In Book V.6, Aristotle clarifies that ‘acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust’. Perhaps this is what gives bourgeois writers room to say that Aristotle would have thought that some markets involve injustice but are still just:
[W]ith respect to each type of injustice, e.g. … an adulterer … a man might even lie with a woman knowing who she was, but the origin of his might be not deliberate choice but passion. He acts unjustly, then, but is not unjust; e.g. a man is not … an adulterer, yet he committed adultery; and similarly in all other cases.
Now we have previously stated how the reciprocal is related to the just; but we must not forget that what we are looking for is not only what is just without qualification but also political justice. …
This is why we do not allow a man to rule, but rational principle, because a man behaves thus in his own interests and becomes a tyrant. The magistrate on the other hand is the guardian of justice … and … of equality also. And since he is assumed to have no more than his share, if he is just … a reward must be given him, and this is honour and privilege; but those for whom such things are not enough become tyrants.
Book V.7:
Of political justice part is natural, part legal[.] … The things which are just by virtue of convention and expediency are like measures; for wine and corn measures are not everywhere equal, but larger in wholesale and smaller in retail markets. …
There is a difference between the act of injustice and what is unjust, and between the act of justice and what is just; for a thing is unjust by nature or by enactment[.] … [T]his very thing, when it has been done, is an act of injustice[.] … [B]efore it is done is not yet [an injustice] but is unjust.
This idea is clarified in Book V.8:
Acts just and unjust being as we have described them, a man acts unjustly or justly whenever he does such acts voluntarily; when involuntarily, he acts neither unjustly nor justly except in an incidental way; for he does things which happen to be just or unjust. Whether an act is or is not one of injustice (or of justice) is determined by its voluntariness or involuntariness; for when it is voluntary it is blamed, and at the same time is then an act of injustice; so that there will be things that are unjust but not yet acts of injustice, if voluntariness be not present as well.
By the voluntary I mean, as has been said before, any of the things in a man’s own power which he does with knowledge, i.e. not in ignorance either of the person acted on or of the instrument used or of the end that will be attained … each such act being done not incidentally nor under compulsion[.] … Therefore that which is done in ignorance, or though not done in ignorance is not in the agent’s power, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary[.] …
But in the case of unjust and just acts alike the injustice or justice may be only incidental[.] … Of voluntary acts we do some by choice, others not by choice; by choice those which we do after deliberation, not by choice those which we do without previous deliberation.
But if a man harms another by choice, he acts unjustly; and these are the acts of injustice which imply that the doer is an unjust man, provided that the act violates proportion or equality. …
Of involuntary acts some are excusable, others not. For the mistakes which men make not only in ignorance [and] … from ignorance are excusable[.] …
Book V.9 (the italics suggest Aristotle would not see a capitalist as virtuous and might see the wage labourer as harmed even if they voluntarily accept less value than they produce, i.e. in the market):
Of the questions we intended to discuss two still remain for discussion; (3) whether it is the man who has assigned to another more than his share that acts unjustly, or he who has the excessive share, and (4) whether it is possible to treat oneself unjustly. [I]f the former alternative is possible and the distributor acts unjustly and not the man who has the excessive share, then if a man assigns more to another than to himself, knowingly and voluntarily, he treats himself unjustly; which is what modest people seem to do, since the virtuous man tends to take less than his share. … [H]e suffers nothing contrary to his own wish, so that he is not unjustly treated as far as this goes, but at most only suffers harm.
Men think that acting unjustly is in their power, and therefore that being just is easy. … [B]ut how actions must be done and distributions effected in order to be just, to know this is a greater achievement than knowing what is good for the health; though even there, [knowledge] applied with a view to producing health, is no less an achievement than that of being a physician.
In Book VIII.10, Aristotle reveals the type of system he reveres and the type of systems that he detests:
There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of deviation-forms–perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic, though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is monarchy, the worst timocracy.
The deviation from monarchy is tyrany; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good things; and such a man needs nothing further; therefore he will not look to his own interests but to those of his subjects; for a king who is not like that would be a mere titular king.
Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer in the case of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it is the contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the bad king becomes a tyrant.
Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy by the badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity what belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves, and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth; thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy.
Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous, since it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the majority, and all who have the property qualification count as equal. Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its case the form of constitution is but a slight deviation. These then are the changes to which constitutions are most subject; for these are the smallest and easiest transitions.
I disagree with the type of system that Aristotle preferred – he was no communist. But I fail to see how anyone can read him and find support for markets and especially not capitalist markets, which are principally based on unequal exchange.
In Book V.6, Aristotle clarifies that ‘acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust’. Perhaps this is what gives bourgeois writers room to say that Aristotle would have thought that some markets involve injustice but are still just:
Book V.7:
This idea is clarified in Book V.8:
Book V.9 (the italics suggest Aristotle would not see a capitalist as virtuous and might see the wage labourer as harmed even if they voluntarily accept less value than they produce, i.e. in the market):
In Book VIII.10, Aristotle reveals the type of system he reveres and the type of systems that he detests:
I disagree with the type of system that Aristotle preferred – he was no communist. But I fail to see how anyone can read him and find support for markets and especially not capitalist markets, which are principally based on unequal exchange.