Personified

David Hawkes wrote in the TLS on David J. Baker's On Demand. Writing for the market in early modern England. Hawkes sketches the same approach the Romans such as Diocletian had when they thought about inflation (I believe):

To equate "demand" with "appetite" introduces an unwelcome ethical aspect into the discussion, since appetite was always to be mistrusted and usually resisted. It also raises a question that Baker's book asks but does not answer: where does "demand" come from? In Renaissance England, the answer was not in doubt. It came from Satan. To serve appetite in the name of avarice was to do the work of the Devil. The demand-based economy was inspired by the Prince of Darkness.
(...)
This habit of conceptualizing reprehensible social tendencies in personified form seems to be an insurmountable barrier dividing our thought from that of early modern English people. It discredits their moral objections to market society. How can we give adult consideration to the claims of people who believed in Satan? And yet, unless we want to dismiss all economic commentary written before the English Civil War, that is what we must do. (...) a literary critic should know that early modern usage of terms like "Satan" was rarely literal. We would do well to consider the possibility that, since they were witnesses at its birth, the people of Renaissance England had a clearer view than we do of consumerism's true nature, and that this explains both their vehement opposition to it and the form in which that opposition was expressed.
(...)
what is the difference between attributing a set of practical effects to "demand" and attributing them to "Satan"? Is it any more than a choice between metaphors? To consider such questions is to ask whether demand swells up spontaneously from within the population, or is introduced into the psyche by an external and malignant force.

The review is also useful for thinking about all those Dubrovnik merchants who repent on their deathbeds and list all their deceits in the testaments.