WI: Usury is Never a Sin?

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Simple what if...
what are the implications for ancient and semi modern civilazation if the central monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam never viewed Usury (charging interest on money lending) as a sin?

For context, think about periods such as the Italian Renaissance and amount of money (backed by loans and credit) that went into trade ventures, construction, wars, etc.
 
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Economic development happens a lot faster. There is a reason why countries with good banking systems tend to do considerably better than those that don't.
 
Depends a lot on how you define usury. For instance, a lot of theologians hold that usury prohibitions only apply against recourse loans, and not against non-recourse loans. Sharia-compliant lending also works this way (the loan is structured like a business partnership where the debtor's liability is limited only to what is specifically collateral to said loan).
 
Depends a lot on how you define usury. For instance, a lot of theologians hold that usury prohibitions only apply against recourse loans, and not against non-recourse loans. Sharia-compliant lending also works this way (the loan is structured like a business partnership where the debtor's liability is limited only to what is specifically collateral to said loan).

Certainly better than no banking system at all but it probably doesn't help economies as much as those that allow recourse loans as banks have to be more conservative.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
The Three Religion will be vastly less popular. Large number of people is simply indebted, religion that favor creditor instead of debtor would fail to gain popular support.
 
What happens to European Jews?
Banking was one of the few jobs they were allowed, and now aren't needed.

Of course without being forced into that niche we might not get the Jewish Banker stereotype. So that's good.
 
You'd need fundamental changes in theology (and the underlying social conditions that created the Jewish ethnicity and the monotheist faiths, which the doctrine more or less reflects) to get that. Prohibition on usury arises in the Bible because spiraling debts led to enserfed populations, a huge recurring problem in Antiquity (it was a major factor in continued class strife in Rome and Greece, and presumably in other less documented city-states such as Etruscan cities). The problem is documented in Ancient Sumer and assumed dramatic proportions during the Late Bronze.
In a sense, the ethnogenesis of the Ancient Jewish tribes was partly a rebellion against a system sustained by usury (and forced labor). Restricting it was arguably even more fundamental to the Ancien Hebrew identity that cult itself (which we know was not monotheistic at the outset).
Prohibiting usury is also theologically very straightforward (the empiety of extracting a profit for doing nothing but letting time pass being in many way apparent - and you can't expect Medieval or Antique mindsets developing a full notion of rewarding the risk) even without the fairly extendive scriptural condemnation of it.
 
The Three Religion will be vastly less popular. Large number of people is simply indebted, religion that favor creditor instead of debtor would fail to gain popular support.

I like the mental I got of crusader-bankers offering credit for conversion.... then being sacrificed to Odin blood eagle when they tried to collect.

Jews gain protection by the Germanic pagans for warning them about the dangers of Christian creditors.

And a thousand years later badly behaving bank CEOs suffering penalties desceanded from such practices.

Actually, sacrifices to Tyr and Thor would be better more appropriate in their roles as defenders of justice and commoners respectively.
 
You'd need fundamental changes in theology (and the underlying social conditions that created the Jewish ethnicity and the monotheist faiths, which the doctrine more or less reflects) to get that. Prohibition on usury arises in the Bible because spiraling debts led to enserfed populations, a huge recurring problem in Antiquity (it was a major factor in continued class strife in Rome and Greece, and presumably in other less documented city-states such as Etruscan cities). The problem is documented in Ancient Sumer and assumed dramatic proportions during the Late Bronze.
In a sense, the ethnogenesis of the Ancient Jewish tribes was partly a rebellion against a system sustained by usury (and forced labor). Restricting it was arguably even more fundamental to the Ancien Hebrew identity that cult itself (which we know was not monotheistic at the outset).
Prohibiting usury is also theologically very straightforward (the empiety of extracting a profit for doing nothing but letting time pass being in many way apparent - and you can't expect Medieval or Antique mindsets developing a full notion of rewarding the risk) even without the fairly extendive scriptural condemnation of it.

Interesting. I understand that the Roman Empire allowed usury but severely restricted the rate.
Could something like that be applied?
Most Christian Lenders, IIRC, merely charged a flat fee for lending.

Going back the OP though, if usury (in the charging interest sense) is not a sin perhaps Fraud takes its place?
 
You'd need fundamental changes in theology (and the underlying social conditions that created the Jewish ethnicity and the monotheist faiths, which the doctrine more or less reflects) to get that. Prohibition on usury arises in the Bible because spiraling debts led to enserfed populations, a huge recurring problem in Antiquity (it was a major factor in continued class strife in Rome and Greece, and presumably in other less documented city-states such as Etruscan cities). The problem is documented in Ancient Sumer and assumed dramatic proportions during the Late Bronze.
In a sense, the ethnogenesis of the Ancient Jewish tribes was partly a rebellion against a system sustained by usury (and forced labor). Restricting it was arguably even more fundamental to the Ancien Hebrew identity that cult itself (which we know was not monotheistic at the outset).
Prohibiting usury is also theologically very straightforward (the empiety of extracting a profit for doing nothing but letting time pass being in many way apparent - and you can't expect Medieval or Antique mindsets developing a full notion of rewarding the risk) even without the fairly extendive scriptural condemnation of it.

Fascinating take...
So according to this line of thinking, usury religious laws served as a sort of fiscal "stablizer" for the people of antiquity before secular standards could be set up to prevent gross abuse by creditors and debtors alike?
 

jahenders

Banned
I wonder if that might (ultimately) lead to change in view toward banks / bankers today. If it was universally accepted that the loaning of money is good, and that collecting interest on such is reasonable, does that limit Warren's shrill cries and Hillary's claims (when not collecting their money)?
 
I wonder if that might (ultimately) lead to change in view toward banks / bankers today. If it was universally accepted that the loaning of money is good, and that collecting interest on such is reasonable, does that limit Warren's shrill cries and Hillary's claims (when not collecting their money)?

Good question, but too current for my tastes. XD
 
Fascinating take...
So according to this line of thinking, usury religious laws served as a sort of fiscal "stablizer" for the people of antiquity before secular standards could be set up to prevent gross abuse by creditors and debtors alike?

That's it. Anti-usury laws, and a disdain for merchants in general, is a necessary trend to conciliate the poor majority from becoming so desperate they rebel and set up their own new regime. To the extent that a certain amount of social ferment of this type always exists, this has actually been what has happened. As others say, the Hebrews got their notions from experience. "Remember you too were once slaves in Egypt!"

As the Roman example shows, it is not necessary to make sweeping and absolute prohibitions; regulation can do. But something along these lines is necessary.

At least until modern capitalist civilization arose anyway. Even we have some rules.

Prior to capitalism, the balance of productive activity was primary agriculture and craft work, most of it subsistence level. Communities could only afford to alienate a small portion of their overall product for trade. Traders were therefore generally seen as somewhat alien, or completely so, and in terms of idealizing philosophers, not strictly necessary. A civilization that normalizes trade as the basis of natural existence required a certain substrate of development to make it possible, and then a reversal of notions common to all preceding civilizations to complete the normalization.

So the prohibition on usury, in its core sense, is no mere fluke of a peculiar people happening by sheer chance to lay foundations for two world-conquering religions. I think of Islam as in fact a merchant's religion, founded by and spread by merchants, and in many ways it does normalize trade--in part by regulating it by moral admonition. Without that it could not spread the pro-mercantile aspects it does. With regulation, or at least the principle of it enshrined, it does permit sophisticated financial development--just along different principles than European usury-in-defiance-of-ancient-law. I have been struck by how many passages of the Koran resemble the laments of the Hebrew prophets denouncing the callous treatment of the poor by the powerful, who should consider their privilege a gift from God and a responsibility to do right with their power. I don't think Mohammed was merely mimicking a style he'd picked up; he was reacting spontaneously much the way the the old prophets were, and finding mass support among common people thinking much the same way that he helped them articulate clearly; rather than being some random offshoot of the Hebrew texts, he embraced them for the good sense of their contents.

And even in the modern European tradition, adoption of practices clearly denounced by the old Christian Fathers of the Church had to go hand in hand with the rise of a concept of human rights and democratic governance, which tends to countervail the worst tendencies of what economics professors teach to be mere "rationality."

Regarding that last clause, it explains comments such as one high up the thread that assumed absence of a mere superstition against usury would spell faster progress. I don't think it is possible, and if it were I doubt progress would be faster.
 
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