The paradox of value in the teaching of the Church Fathers
Joost Hengstmengel
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2021, vol. 28, issue 5, 695-707
Abstract:
The paradox of value is a classic puzzle in economics. It wonders why necessities are cheap while luxury goods are useless but expensive. Often Adam Smith is cited as the “inventor” of the paradox. Few economists seem to realise that it was voiced by numerous writers before. This article focuses on the Church Fathers, and discusses the role and interpretation of the paradox in their works. It argues that although these “theologians” did not take the analysis of the paradox much further than their philosophical predecessors, they elaborated on the subjectivity of value and price, thus contributing to the genesis of the economic theory of value.
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2021.1877758 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:28:y:2021:i:5:p:695-707
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REJH20
DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2021.1877758
Access Statistics for this article
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso
More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().