Quote from: frisco2 on April 16, 2012, 06:55:44 AM

The Objective Standard article illustrates that historically usury was frowned upon by religion, however, was in high demand by everyone, because without it economy doesn't work. This dichotomy is easily resolved when you understand that religion is wrong, and there is no conflict. In fact, this is very simple to understand: when I lend money, I can not use it for some purpose of my own -- in other words, lending, is a kind of service for those who borrow. For that, they pay a fee. It is only natural for this fee to be a percentage of the sum, since I loose a proportional amount of opportunities when I lend more money out. There really is nothing complicated about it. The article talks about historical perspective, in depth, and I highly recommend reading it.

Objective Standard is good stuff.

Though, it is a mistake to think that religious views of usury is negative and by extension lending capital is also viewed as negative.

Untrue. The spirit of the view is against evil practices such as predatory lending and inequality of access to capital.

As much as we all believe capitalism is a great system as it fulfills objective needs, fundamentals of common religion place any materialistic system second, and bound, to morality.

The more difficult and vicious ( i.e., efficiency has a cost ) it becomes to make a living the more morality goes out the window.