As I was looking for interesting news, I came across an article on January 18 which definately caught my attention. It talks about how the price of gold has remained steady at around $1,130/ oz. Now, I don't know if you realize this but the price of gold 3 years ago was very different than it is today. Because of this, there is a "gold rush" hitting cities across the globe, where companies such as cash4gold are trying to buy as much gold as possible only to sell it to refineries and get more money for it. This catches my attention in the sense that it relates to what Aristotle is talking about in our reading. This way of using money to buy gold and turn it into more money, sounds alot like the kind of usury that Aristotle describes, which is using money to make money. Also, this cycle represents an "artificial art of acquisition" because it is improper and ultimately unlimited in its reach.
The proper use of gold would be to make products like jewelry and luxury items, for the benefit of others. But when gold is used for making money, and that money used for buying more gold in order to acquire more money, it becomes a vicious circle where people start fetishizing money, and turns into a perversion. Just as we discussed in class, the "natural art of acquisition" is the best for Aristotle, because it involves the "proper" use of an object (which is to obtain something other than the object), and it is limited because it satisfies biological need.
The way i see it, this is not what is happening with the gold buying/selling industry, and it is the complete opposite of what Aristotle would agree with.
Here is the link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTOE60G01H20100118?type=goldMktRpt
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Daniel I like the way you have presented this blog. But there is nothing wrong in buying and selling gold for money. This is a hundreds of millions dollar worth industry sector you are talking about. This type of trade has been going on for many years and there is nothing wrong in doing it. It is just like shares and stock trading. I agree that Aristotle would think this is a unnatural art of acquisition but, this is a mode through which lot of people earn money to sustain their life.
ReplyDeletei agree with you that aristotle would not believe gold is being used for the right purposes. Gold at one time was used as a median of exchanged and with the times and since given its value to paper money. The demand for gold makes it a profitable business, and profiting off the demand for that I believe is just. In terms of Aristotle i believe he would say that we shouldn't even give value to gold, because it is not virtuous.
ReplyDeleteFrom Aristoltes point of view, this way of making money is usury. But the way companies like cash4gold makes money is just a natural part of the business world. Despite this, it is still usury at heart. However, you can say just about every business relies on usury to make money. In this case, the company buys the gold from people for less than it's worth, only to sell it to someone for a higher price.
ReplyDeleteAlso these companies like Cash4gold buy gold from desperate people that are going into bankruptcy. These people get unacceptably low amounts of money for their valuables. This is another moral issue that Aristotle and Aquinas were discussing about property and exchange. I disagree with the fact that these companies resell the gold to make more money.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with your arguement and with the last two comments. I think that these gold trading retail companies are crooks. This has Aquinas's arguement written ALL over it! They are deceiving people on what their gold is actually worth, not being truthful or not informing people of what the TRUE value of the gold is and are paying people WAY less then what it is actually worth. Taking into account that most, if not all of the people that are going there are going because of the fact that they are low on cash, they are being greedy and are only concerned with paying the lowest amount for the gold to maximize their profit when they turn around to sell it.
ReplyDeleteI heard about companies such as CASH4GOLD buying gold and practically giving hardly any money in return. This was in one article i read some time ago and it also mentioned how people were being taking advantage of and after being given so little for their gold, compainies would then in return sell it for a substantially higher amount. I do disagree with what these companies are doing to those people in need of cash. Im most certainly positive that Aritstole would disagree as well, in saying that usury, that it is wrong to use money to make more money. Good point!
ReplyDelete