FROM ALBERTUS MAGNUS TO THOMAS AQUINAS: THE DISCURSIVE FOUNDATIONS OF THE RISK ON MERCHANTS AND TRADE

Albert the Great set out the moral risk incurred by merchants using a varied lexicon that reflects the frequency of occurrences and the maximum loss. Thomas Aquinas, his disciple, summarized Albert’s text by adopting the lexicon of frequency, which, along with the lexicon of probability used on the subject of usury in his other early economic text, marks a new stage. Using Albert’s text as a starting point, Thomas also makes a number of changes that allow him to express the merchant’s risk as a professional risk, incurred through speech. The risk incurred by speech is not one of gossip but of the justice of exchange through the information given and the price stated.