Usury: Artificial wealth and real poverty

By Sean Jobst, 6 January 2011

Usury is charging interest on a loan, irregardless of the rate or amount of interest. Leading proponents assume that usury is merely exorbitant interest rates, while they justify lower rates. The problem with such a distinction is even leading proponents do not agree on the threshold between “exorbitant” rates and “reasonable” ones. In actuality, such a distinction is only made to justify what has been universally condemned in every tradition, but what is a central aspect of banking.

Many basic assumptions are violated by usury. One is the right to keep the fruits of one’s labor. Usurers make their income on the livelihood of others, without providing a real service of their own. What labor are they doing other than enriching themselves from what others earn? On the contrary, it assumes they have some special right to take more than the loan. The basic assumption is that money is rightfully gained through honest labor, whereas usury only makes the rich avaricious and burdens the poor with debt.

It is a greater concentration of wealth into the hands of a few, the privatization of profit for a few and socialization of debt to the majority of people. Hence it naturally creates a false hierarchy of wealth, just as it impoverishes people who would otherwise enjoy more fruits of their labor. Furthermore, it turns money into an end itself rather than a means. This is an obvious invitation to greed.



The basis of any real healthy society is certainly justice. But this basic tenet is the antithesis of usury, which surely is unjust since it assumes the legitimacy of a few to live from taking away wealth that doesn’t even exist at the time the loan is made. “To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice.” (1)

And that truly is the basis of our current work, although this is simply a jumping off point. For we recognize the nature of fiat paper money is likewise artificial and that it cannot separate from usury. Both are manifestations of debt. So from this realization, it is only natural that any struggle against usury must be followed up on the monetary realm. We oppose the artificial with the real.

While rejecting the artificial, we accept the real. From the monetary viewpoint, this means something of intrinsic value such as gold and silver or tangible goods as the medium of exchange. And on a vaster scale, it means that despite what its proponents allege, usury is not synonymous with honest trade, but is its antithesis. “Those who practice usury will not rise from the grave except as someone driven mad by Satan’s touch. That is because they say, ‘Trade is the same as usury.’ But Allah has permitted trade and He has forbidden usury.”(2)

We accept the right of everyone to the fruits of their labor. We recognize that real wealth cannot be artificially created out of thin air, but has to be found within nature. The only legitimate medium of exchange is commodities, such as gold and silver, or tangible goods such as has traditionally been the mediums of exchange throughout the world. Such recognition is to know the organic basis of societies and human nature, while its opposite is surely an illusion.

We break off the chains of our enslavement and wait for the freedom within to illuminate our souls, overtaking our hearts and showing us the way forward. We allow the financiers to enjoy their illusions – we will seize for ourselves the real, as seekers of the Beloved Who IS the REAL.

We worship something REAL, whereas the financiers and all who accept their power as being the only “reality,” are worshipping an illusion that wealth can be created out of thin air and that it is the only measure of being human. And while they will seek a false nourishment via such illusions, we will taste the Most Real nourishment and accept it within our hearts and allow our souls to grow with it.

NOTES:

(1) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1265-1274, Question 78: The sin of usury.

(2) Qur’an, Sura Al-Baqara, 2:275.