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hvs 10 hours ago [-]
"Usury" is still a word in use but now, for legal purposes, it means "interest that a lender charges a borrower at a rate above the lawful ceiling on such charges" rather than just any interest at all.
bombcar 9 hours ago [-]
It had a very specific meaning, which we would more properly translate as "personal recourse loan".
fsckboy 8 hours ago [-]
traditional usage of usury was the same, any interest charges at a rate above the lawful ceiling, just where the ceiling was 0% for christians and in a like manner for moslems.
ggm 8 hours ago [-]
In the Islamic finance model Muslims lending to Muslims, you don't charge interest so much as take a position in an investment with an eye to future value. At least that's how I understand it. There can still be a lein over assets, and a tail of payments and the final state would put both lender and debtor "where they expected to be" under the contract.
Between Christians and Muslims, Christians and Jews, Jews and Muslims different rules may/may-have applied.
Kings (of england, and other places) valued Jews precisely because of the fluidity of their lending to the crown at interest under catholic proscription regarding loans between christians, not the least because at long term consequences in access to jewish loans you could repudiate the debt and (or encourage your citizens to) conduct a pogrom.
lo_zamoyski 8 hours ago [-]
That's a strange way to phrase things. It's a bit like saying that the Church recognizes the licitness of murder under a lawful ceiling, but that this ceiling just happens to be 0 per year.
Interest as such is recognized as theft and therefore an injustice.
neaden 7 hours ago [-]
Well murder is similar in that it means an illegal or immoral killing. There are times (say in self defence) where it has taunt it is moral and should be legal to kill, because that isn't murder. So similar to this, it changed usury to illegal lending rather than lending.
Schlagbohrer 3 hours ago [-]
It is fascinating to see the differences in philosophy and understanding of economics between Adam Smith, who in 1776 was looking at a pre-industrial economy of taking raw material inputs and doing very little to them before sale, versus Karl Marx who in 1848 was looking at the effects of industrialization and an economy very focused on value-add activities. Different economic structures, different social consequences, and different philosophies that emerged out of that.
I highly recommend David Harvey's guide to Marx's Kapital especially for anyone who has been soaked in anti-communist propaganda (read: grew up in North America) but who has never actually read it. Harvey's guide to it is quite readable and uses modern examples and translates some of the old fashioned language. It's fascinating. After all, Peter Thiel said that he became a better capitalist after reading Marx...
metalman 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
pavel_lishin 10 hours ago [-]
> for the simple reason that money is a human construct
By that reasoning, there's no such thing as "chess theory" either.
As you point out, the difference between money and the tooth fairy is between their characteristics and rules. Economic theory then focuses on money, the economy, and their characteristics and rules to develop insights into patterns, behavior, and previously unseen characteristics inherent to economic theory.
Anyone is free to create a theory of tooth fairies and attempt to find similar relevance.
Between Christians and Muslims, Christians and Jews, Jews and Muslims different rules may/may-have applied.
Kings (of england, and other places) valued Jews precisely because of the fluidity of their lending to the crown at interest under catholic proscription regarding loans between christians, not the least because at long term consequences in access to jewish loans you could repudiate the debt and (or encourage your citizens to) conduct a pogrom.
Interest as such is recognized as theft and therefore an injustice.
I highly recommend David Harvey's guide to Marx's Kapital especially for anyone who has been soaked in anti-communist propaganda (read: grew up in North America) but who has never actually read it. Harvey's guide to it is quite readable and uses modern examples and translates some of the old fashioned language. It's fascinating. After all, Peter Thiel said that he became a better capitalist after reading Marx...
By that reasoning, there's no such thing as "chess theory" either.
> with the end of scarcity
Scarcity ended? Nobody told me!