Economists and theologians usually inhabit different intellectual worlds. Economists investigate the workings of markets and tend to set ethical questions aside. Theologians, anxious to take up concerns raised by market outcomes, often dismiss economics and lose insights into the influence of market incentives on individual behavior. Mary L. Hirschfeld, who was a professor of economics for fifteen years before training as a theologian, seeks to bridge these two fields in this innovative work about economics and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

According to Hirschfeld, an economics rooted in Thomistic thought integrates many of the insights of economists with a larger view of the good life, and gives us critical purchase on the ethical shortcomings of modern capitalism. In a Thomistic approach, she writes, ethics and economics cannot be reconciled if we begin with narrow questions about fair wages or the acceptability of usury. Rather, we must begin with an understanding of how economic life serves human happiness. The key point is that material wealth is an instrumental good, valuable only to the extent that it allows people to flourish. Hirschfeld uses that insight to develop an account of a genuinely humane economy in which pragmatic and material concerns matter but the pursuit of wealth for its own sake is not the ultimate goal.

The Thomistic economics that Hirschfeld outlines is thus capable of dealing with our culture as it is, while still offering direction about how we might make the economy better serve the human good.

"[An] outstanding book about economics and ethics…If we can better order our lives—and in Hirschfeld’s account, most of us need to—then we can achieve better markets and create more just market systems." - Christian Century

"For those seeking succinct, clear and accurate accounts of the Thomist understanding of the human person and the presuppositions of economics, this book could hardly be bettered." - Irish Catholic

"[Hirschfeld] integrates economic research into a ‘philosophic and theological discussion about the human good and human happiness.’ This knowledge may not be quantified in pie charts, by Wall Street, or within algorithms, but Hirschfeld insists that wisdom lies beyond the labs and the think-tanks…Aquinas and the Market begins a necessary conversation between economic and theological sectors, in the academy and, one hopes, outside the ivory towers and seminaries, to calculate our ultimate worth." - PopMatters

"Excellent…Hirschfeld offers an attractive and sophisticated model for how theology should approach economics." - Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Excellent…Lays out a Thomistic approach to mainline economics." - Between Two Kingdoms

"Deeply researched, carefully argued, and provides an important perspective on the prospects of bringing theology and economics into a productive dialogue. Hirschfeld represents an important voice in seeking to bring these two distinct fields together in an interdisciplinary manner." - Reading Religion