Versions of this paper have been presented at a conference on “Material Culture and Cultural Materialism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” sponsored by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, Arizona, February 1999; at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 2000; at the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association—Eastern Division, Philadelphia, December 2002; and at a conference celebrating the 90th birthday of Alan Gerwirth sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago, May 2003. My thanks to all of the participants in these venues who have forced me to sharpen my arguments, as well as to the several anonymous readers for the Review who compelled me to rethink sections of the essay.

1. The pioneering works of this veritable Renaissance of Marsiglian studies were Lagarde, Georges de, Marsile de Padoue ou le premier thùoricien de I'ùtat laïque (Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux: Éditions Bùatrice, 1934)Google Scholar and Gewirth, Alan, Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of Peace, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951–1956)Google Scholar. For the historiography of Marsiglio interpretation and scholarship, two key examinations are: Docini, Carlo, Introduzione a Marsilio da Padova (Bari: Editori Laterza, 1995), pp. 75–82Google Scholar and Condren, Conal, “Marsilius of Padua's Argument from Authority: A Survey of Its Significance in the Defensor Pads” Political Theory 5 (1977): 205–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. For a bibliography of the most recent Marsiglio scholarship, see the bibliography in Dolcini's book along with the bibliography that is appended to my afterward to the republication of Alan Gewirth's translation of the Defensor Pacis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), pp. 455–58Google Scholar.

3. Gewirth, , Marsilius of Padua, 1: 9Google Scholar.

4. See Condren, Conal, “Democracy and the Defensor Pacis: On the English Language Tradition of Marsilian Interpretation,” Il Pensiero Politico 13 (1980): 301–316Google Scholar and The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 189–89Google Scholar. Another recent advocate of the priority of power in Marsiglio's thought is Gerson Moreno-Riaño, “Poverty and Political Power in Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis” (Presented at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, England, 07 2003)Google Scholar.

5. Canning, Joseph, “The Role of Power in the Political Thought of Marsilius of Padua,” History of Political Thought 20 (1999): 22Google Scholar.

6. Tiemey, Brian, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 1150–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 48Google Scholar.

7. Canning, , “The Role of Power in the Political Thought of Marsilius of Padua,” p. 22 n6Google Scholar; the reference is to Nederman, Cary J., Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pads (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995)Google Scholar.

8. Canning, , “The Role of Power in the Political Thought of Marsilius of Padua,” p. 23Google Scholar.

9. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, On the Social Contract, 2:3Google Scholar.

10. For brief surveys of Western attitudes, see Hirschmann, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 9–12Google Scholar, and Viner, Jacob, Essays on the Intellectual History of Economics, ed. Irwin, D. A. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 69–77Google Scholar.

11. Two of the classic statements of this perspective, articulated from highly divergent premises, are: Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar, and Macpherson, C.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 1–8 and passimGoogle Scholar.

12. Versions of the views expressed in the following paragraph may be found, for example, in: Roll, Eric, A History of Economic Thought, 5th ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), pp. 1–120Google Scholar; Salin, Edgar, Politische Ékonomie: Geschichte der Wirtschaftspolitiscken Ideen von Platon bis zur Gegenwart (Tübingen and Zürich: Mohr and Polygraphischer, 1967)Google Scholar; Deane, Phyllis, The Evolution of Economic Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Smith, Roger, The Norton History of the Human Sciences (New York: Norton, 1997), pp. 7–8, 304–307Google Scholar.

13. For elements of this case, see Zuckert, Michael, Natural Rights and the New Republicanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Burtt, Shelley, Virtue Transformed: Political Argument in England 1688–1740 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sandel, Michael, Democracy's Discontent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996)Google Scholar, Part II.

14. Smith, , The Norton History of the Human Sciences, p. 317Google Scholar. See also the remarks of Pagden, Anthony in his Introduction to The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 11–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Minowitz, Peter, Profits, Priefits, and Princes: Adam Smith's Emancipation of Economics from Politics and Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 1–3Google Scholar

16. An overview of these issues may be found in Miethke, Jürgen, De potestate papae (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000)Google Scholar.

17. For a concise summary of the main lines and force of Marsiglio's argument in the Defensor Pacis, see Black, Antony, Political Thought in Europe, 1250–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 58–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Citations from the Defensor pacis are based on the critical edition by Scholz, Richard, 2 vols. (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1932)Google Scholar; references will be given in the text of the article to discourse, chapter and section number. Translations are mine, although I have consulted Gewirth's English version.

19. The implications of Marsiglio's version of the public-private split have been explored by Nederman, Cary J., “Private Will/Public Justice: Household, Community and Consent in Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis” Western Political Quarterly 43 (1990): 699–717CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The implications of this view for religious practices and beliefs have been drawn out by Nederman, , Worlds of Difference: European Discourse of Toleration, c.11OO-c.1550 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), pp. 74–78Google Scholar.

20. point that was emphasized long ago by Gewirth, , Marsilius of Padua, 1: 49–52Google Scholar, who characterized Marsiglio as adopting a “biological” framework for human flourishing.

21. See the terminological analyses provided in: Gewirth, , Marsilius of Padua, v. 2: pp. lxvi–xciGoogle Scholar; Kunzmann, Walter and Kusch, Horst, eds., Marsilius von Padua: Der Verteidiger des Friedens (Berlin: Rætten and Loening, 1958), 1: xxxix–lxxxxiiiGoogle Scholar; Vona, Piero di, I Principi de Defensor Pacis (Naples: Morano, 1974)Google Scholar; and Damiata, Marino, Plenitudo Potestatis e Universitas Civium in Marsilio da Padova (Florence: Studi Francescani, 1983)Google Scholar.

22. Aquinas, Thomas, De regimine principum, ed. Mathis, J. (Turin: Marietti, 1924), II.3, p. 27Google Scholar: “Since the foremost tendency of merchants is to make money, greed is awakened in the hearts of citizens through the pursuit of trade. As a result, everything in the community (civitate) will become venal, and trust will be destroyed, the path will be opened to fraud, and the public good will be despised, as each person will seek his own advantage (proprio commodo). … For these reasons, in such a community, civil intercourse (conversationem) will be corrupted.” Note that this is from a section of the work that is generally deemed to be Aquinas's own, as distinct from the continuatio by Ptolemy of Lucca.

23. Marsiglio, of Padua, , Writings on the Empire, ed. Nederman, Cary J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 9.3, 15.6 (pp. 28, 57)Google Scholar.

24. On the role of functionality in Marsiglio's thought, see Nederman, , Community and Consent, pp. 53–72Google Scholar and Baernstein, P. Renùe, “Corporatism and Organicism in Discourse 1 of Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26 (1996): 113–38Google Scholar.

25. On the social origins of this doctrine in the medieval guild system, see Black, Antony, Guild and State: European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2003), pp. 86–95.Google Scholar

26. That this formed the central criterion for the good order of the temporal community can be judged by Marsiglio's argument in the Defensor minor for toleration of religious dissent and even heresy, which proceeds from the priority of economic well-being in a functionally differentiated society. See Nederman, , Worlds of Difference, pp. 78–83.Google Scholar

27. The classic expression of the “fairness principle,” of course, is to be found in Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 111–14.Google Scholar

28. Marsiglio returns to essentially the same conclusion at Defensor pacis, II.2.3 and II. 21 15.Google Scholar

29. One example is Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance, trans. Sigmund, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 98, 205–209.Google Scholar

30. On the variety of usages of this slogan, see Marongiu, Antonio, Medieval Parliaments: A Comparative Study, trans. Woolf, S.J. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1968), pp. 33–37Google Scholar and Post, Gaines, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State, 1100–1322 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 163–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. A recent survey of concepts of the common good and attendant problems within the main stream of scholastic thinkers is Kempshall, M. S., The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. For instance, Hugh of St. Victor in the twelfth century remarked how commercial enterprise “commutes the private good of individuals into the public benefit of all” (Didascalion, ed. Buttimer, Charles H. [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1939], 2.23Google Scholar). Likewise, the late thirteenth century Franciscan Peter John Olivi argued in his Tractatus de emptione et venditione that public welfare is served by permitting market mechanisms to follow the logical course of rising prices in times of scarcity: “If the price were then not to be raised, this would have hurt the common good because those in possession of such a [scarce] commodity normally would not have been inclined to sell it to those who lacked and needed it; and thus the common need would be less well provided for” (in Spicciani, A., La mercatura e la formationze del prezzo nella riflessione teologica medioevale [Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1977], Q. 3, p. 261).Google Scholar

33. Classic statements of these views may be found in Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957);Google ScholarOlson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965);Google Scholar and Buchanan, James and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Rousseau, , On the Social Contract, 1. 8.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., 2.3.

36. Barry, Brian, Political Argument (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), pp. 175–285.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 204.

38. Ibid., pp. 197–98.

39. See Hyde, J. K., Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of the Civil Life 1000–1350 (London: Macmillian 1973), pp. 114–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. Indeed, there is empirical social scientific evidence to support this claim; see Morrell, Michael E., “Citizens' Evaluations of Participatory Democratic Procedures: Normative Theory Meets Empirical Science,” Political Research Quarterly 52 (1999): 293–322.Google Scholar

41. For instance, Maclntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985);Google Scholar Sandel, Democracy's Discontent, Part I.

42. See Phillips, Derek, Looking Backward: A Critical Appraisal of Communitarian Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);Google ScholarHolmes, Stephen, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993);Google ScholarHolmes, , Passions and Constraints: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).Google Scholar

43. I have in mind, for example, Dagger, Richard, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (New York/Oxford: Oxford Univesity Press, 1997).Google Scholar

44. Ignatieff, Michael, The Needs of Strangers (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984), p. 136.Google Scholar