Usury—The Root of All Evil?
Usury—The Root of All Evil?
The love of money is the root of all evil. — 1 Timothy 6:10
Why do people value money so much? There is, after all, nothing very attractive about grubby pieces of paper, dirty metal discs, or digital records in a database. Money gives us the ability to obtain the things or situations we desire. With money we can buy the security, power, recognition, stimulus, or whatever else we think we need in order to find fulfillment.
But money also has more pernicious effect upon society. It takes no great mind to see that financial expediency lies behind much of our inhumanity to each other and our callous treatment of other creatures. Some more radical thinkers have argued that money should be eliminated—and with it the notions of possession and property. It is certainly true that some of the less material cultures have no notion of property, possession or money; and have survived very well, and in greater harmony with the rest of life. But in the more-developed societies some means of symbolic exchange is essential—we may not always want to receive chickens in return for our solar panels.
Furthermore, eliminating money would only eliminate the symptom of the problem. It is not 'money' that is the root of all evil (as is sometimes misquoted) but 'the love of money'.
Usury
Our love of money not only causes us to make decisions that are not in our own best interests, it also leads to usury—the charging of interest on a loan.
Nothing wrong with that, one might think (particularly if you are the lender), everyone does it. Why should others not pay for the use of one's money? At the very least we should receive a sufficient return on our investments to keep up with inflation —and if we can make abit more, why not?
But it turns out that the lending of money at interest is one of the principle causes of inflation in the first place. And, as we shall see, fuels many of humanity's other crises...(continued)
please help
Sometimes I buy than sell stuff for more money, would this be considered usury also?
" When policemen break the law there is no law, just the fight for survival"
~ Quote by Billy Jack www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQWCAVzM384
Money is the embodiment of our word,
our promise to deliver value for goods or services rendered to us. It facilitates our exchange of goods and services so that we don't have to shop around with our bushel of apples for someone who has the garden tool we want and who also wants a bushel of apples in trade. Think about how many bags of potatoes you would have to give the car dealer in order to get a new car. How would you get them there? And how would he store them? Would he have to become a potato dealer too in order to get some value from them before they rotted? Money as a promise of value makes it so much easier to do business and for that reason it is properly valued.
OK, now that you recognize the value of money, imagine someone asking you to loan them some of your money. Depending on your impression of their character you might properly tell them "No." But suppose they offered to return more than they borrowed, you might be tempted to take a chance on them in order to get an extra amount back. Thus you would have an incentive to loan out your money. What would be wrong with that?
New Hampshire and Ecuador
Did you read the article?
Did you read the article? It is not against money, in fact the author points out the usefulness of money for trade.
Also if you read the article it is not in favor of prohibiting usury or interest, all it does is point out what effect it has on humanity.
Many people inherit money from their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, who have never had to work a day of their lives. My wifes cousin married a man whose father sold his factory, divided the money between his children and they live off the interest. Good for them. They do not need to produce anything for income, and their children will never have to produce anything for income. Of course they would argue that usury and interest are a good thing for the economy, that others, not them of course, should go out and borrow money.
The author nor am I judging anyone. If you think making a living by gambling is the way to go, go for it. You are and should be free to make your decisions.
I will use my freedom to teach people that borrowing money is foolish, that they should work, spend wisely, live within their means and enjoy life; not borrow and be someone elses slave.
That is the biggest bunch of
That is the biggest bunch of nonsense I have ever read. The reason we have to finance our houses is because, in many cases, the zoning laws, we are not allowed to build our own.
Yes, regulation is another
Yes, regulation is another part of the problem.
http://perfecteconomy.com/wp/category/mpe/usury/
It is our nature as humans to have wealth. But what good is it to live in a castle if you are surrounded by slums.
http://perfecteconomy.com/wp/category/mpe/usury/
Money is freedom. Not that it should be worshiped or wrongfully
~ obtained, but as a human race, isn't it in our nature to strive for wealth. However, I believe that monetary wealth is useless without spiritual wealth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It is your duty as loyal Americans to Shut up."– Bill O'Reily
Mathew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
If the U.S. government is
If the U.S. government is rich then why does it borrow money? Because it employs investors who do nothing but make a living from interest. That is the only reason. The government does not need to borrow money, it can raise taxes or ask for donations. If the people refuse to pay taxes or donate, then what the government wants is not necessary.
Men don't need to borrow money, they can work or ask for charity, if people refuse to give them a job or charity, then what the man wants is not necessary.
The only reason working men borrow money is because it is a vice, like gambling. They are gambling that they will have a job in the future and will be able to pay back a debt; the person lending the money is gambling that the person is going to have a job in the future and be able to pay him back.
Lending money is gambling plain an simple.
If this article was condemning gambling would you be saying that gambling is a necessity?
How is the government
How is the government "rich"?
Long-term lending (home loans) is relatively risky...why do you think they charge you so must interest? If you take a $100,000 home loan out for 30 years, you're going to end up paying $150,000 to $200,000 in interest alone during that period of time! Plus you still have to pay the principle. That is a rip-off for sure. It's a symptom of the problem of the government's banking cartel.
Men don't need to ask for charity, either. Life's not about needs. If that's all it were about, then we'd be focused purely on clothing, food, and shelter, and nothing more. Obviously that's not the case. People want things, and sometimes you're willing to sacrifice a little extra money in the long term to get what you want now. Or sometimes you're wanting to produce something, but you don't have the capital yet, so you borrow it from someone else that does have the capital that wasn't being used for anything productive. Now you're being productive in a way that was otherwise would not have occurred, because if the person that lent you the money was going to use that money in the same productive way, they wouldn't have lent it to you, because they would make more doing it themselves. They have the capital, you have the plan.
Borrowing money is almost necessary to buy a house these days, due to government intervention (central banking, inflation, etc). When the government does something to make it easier for people to purchase something, whether it's homes, education, etc, it drives up the demand, and therefore prices, making others that could previously afford it on their own dependent on the government to continue to purchase it. Financial aid has driven college tuition and book costs up. Easy home loans have driven house prices up. Those that use the government to purchase these things soon wind up dependent on the government for these things. The government makes these things less affordable in it's attempt to make them more affordable. It increases government dependency. This is why I don't participate in Financial Aid for college. I don't want to help perpetuate the system. I pay out of my pocket (and it's damn expensive), but I don't want to give the government anymore reason to continue the program (I know I'm just one person, so it's not much of an effect), but I can't be blamed for it's continuance.
I think in a free market, home loans would be much shorter term, with far less interest charged (no more banking cartels to continue this nonsense today), and home prices would be far cheaper, and decreasing prices over time.
Please read something from
Please read something from http://mises.org.
You haven't provided any logical arguments against charging interest.
Yes, the government creating and protecting a banking cartel is wrong.
Yes, the government borrowing money from this cartel with interest that we have to pay back is wrong.
Yes, fractional reserve banking is fraudulent.
Yes, credit expansion redistributes wealth and increases the money supply causing general increases in prices.
Those are all real problems that we have. Us being charged interest on this fraud is certainly bad, but this does not mean that interest in general is bad. It means only that interest in these specific cases is bad.
Charging interest in general has no ill effects. When you combine charging interest with some evil, then yes, it's like they're rubbing it in. But charging interest in general is not necessarily evil, except maybe in cases where someone you know is in trouble and needs money as soon as possible. Charging interest in a situation like that might be in conflict with truly helping them when they truly need help.
Good Summary.
http://www.mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
Would you trade your liberty for a flying car?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFfBB2W7IA
What if World War 2 was fought by today's teenagers?
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xiQatiEzz_k
What are you about?
Isn't this the third anti-usury thread you've posted recently? I really don't grasp your objective. You insist you are not in favor of outlawing "interest", but (paraphrasing) just want people to realize its harmful and immoral. Please correct me if this is not your view.
Would it be, in your view, equally illegitimate to charge rent in all circumstances? Real money (commodity money, generally gold/silver) is something with real value to people no less than a house or chainsaw. As you oppose charging for the use of money via a monetary loan, i.e., charging interest, do you likewise oppose charging for the use of your house or chainsaw, i.e., rent?
If so, it appears you simply don't approve of a huge segment of mututally voluntary exchanges, i.e., the free-market.
My final comment in this post is - I have not noticed you ever addressing the point I have made in your other anti-interest threads, and that others have also pointed out - that the entire ediface of commercial activity would collapse in the absence of a (interest charging) loan market. As harmful as you may believe charging interest is (which I still can't understand), such harm is as nothing compared to the harm that would result from the economic collapse that would surely occur without access to credit.
marlow
marlow
Your comparing a house and
Your comparing a house and money doesn't make any sense.
But I guess what you are saying is that the government should be able to borrow money, lend money and regulate money. correct? So where is your "Free Market".
He never said that "the
He never said that "the government should be able to borrow money, lend money and regulate money".
The government should only do what the government is allowed to do as specified in the Constitution. If the Constitution allows the government to do something that's anti-free market (which I think there are a few things), then we should amend the Constitution to remove that power from it.
Comparing a house and money totally makes sense when you're talking about a free[dom] market money. Money is property, just like anything else, including a house, chainsaw, car, phone, etc. Money is just the property that's been found to be the best (or most used) for indirect exchange (a medium of exchange). You can rent your house out, and you can rent your money out. No difference at all.
Need to define "money".
First of all the difference between a house and "money" is that a house should be something that you can freely produce whereas money should not be, it is supposed to be in a fixed amount established by a government or a group of individuals. If gold is not money, and you can freely mine or extract it from sea water and trade it, then you can rent it out. That is not usury. But if gold is money then it is to be issued and controlled by government regardless of how much gold is available.
We know this from the Free silver movement in the United States. If you had silver the government did not allow you to turn it into money as they did with gold. The same is true if you have copper, you cannot take it to the mint and have it turned into a U.S. dollar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Silver
Well, most of us that
Well, most of us that support the ideas of freedom support the idea of a money being determined by the market, not a government. We define money purely as a "medium of exchange." No government involvement is necessary. Anyone can "create" the money (which is why gold/silver often end up being the money...there's a limited supply, and it takes a bit of work to dig up more of it).
When dealing with gold/silver in a free market, it generally wouldn't matter if it was coined or just a lump of the metal. It's value would be very close to the same. People would prefer it to be coined, because it's easier to verify that it's the correct weight and not counterfeit, so coined metals would be worth a little more. Counterfeiting it would mean using a cheaper material to simulate the metal, which could be difficult to do for long, and people would come up with all kinds of cheap, simple ways to verify whether a coin was or was not counterfeit. Plus people would likely store their metals someplace, and use the receipts for that metal as a money substitute, and people would also use electronic transactions, and all kinds of things to where handling the slightly heavy/bulky coins was not necessary.
We are arguing two different issues.
That is why it is important to communicate. In a truely free market there is no control of trade, but when the Constitution was written it retricted free market, since it required that taxes be paid in gold or silver and that money only be of gold or silver. We can't have it both ways. If something is regulated to be money then there no longer exists a free market. If people chose to exchange goods and services for gold or silver that is their choice, if they choose to trade water or food that is their choice. But when trade is only allow via money established by government then there is no choice and the market cannot be free.
That is why I say, if we have a government and the government determines that we establish something as money, and they regulate the production of money, then usury as part of the system should not be allowed.
If money can be regulated than so should usury.
If we have a free market with choice for what we decide to invest our wealth, then the term usury as applied to "money" no longer exists.
grant
So you're definition of
So you're definition of usury includes the government?
A quick google search defines usury as excessive interest. The only way excessive interest can occur is if it is forced, which is generally done through government. In a free market, usury doesn't even exist by that definition (without someone using unjust force, punishable by law), so I result to talking about interest in general.
True, the government has some Constitutional control over money, such as determining what it can accept as payment for taxes. At the time the Constitution was written, I think gold and silver were generally what was used as money, so it was probably the best way for the government to collect taxes. I am opposed to the government forcing us to pay taxes. At the same time, if it's going to be collecting taxes, I think it would be a waste of resources to let people pay with whatever they want (cows, gallons of water, junk cars, etc), and therefore the government should be restrained to accept only certain things (whatever is currently the money at the time of paying the taxes makes the most sense to me). I wouldn't mind a government that runs on voluntary taxes.
The things I support would require amendments to the Constitution. I in no way blindly accept the Constitution as is, but before we can start truly changing the government and the Constitution for the good of individuals, we need to start enforcing the Constitution as it is (which would only be beneficial relative to our current situation where the Constitution is practcially considered irrelevant by many).
I'm totally in favor amending the Constitution to remove all restrictions/regulations on trade from the government's power. We won't have a true free market until then. But at least moving back to a Constitutional government will get us pretty close, and we would be far far better off in such a situation. Then it would be just a matter of some Constitutional amendments or abolishing the government altogether.
It seems that we are in much more agreement than we thought, if you're including "government" as part of the definition of usury. I think your main post should be clarified if that's the case. There are many people that are against interest altogether, despite no economic reason for it. Somehow they think it's "wrong", yet they can never express as to why. Some have even twisted the words of the Bible to say that all charging of interest is wrong, when I'm pretty sure it only mentions a few specific situations as to when it's wrong.
Plus removing the link to
Plus removing the link to that Peter Russell anti-interest-no-matter-what article would be helpful, if what I just said is accurate.
Bull! Get used to it.
What you do with your money is your business.
Commercial activity is going to collapse not because of the absence of interest, but because of the charging of interest. The reason is because people prefer to let their money "work" and receive interest, so that they get a guarenteed interest rate, rather than spend it on goods, services or production.
Again my arguement is with the government being involved in usury. Just like I do not want them involved in gambling (lottery), abortion, drug production, regulation of alcohol or any other vice.
grant
"The reason is because
The person that borrows the money is spending that money on goods, services or production. Keeping $100,000 in a safe in your house is doing nothing. Putting it in the bank (in our current banking system) allows the bank to create (literally) more money (by expanding credit), and is harmful to the economy.
If you have no immediate use for that $100,000, the most productive thing that could be done with it is lend it out to someone else who can use it for something productive, or even just for consumption. Most people in most situations wouldn't do this without charging interest (rent) for lending their property to them.
Charging interest has no negative effect on the economy, unless it's an artificial rate forced by the government. It does have a positive effect, however, called profit (an incentive to lend the money to those that would use it productively).
Usury is bad regardless of the degree.
?
The problem with usery
is that the banks charge interest on money that is created out of thin air. The money loaned is created as debt - or on your promise to pay. So the more money that is created in this way causes inflation.
Any interest that is charged in this way is a steal because they didn't lend actual wealth but just by a stroke of the pin.
If a small amount of interest was charged for taking the risk of loaning the money it wouldn't be so bad but generally greed causes more and more interest to be charged and in some cases, compounded yearly. Debts compounded yearly is a perscription for keeping the borrower in perpetual debt.
That is an outrageous amount of interest for something that was created out of thin air.
Greed is the problem.
"Tyrants fear nothing more than insubordination"
"It's just one big club... and WE ain't in it!"
Usury is bad regardless of the degree.
In your example you suggest that interest charged on money wouldn't be as bad; but it is still bad. Why should you recieve interest automatically. Investing money means to spend it, buy a product, buy into and take risk in a company. If you lend your money to someone and they don't pay it back, then you spent your money unwisely. Money cannot beget money as it is unnatural. Governments should not be able to borrow or lend money, they are there to provide services to the people, not there to use or protect the business of usury.
They don't twist
your arm and make you borrow money - you have to go to them with the request. Once you have been granted your request then you should show your appreciation by returning the favor in a timely manner.
But when you say "if you lent your money to someone and they didn't pay it back, you spent it unwisely", it sounds like someone had chased you down and tried to force the loan on you and then "deserved what they got" when you didn't pay it back.
It even works that way with the barter system... if you needed a pound of salt and told the guy at the store you're broke but you'd give him some of the meat you had cured with the salt if he loaned it to you, plus a little more for helping you out, and then you blew him off ... what would happen?
Needless to say you would never be welcomed back in his store.
"Tyrants fear nothing more than insubordination"
"It's just one big club... and WE ain't in it!"
Go tell your lies to a fool.
If the U.S. government is rich then why does it borrow money? Because it employs investors who do nothing but make a living from interest. That is the only reason. The government does not need to borrow money, it can raise taxes or ask for donations. If the people refuse to pay taxes or donate, then what the government wants is not necessary.
Men don't need to borrow money, they can work or ask for charity, if people refuse to give them a job or charity, then what the man wants is not necessary.
The only reason working men borrow money is because it is a vice, like gambling. They are gambling that they will have a job in the future and will be able to pay back a debt; the person lending the money is gambling that the person is going to have a job in the future and be able to pay him back.
Lending money is gambling plain an simple.
If this article was condemning gambling would you be saying that gambling is a necessity?
You are absolutely right
good-bye
"Tyrants fear nothing more than insubordination"
"It's just one big club... and WE ain't in it!"
You don't seem to make a
You don't seem to make a distinction between usury and interest, do you see a difference? Usury has been traditionally thought of as an excessive interest charge whereas interest is considered reasonable compensation on money borrowed.
What do you mean that money cannot beget money, that it is unnatural? The Government, from the beginning of our country borrowed money, but at that time there was a sense of responsiblity to repay any debts within a couple of years. All of the Founders who also served as Presidents borrowed money on behalf of the government, but it was repaid within a timely basis. Were they wrong, did they not understand what they were doing?
Why are you compensated for your work? You are receiving a just compensation in the form of money for your time and labor, that time and labor is then represented by the money you receive. Now, if your time and labor is represented by the money you received and you loan that money, which represents your time and your labor, to someone you are then basically providing your time and your labor free to that person if you don't also expect compensation on the money you loaned. Money is just an exchange system, it is a compensation system the same way that your time and labor is compensated.
There is essentially no difference between you being compensated for your time and labor with money and your money being compensated with interest on that money. That is the essential free-market principle.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
Money should be spent not
Money should be spent, not saved with the expectation of earning more money with interest.
grant
From the website perfect economy.
"In the very same way, your understanding of interest is critical; and if the age we are seeing end has a purpose, that purpose is that you understand interest is usury, and that usury is a pattern which much like Kondratiev asserts, collapses every system of usury until we solve the simple fact usury is a process of inevitable collapse".
http://perfecteconomy.com/wp/category/mpe/usury/