Zapatrywania socjalne i ekonomiczne św. Tomasza z Akwinu

Abstract

Basic thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas on social and economic problem are presented in the paper. His views on human labour, theory of value and price, theory of labour and wages, monetary theory and theory of interest rate are being discussed. Philosophical system of St. Thomas was declared the official Catholic Church system by Pope Leo XIII in Aeterni Patris, which revitalised neoscholasticism. Aquinas thoughts stemmed from: Christian dogmas and Aristotle’s writings. The place of human labour, connected with his ideas on Man, created as God’s image and likeness was one of Aquinas’s main assumptions. The society must be carefully organized in order to achieve the highest ethic goal. People are equal before God. The differences between them are due only to their activities. They should not have the same share in national income. Following Aristotle, Thomas treated Man as a social creature, bom to live in society. According to his economic thoughts neither wealth nor poverty are good or bad themselves. They are good if they lead to virtue, and bad if they lead to a sin.