Addomesticare la guerra. La Chiesa e l'autosufficienza del mercato prima del suo trionfo.

In early modern Europe, some catholic theologians and some jurists proposed that it was possible to neutralize one monopolistic conspiracy by using the force of another. Such a legal-moral resolution was probabilistic and dangerous: both because the market would be imagined and perceived as a space of war and because it invalidated the very principle of restitution as a pivotal device of commutative justice to correct any possible violation of it. Thus, it raised not a few doubts. Monopoly was considered both a crime and a sin, and it was used to describe the various ways of manipulating negotiation dynamics. However, a hypothesis was put forward suggesting that one could protect oneself against such conspiracies by forming another conspiracy. The article focuses on the moral foundations of these defensive actions and shows how this principle was transposed into the new field of the emerging commercial law. The traces of this intellectual path lead down a market not only populated by menacing forces but also one capable of surviving its own destructive forces.