Folia Theologica 11. (2000)

Eugene Csocsan de Váralja: The Just Income Distribution

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E. CSOCSAN de Váralja

3. The goods exchanged on the markets are brought under common denominator by the money. As the division of labour widens always further and further, in the process of increasing traffic of the transactions, they will be performed using a specially sought after good. Eventually the society will abstract from the primary use of this commodity, which will become the money.

The money however can not be brought into existence without human will: the society of monkeys lacks money. Namely the human will is intelligent desiring faculty, and the money presupposes abstractions, value judgements and the ability to relate to purpose. Meanwhile according to Saint Thomas Aquinas the money is useful for everything34 35 36 37 and this in itself shows, that in addition to intelligence human will is required to the establishment of money, because it is the will, which actually applies the

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means to an end (what is implied by utility, as explained above;) This will in civilised societies is the legislation, but in less developed societies money could be introduced by customary law as well.

The money produced by human will is an artificial being and as such its formal cause and essence is given by its aim. “The money has been invented mainly for making exchanges’ The money is general means of exchange and in this it performs two functions. Firstly it is an instru- ment of transfer: it is useful for acquiring anything sensible Secondly as a means of evaluation it implies quantity. The value of money depends on its quantity, but also on its speed. Namely the money could be consumed as a means of transfer by the individual consumers, but not by the political economy, where in fact it emerges, when it is spent, and quicker is spent more of it appears publicly. This shows firstly, that its publicly available quantity increases by its speed, and secondly this joins the money's two functions in question.

Ferenc Ibrányi mentioned the material cause of the money.38 According to the quantity theory of money the matter of money or respectively the amount of its security funds gives the value of the money. In the re34 pecunia utilis est ad omnia IIa IIae qu. 118, a. 7 ad 2.

35 cf.: IaIIae qu 17. a 3.

36 pecunia principaliter inventa est ad commutationes faciendas, IIa IIae qu 78, a 1. corpus articuli.

37 utilis est ad omnia sensibilia acquirenda IIa IIae qu.118 a. 7 ad 2.

38 IBRÁNYI, Ferenc: A kamatkérdés erkölcstudományi problematikája. (The ethical problem of interest), Theologia 1936