Clivedurdle

This doesn't have to become boring, let's look at Ezekiel, why the death penalty for this? Why isn't lending money out also labour? All the work about legal agreements, contractual arrangements has to be done to make the arrangements work.

What are we looking at here, an extreme reaction against a new fangled invention that does upset existing power relationships?

We are discussing one of the major faultlines in modern politics, between those who don't mind capitalist ideas and those who do see them in various hues as somehow wrong - the words stolen and theft have been used in this thread. This faultline was one of the main themes of the cold war.

Western societies are historically based on christianity and various interpretations of the Bible. Whoever wrote those words in Ezekiel, why were they written? What is actually wrong about usury? What is so right about holding things in common?

exile

The idea of storing surplus value and then lending it to others is relatively novel. A hunter gatherer society would not have had any such concept. Only when settled societies managed to put away a surplus each year did the idea of using it to earn money by "renting" it take hold.

A farmer who borrows money from a lender is in effect mortgaging future income - that is, of 100 dollars of future income, 10 dollars may be going straight to the lender. It is not obvious to the farmer, who has to break his back to earn this income, what "labour" the lender has done to earn his share of the income.

If the farmer cannot, due to a bad harvest, pay the lender, the lender repossesses the farm and the farmer has to find paid labor or even sell himself into slavery. I don't see why it's hard to see why the farmer might resent this (however unreasonable it may be to do so)!

The ruthless moneylender is a stock hate figure throughout the ages. This may not be fair but it is certainly understandable.

rlogan

Forgive me, Clivedurdle. I have very short patience for the same old canards.

The last post, for example. Storing whale products underground goes back thousands of years here, and there was a very interesting means (Potlach) of committing the crew to an enterprise that takes all year to prepare for. There is a specific allocation of final products that depends on the role one played in this tremendous undertaking.

Europeans, not understanding the nature of potlach, thought natives were simply giving away things irrationally. When you call it a "loan" instead of a "gift" it is suddenly quite rational indeeed.

Dividing up the whale was also superficially viewed as communistic when the shares instead were following a very detailed assignment. You might just as well say that a factory is communistic because the laborers, the management, and the stockholders all "share" in the revenue.

But I've done it again, and there will be more responses insisting that wampum (dentalia shells) as money did not exist or that clans who killed you for trespass had no concept of property ownership...

sodium

To some extent, as rlogan pointed out, this gets into a PD kind of question. Personally, I don't think there is necessarily a moral problem with loaning at interest, and in fact, it is to some degree necessary for the kind of society I want. But we have to put our own opinions aside if we want to try to get into Ezekiel's head.

It isn't really obvious that someone who lives off interest is contributing to society. I don't want to get into an argument about whether this is the case, but it just isn't obvious. And it isn't surprising that farmers, and other labourers, would come to resent people who live off interest, especially if they are the ones paying the interest.

I think it also helps to think about who is shaping the views of society. First, you have farmers and other labourers. They shape the views of society through sheer numbers. Basically, they are society. Then, you have the Nobility, Lords and Kings and whatnot, who shape the views of society through their control of government. But you also have a small number of people who are wealthy as a result of trade and business acumen. Of course, in our society, these people are on top. But in traditional societies, these people don't have that much influence over how society views them, and societal views tend to reflect the resentment of both the nobility and the poor.

exile

That looks about right. In Western societies, traders, merchants and moneylenders were regarded with little respect, compared to religious leaders, noblemen, political thinkers, royalty, soldiers, scientists and explorers until relatively recently. Even today, "celebrity", the current measure of status, is given to politicians, entertainers and sportsmen rather than businessmen and bankers.