Aristotle also distinguishes a third type of finance (χρηματιστική) which shares in the nature of both those above described. It deals with natural resources and their products, but with things which, though useful, are not fruits (ἀκάρπιμα), such as wood-cutting (ὑλοτομία) and mining in all its branches (μεταλλευτική).763
The meaning may be best apprehended if, with Ashley,764 we observe that οἰκονομική is characterized, not only by direct acquisition of nature’s products, but also by a personal use of the same, while the unnatural finance has neither of these qualities. The medium kind, then, is like the former, in that it involves direct acquisition of natural resources, but like the latter, in that it does not acquire for directly personal use, but for exchange. It consists, therefore, not so much in the arts themselves, as in the exchange that is based on them.
In the discussion of the so-called false finance, Aristotle thus reveals a markedly hostile attitude to any extensive development of exchange. The middleman is considered to be a parasite and necessarily degenerate by the very fact of his business.765 As seen above, his criticism was doubtless directed chiefly against the mean and dishonest spirit in the actual retail trade and money-loaning of his day.766 Yet here also, just as in the Ethics passage above discussed, his prejudice blinds him to the fact that exchangers may be real producers, and that, after all, even the alleged false finance is not unlimited, but that it is distinctly bounded by economic demand.767 Still worse, he includes hired labor of every kind under unlimited acquisition, merely because it has some of the other qualities of that type