Can we discuss the morality of usury? I know the advantages argued for it, but let's also consider the disadvantages: would things like houses and cars be so expensive if they couldn't be bought on credit (especially the cost of housing raised by ambitions landlords and speculators)? Consumer goods as well are probably made more expensive by credit cards. All these things are probably more expensive because credit makes people more likely to pay for more expensive things. It's gotten to the point where you must take on debt to even get by, for if you don't start early, you will not have a good credit rating and can't afford life's necessities. None of this even touches on our retirement system, which is eroding the pension system in favor of an usurious system.
The Orthodox Church condemns usury
>Not only in Psalm 15:5 is this teaching found. It is a fundamental principle throughout the Word of God. In Exodus (22:25), Leviticus (25:37), and Deuteronomy (23:19) the charging of interest on loans is forbidden. Prophets like Ezekiel (18:13, 22:12) thundered against usury. Charging interest is clearly and strictly forbidden by God.
http://holytrinity-lansing.org/index.php/news/102/109/The-Sin-We-Stopped-Feeling-Sorry-For/d,betterDetails.htm
>Business expectations in lending, often ghostly becomes more profitable than the production of tangible goods. In this regard, it must be remembered about the moral ambiguity of the situation, when money is "make" new money without the application of human labor. Declaring credit sphere to be the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real economic sector comes into conflict with the moral principles, reveled by God condemning usury.
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/93828.htm
cont
>>1381880
>Debt is usury and usury is enslavement, and enslavement is always a source of evil. Therefore, debt is always to be avoided as far as possible; at best it can only be a temporary necessary evil. Usury was and is forbidden by the Church. Catholicism, which for many centuries kept much of the heritage of the Church from the first millennium, forbade usury until the late 18th century.
http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/tag/usury/
>Dmitri Lubomudrov, the Orthodox Church’s legal adviser told the media at that time, “We realized we couldn’t stay dependent on the Western financial system, but must develop our own. As with the Islamic system, the Orthodox one will be based not just on legislation, but on Orthodox morality as well, and will be an invitation to businessmen seeking security at a time of crisis.” Among its features would be interest-free credit issuance and prohibition of investment in gambling casinos or such activities going against Church moral values.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/interest-free-banking-russia-debates-unorthodox-orthodox-financial-alternative/5495331
>>1381881
in fact Catholicism prohibited usury. Thomas of Aquinas wrote some brilliant pages about it.
Islam prohibits usury as well, that is why there are Islamic bonds and Islamic banking according to Shariah states that the bank and the user must share the same % of risk.
pretty cool if you ask me
Good fucking luck competing in a modern marketplace without it. Polities don't survive on morals.
>>1381891
Well Aquinas had a powerful thinker who condemned usury to draw from; Aristotle.
>>1381880
People would probably have to settle for a lower standard of living without the availability of loans. LIkewise many businesses would have a harder time getting off the ground with out loans and investors.
We would materially be worse off. Now I ask you, would it be moral to force that on society?
>>1381901
We'd have a much lower level of consumerism, yes, but we also wouldn't have housing crashes as often.
>>1381915
ah but economic crises can happen in any society. We also tend to recover from these things pretty quickly.
and where there are busts, there are also booms that have the opposite effect.
More than consumerism, many important inventions and artistic achievements were made possible in part by credit. Perhaps they would have been invented latter on, but we cannot know that.
Had Catholic law allowed usury, the Jewish financial elite would not be in its current position right now.
>>1381932
Yeah, the problem is we often can't distinguished between booms and bubbles.
>many important inventions and artistic achievements were made possible in part by credit
Such as?
>>1381936
I'm about to sleep so I have no time to find a lot of great examples but consider that Walt Disney started his company on a loan. without investors many ideas would have never gotten their start.
>>1381946
Yeah, did some pretty good stuff. Shame what Disney turned into
>>1381880
good luck
>>1381880
I've never heard of anyone complaining on a moral or ethical level about charging rent to use my lodgings. Or any tool I might have. Or a vehicle. Or a book. Why is it suddenly different to charge rent for the use of my money?
>>1381898
>Well Aquinas had a powerful thinker who condemned usury to draw from; Aristotle.
you dont need to be Aristotle to know usury is wrong though.
>>1385038
But money can be lost, not to mention the value of money can change because of inflation.
At the same time you cannot use it while it is lent.
for all these reasons charging "rent" on money makes just as much sense
>>1385038
>That's because lodgings and tools get worn and have to be maintained
So? Nobody charges rent for the maintainence. You charge for the privilege of using your property, and for any possible loss from not having it when being rented out.
Which definitely occurs with money as well as physical goods.
>>1385061
>Nobody charges rent for the maintainence.
Do they just get that money out of thin air, then? The landlord has obligations to maintain their property to a certain standard, and lots of renters fuck up property like you wouldn't believe.
>>1385077
I'm sorry, I phrased that badly.
The landlord/lender is usually charging more than just the fees for maintenance, and would be perfectly justified in doing so.
Yes, whatever costs involved in maintaining the object or property being lent will factor into the price of the lending, but ultimately, nobody say, rents a house hoping only to get as much from the lease as it would cost to maintain the property while it's let out.
>>1385090
not to mention safety deposits,which are withheld if the property is damaged
>>1385090
Okay, agreed that landlords obviously rent their land for profit and I personally don't see a problem with that, there should be some incentive and being a landlord is still (usually) work.
That said, just because you haven't heard complaints doesn't mean some people don't take issue with it. Take China's commie revolution for example - landlords were the first on Mao's chopping block. It's very easy to talk people into hating landlords based on the same principles as hating bankers and other capitalists.
>>1385104
>It's very easy to talk people into hating landlords based on the same principles as hating bankers and other capitalists.
That doesn't make it right, it just gets back to the real question: is it ok to make money on anything other than personal labor?
>>1385115
As a dirty capitalist I figure that usury, renting property etc is providing a service that people are willing to pay a premium for. When used wisely borrowing money can be ultimately beneficial for everyone involved (the lender gets a return on their investment, the borrower can utilize resources they wouldn't have access to without a loan).
That said, for reasons like OP addressed it can cause problems as well - a society where the majority are used to being in debt and willing to spend more than they can afford can make it more difficult to make a living as somebody who tries to live within their means. Debt to some extent is almost required in modern western society - to get a good job you need to pay out the ass for university, which (unless you're assisted by your parents) almost guarantees needing loans in places like the States. I think there's a lot of room for government regulation regarding usury and renting property (though in some places it's already quite heavily regulated) and that it shouldn't just be left to the 'invisible hand' so to speak.
>>1381880
Its just a social construct.
>>1384967
Traditional Confuciuan thought actually looked down on merchants and traders; the rationale was that you weren't making anything, you were just profiting off of what other people produced. Not sure if they had the same attitude towards bankers, if that even existed at the time, but I'm guessing the attitude was the same.
>>1385318
That sounds very based. The Chinese are bros. Usury and profiteering off others work should be looked down on.
>>1385325
Just dont take loans? Whats the problem?
>>1385318
why ezra loved him
>>1385318
Dumb old confucius didnt understand the importance of trade, then
A service is no less valuable than a good
If by "usury" you simply mean the lending of money to be paps back with interest, then it is what makes the modern world possible, and is the primary engine of social mobility.
Borrowing money is simply sending money from your future self to your present self, at some known loss. Lending money is the opposite. It can be either prudent or foolish, depending on the circumstances, but morality doesn't really enter into it.
>>1385325
>The Chinese are bros
Eeeexcept the actual Chinese are merchant as fuck.
And while they were looked down upon my the Confucian social order, many Scholar-Bureaucrats got to where they were thanks to a Merchant dad or something.
Confucianism wasn't the end-all of Chinese morality.
>>1384997
>>1381898
>Aristotle
>mfw
Clergymen HATE HIM. This French Economist destroyed Aristotle with one simple trick.
Time. Money isn't simply begetting money, interest is a rent of the use of money over time. The debtor is paying the creditor for the use of his money, as a farm hand might have rented a plough. Time is something Aristotle and the Scholastics ignored, that a man is buying the use of another man's money to use over a set period of time.
It's important to distinguish between "interest" and "usury". Money loaned at interest is a form of capital. Since the creditor forgoes the profit/utility he would have made had he invested/spent the money. The interest rate is set at a rate that exceeds the profit/utility the creditor would have otherwise derived from the money, and accounts for any risk. This argument was first made by the church in the 13th century.
At this time, interest rates were low for business (sometimes as low as 3-5%) and loans were widespread. Loans for individuals could have rates as high as 30-40% and so "usury" is often meant loaning to an individual above a certain limit, a rate of interest that is "too high" (this rate is never justified and is always a number pulled out of the air). Loaning to the poor, or to people that can't repay is often seen as "usurious".
There is no justification for banning lending at interest. The fact that OP spooks himself so absurdly, claiming that somehow "muh holy book told me that something is bad" is a good argument, shows how this topic will bring the mouth breathers out from under the floor. From Communists, to Islamic zealots, to Fascists, all of them use "feels > reals" as an argument.
>>1385318
Zoroastrians had (have?) a similar attitude. In the Sassanian Empire merchants belonged to the lowest caste, even below peasants, a caste that wasn't even allowed to have a Great Fire like the other three.
It looks like a lot of agrarian societies ruled by an aristocracy see merchants with contempt.
>>1381880
>Can we discuss the morality of usury?
I don't see anything wrong with charging interest, at least up to a certain point.
If you lend someone money, you don't have the use of that money for the duration of the loan and thus cannot use it for profitable enterprise. It's only fair that the borrower should compensate you for that. Plus, there's always a risk that the borrower will default on the loan. You have to spread this risk across multiple loans in the form of a higher interest rate in order to avoid financial disaster when someone fails to repay their loan.
>>1386754
correct answer
