresme also adds to Buridan's analysis of how commodities become moneyon the market: he stresses easy portability, and that it should be of high valueper unit weight. He also points out that after a period of gold or silver beingweighed out in precise quantities for each transaction, people started to cointhe precious metals, with an inscription and a head on the coin to guarantee acertain quantity of gold or silver in each coin. Gold, being a more valuablemoney, will generally be used for larger transactions, while silver and evencopper may be used for smaller purchases.3.4 The odd man out: Heinrich von LangensteinOne nominalist and student of Buridan, Heinrich von Langenstein the Elder(also known as Henry of Hesse) (1325-97), while an uninfluential and minorscholastic philosopher in his own and later centuries, made great mischief formodern interpretations of the history of economic thought. Langenstein, whotaught first at the University of Paris and then at Vienna, began in his Treatiseon Contracts by analysing the just price in the mainstream scholastic manner:just price is the market price, which is a rough measure of the human needsof consumers. This price will be the outcome of individuals' calculationsabout their wants and values, and these in turn will be affected by the relativelack or abundance of supply, as well as by the scarcity or abundance ofbuyers.Having said this, Langenstein proceeded to contradict himself completely.In a highly unfortunate contribution to the history of economic thought,Langenstein urged local government authorities to step in and fix prices.Price-fixing would somehow be a better path to the just price than the interplayof the market. Other scholastics had not exactly opposed price-fixing;for them, the market price was just whether it was set by the commonestimate of the market or by the government. But it was at least implicit intheir writings that the free market was a better (or at the very least an equallygood) path to discovering the just price. Langenstein was unique in positivelyadvocating government price-fixing.Moreover, Langenstein added another economic heresy. He counselled theauthorities to fix the price so that each seller, whether merchant or craftsman,could maintain his status or station in life in the society. The just price wasthe price which maintained everyone's position in the style to which he hadbecome accustomed - no more and no less. If a seller tried to charge a priceto advance beyond his station, he was guilty of the sin of avarice.Langenstein was the odd man out among the scholastics and late medievalthinkers. No one has been found to second the 'station in life' concept of thejust price. Indeed St Thomas Aquinas himself effectively demolished thisview when he trenchantly declared