Re: interest v. "usury"

From: Mark Monson (m_monson_at_ztech.com)
Date: 09/05/04 

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 11:18:46 -0400

<royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:4139fd7c.3518210@news.telus.net...
> On 4 Sep 2004 07:01:12 -0700, william_b_ryan@hotmail.com (Bill Ryan)
> wrote:
>
> >In this essay Belloc differentiates interest per se
> >from "usury," which is rightly condemned,
>
> For no consistently defensible reason...

Capital goods are differentiated from consumer goods by the purpose to which they
are put. Capital is wealth used in production of more wealth. Certainly, a
worker's hammer is capital. Just as certainly, the worker's food is not capital but
consumer goods.

As we differentiate between capital and consumer goods, we correctly differentiate
between return for the use of capital vs. return for the use of consumer goods.
Return above principle for the use of capital (tools) is interest. Return above
principle for the use of consumer goods is usury.

With the exception of national debt usury, which is simply a scam to enrich some at
the expense of all taxpayers, usury is a symptom of the more fundamental economic
dysfunction of land monopoly. Workers are first impoverished by being cut off from
natural opportunities. Then, in their vulnerable and insecure position they fall
prey to usurers. In olden times, the practice of usury was suppressed directly by
the state, in a way similar to the direct state suppression of unfair land
appropriations. When we remove the primary exploitation of land monopoly, workers
will produce for themselves what they require without need for usurious consumer
credit.

MM

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