La Maison Nucingen puts to the test Aristotle and Marx’s distinction between economy and chrematistics, which is to say, between the desire for money in order to satisfy needs and the desire for money for its own sake. Nucingen embodies the financial capitalist driven by a desire for unlimited enrichment, for whom money is not a means of access to the enjoyment of real wealth but the instrument of power in a society subject to chrematistics. The power he exercises comes not only from his fortune but also from his skill as a speculator and, above all, relies on the ambivalence of the other characters and on their susceptibility to chrematistic desire.