44
PROFIT AND INTEREST (1)He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading (Luke 19:12-15.)
This is Luke's version of Matthew's parable of the talents (talanton = talent). Here, the Greek monetary unit is a mina, translated as pound, the common monetary unit of England.
The theocentric principle here is God's ownership of the creation. He establishes the terms of tenancy. Men possess resources only as stewards of God. God will come at the end of history to judge each person's performance as a steward. The passage in Matthew appears in the same section as Jesus' description of the final judgment (Matt. 25:31-46).
Luke's account adds a seemingly extraneous verse: "But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us." What has this to do with the internal operations of the man's business affairs? His servants subsequently went about their business, using his money. They did not openly rebel against him. There is a distinction between citizens and servants in this passage.
The complaining citizens did not deal with him as employees. They were under his civil rule. They went into rebellion as soon as he departed. He had departed in order to receive a kingdom. He would return eventually, but would be more powerful than when he had departed. Nevertheless, the citizens sent him a message, telling him of their act of rebellion. This was a high-risk proposition on the part of the rebels. The nobleman would surely not tolerate a rebellion. A successful revolt would call into question his ability to maintain order over his new kingdom. He might lose both kingdoms if he tolerated the loss of the first. He would return prepared to fight.
There can be no question about who these rebellious citizens were: the Jews. Jesus was telling them that God had received their rebellious message. They would soon lose their status as citizens of God's kingdom. "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43).
Then who were the servants? New Covenant Christians. They were not in revolt. They had been placed in authority over the owner's assets during his absence. They all knew there would be a day of accounting. Here, Jesus told them there would be sanctions, positive and negative, after the day of accounting.
Delegated Ownership(2) This parable is a kingdom parable. It follows the five-point covenant model.(3) First, the master calls his servants before him (sovereignty). Second, he delegates authority to them as his economic representatives by transferring money to them (hierarchy/representation). Third, while it is not stated explicitly, he commands them to produce an increase (law/dominion). We know this because at least three of them immediately took steps to obey his implicit economic command. Fourth, he returns and imposes positive sanctions: blessings to the profitable servants. Fifth, the blessings that he gives them involve rulership (succession/continuity). He then imposes negative sanctions against the unprofitable servant, casting him into outer darkness (disinheritance).
This parable contains several theological messages, but the three main ones are these: first, God owns all things; second, He delegates temporary control over these things to men; third, men are required to increase the value of whatever God has entrusted to them.
There are also secondary implications. First, the servants were required to act on their own initiative for an indefinite time period. The master was not present to tell them precisely what to do. Second, he imposed a profit management system of control, a bottom-up hierarchy.(4) He wisely decentralized his investment portfolio before he departed. He allowed his subordinates to make their own decisions regarding the proper use of his capital. He held them legally responsible for the results. Third, he had plans beyond this first stage of stewardship. He was using this stage as a test.
Economic Language, Political Language The phrase in the King James, "Occupy till I come" (v. 13), is misleading. The Greek word, pragmateuomai, means "do business" or "trade." The Greek word occurs only in this verse. Yet it is clear from the context that the assignment was not strictly economic. This is true of Matthew's version, too. Jesus used an economic parable to convey information about each person's responsibility before God for the proper administration of all the personal skills he possesses.
In Luke's version, the respective performances were far less equal than in Matthew's account. In Matthew's version, the most profitable servant gained 100 percent: five talents from five talents. The second servant also gained 100 percent, but on only two talents -- not as difficult, presumably, as gaining five from five. The third buried his talent. Not so in Luke. Each man was given one pound. The initial distribution was equal. The results of their activity were the same as in Matthew: ten, five, and one.
Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him (Luke 19:16-26).
The first servant made a return of ten to one. The second servant gained five to one. The owner then granted them rewards because of their productivity. These rewards were political: rulership over cities. In Matthew, the rewards are not specified. The placement of the parable in Matthew is in a passage dealing with final judgment. Clearly, this has to do with rewards beyond the grave. But the passage in Luke seems to refer to history. Economic success produces political success. Economic failure produces only economic failure: the loss of the capital originally entrusted to the risk-avoiding servant. Significantly, the owner gave the third man's pound to the servant who had made ten to one. But there is no reference to any further judgment, unlike the version in Matthew: "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25:30).
The judgment of the risk-avoiding servant was followed by the judgment of the rebellious citizens: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me" (v. 27). This group had been outside of the household of the nobleman, but under his authority.
The nobleman returned with his new kingdom. Is this the New Covenant kingdom? Or is it the post-resurrection New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21; 22)? If it is the latter, then the judgment of the rebels is not limited to the Jews, who seem to be the rebels who had sent their declaration of independence. If it is the New Covenant kingdom, then the political judgment has to be the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.(5) But this would not leave enough time for the Christians to serve as cultural stewards.
The Revolt Has Spread
I argue that the citizens in the pre-departure phase were Jews. They publicly threw off the rule of Christ at the crucifixion. His inheritance of the kingdom took place at the resurrection. "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18). Jesus did not come in final judgment at His resurrection. He departed at the ascension to collect His kingdom. He rules from a distance now.
At the final judgment, He will return with His kingdom. This kingdom is the post-judgment New Heaven and New Earth. At that time, he will call His servants to account. Then He will permanently judge the rebels. But by the time of the final judgment, the rebellion against Him will have spread. There will be many besides Jews who will not allow Christ to reign over them. The rebellion launched by the Jews at the crucifixion spreads far beyond the geographical boundaries of Israel.
Why the political language? Why cities? Why citizens? For that matter, why the economic language? Why usury? Why money? Because these are the most familiar contexts for the extension of a man's influence: money and power. God is master of both. He allocates both. "Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all" (I Chron. 29:12).
The two profitable servants had been trading. They had demonstrated various degrees of success in the limited sphere of business. The successful ones are then rewarded with cities. Why cities? Why not more wealth? Because men generally regard political rulership over populations as being more prestigious than amassing wealth. People are more likely to speak of "mere money" than "mere power." God is described in the Bible as a king, not as a merchant. There is no word in English that conveys the image of economic success that is comparable to kingship in politics, even late in the century in which the kings finally departed.(6) We speak of "a meal fit for a king," not "a meal fit for a billionaire."
To inherit a city is to inherit civil authority. Christ is king of kings and lord of lords. He will retain both offices in the post-resurrection New Heaven and New Earth. So, the language of political rulership is a rhetorical way to convey a sense of consummation. Covenant-keepers are said to do business in history to inherit thrones in eternity. Yet their kingdom assignments in history extend far beyond business, and their final reward will be more than sitting stiffly, listening to lawyers, and settling disputes.
Profitability Profit is a residual that remains after all expenses have been paid, including the entrepreneur's salary as a manager, which he could have earned by working for somebody else. The entrepreneur buys or rents resources, holds them and possibly alters them, and sells them for more than he paid. He can do this only because his competitors did not recognize the opportunity. They did not enter the free market to gain control over these scarce factors of production, bidding up their prices. Their lack of foresight is what enabled the entrepreneur to buy up the resources at prices lower than those which prevailed when he sold them later. He possessed an initial advantage based on better knowledge and the courage of his convictions.
The corollary of profit is loss. A man may misforecast the future. He buys or rents resources, only to discover later that they are worth less than he paid for them. The fear of loss is an important factor in restricting the market for entrepreneurship. It is a major barrier to entry.
Profit and loss have to do with uncertainty. The economist distinguishes between risk and uncertainty.(7) Risk can be estimated in advance; uncertainty cannot be. Risk is the kind of calculation that applies to insurance. In certain well-defined situations, the law of large numbers applies. The probability of a specific kind of event, such as a fire, can be estimated within statistical limits. Forecasters cannot say that a particular building will burn down, but they can say that one building in a large group will burn down. Not so with uncertainty. An uncertain event is not part of a larger class of events. Its probability cannot be calculated in advance.
In the parable, two stewards dealt successfully with uncertainty. They succeeded where their competitors do not. They showed a profit. The third steward refused to deal with uncertainty. He feared the loss of the money entrusted to him. He buried the coin.
Marxism as Covenant-Breaking What about the person who takes no risks, buries his coin, and returns to the master only what he had been given initially? This man has produced a loss for the master, who could either have kept the coin or buried it where only he knew its location. Instead, he had allowed the steward to use it, which increased his risk of loss. The only reason for allowing a subordinate to use it during his absence was the hope of gain. Part of the gain was economic: the return of money in addition to the coin. Part of the gain was informational: testing the performance of his subordinates.
The third steward is a highly unprofitable servant. He has not performed according to minimum standards. Like so many other incompetent, slothful people in history, the servant of the parable tries to justify his poor performance by blaming the master. He accuses the master of being a merciless exploiter. "For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow." (Luke 19:21).
What was the heart of slothful servant's accusation of the master? Clearly, he was accusing him of being a capitalist. The master is rich, yet he does not go into the fields to labor. He expects a positive return on his money, even though he goes away on a journey. Such is the servant's accusation. The servant is an incipient Marxist. He believes, as Marx did, in the labor theory of value. He also believes in Marx's exploitation theory of profits. Anyone who gets money without working for a living is nothing but an exploiter, living on the labor of the poor. The servant calls the owner "a hard man." (Theologically speaking, this is the covenant-breaker's accusation against God: God is an unfair exploiter.)
The master accepts the ideological challenge. He reminds the servant that he is indeed a hard man, meaning someone who has the lawful authority to establish standards of profitable performance, as well as the authority to hand out rewards and punishments. He is the sanctions-bringer. He admits freely to the servant that, as a successful capitalist, he does not personally go into the fields to plant and reap, yet he reaps a profit. "And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow" (v. 22). Then he tells the servant the minimum that he is entitled to, an interest return: "Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?" (v. 23).
The Legitimacy of Interest The King James translators used the English word usury to translate a Greek word that is more accurately translated as interest. This discussion of interest here is very revealing, for two reasons. First, this parable of God's kingdom acknowledges that interest-taking is legitimate. God eventually comes to every person and demands a positive rate of return on whatever had been entrusted to him by God. The master had forfeited the use of his funds during his absence. He is therefore entitled to a minimum return: interest.
Second, the parable clearly distinguishes between profits and interest. The other two stewards each produced a profit. They received the greater praise and greater visible rewards. The minimum required performance was an interest payment. The slothful servant had been unwilling to take even the minimal risk of handing the money over to specialists in money-lending, who would seek out entrepreneurs to borrow the coin and subsequently pay a competitive return to the money-lenders on this passively managed investment. Then the money-lender would return an equivalent coin to the steward, plus extra money.
The master's capital was supposed to become productive in the stewards' hands. Each steward had to become an entrepreneur or else seek out an entrepreneur who would put the money to economically productive uses. The coin was not to sit in the earth. The owner could have buried it himself, if zero was all the return he expected.
The Entrepreneur and the Banker
The economic agent who is on the cutting edge of both prediction and production is the entrepreneur. The first two stewards in the parable were incipient entrepreneurs. They went out and found ways of investing the master's money that produced a positive rate of return. As the parable presents it, this rate of return was higher than what could have been earned by depositing the money with money-lenders. Thus, the entrepreneur is understood to be someone who bears much greater risk than someone who deposits money in a bank. The economist calls this form of risk uncertainty. It cannot be estimated in advance. It involves guesswork, unlike the depositor who is promised a specific rate of interest when he deposits his money.
The only way that a banker can afford to pay out a promised rate of return is because he successfully seeks out borrowers (entrepreneurs) who produce an even higher rate of return. The banker makes his living on the difference between the interest payment which the borrowers pay to him and what he in turn pays to the depositors.
The future is uncertain to men. We do not know it perfectly. We barely know it at all. We see the future as though we were peering through a darkened glass. Nevertheless, all of life involves forecasting. There is no escape from this responsibility. We must all bear some degree of uncertainty. But some people are willing to bear more of it than others, and of these few, some are successful in dealing with it. In economic terminology, some produce greater profits than others. Profit is a residual that remains, if at all, only after all costs of the business have been paid, including interest.
Banking: Reducing Uncertainty
The banker is able to offer a special service to investors. He can diversify depositors' uncertainty by lending to many people -- people who, like the servants in the parable, have performed successfully in the past. They have "a track record," to use the language of horse racing. By lending money to many borrowers, the banker converts a portion of the depositors' uncertainty into risk, meaning from the statistically incalculable to the statistically calculable. The banker is like an insurer. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the bank was an insurance company, since both church and State had made it illegal for Christians to ask or pay interest.(8) The modern profession of banking grew out of the marine insurance guild, which was legal in the Middle Ages.(9)
What does an insurance company do? Its statisticians (actuarians) calculate the likelihood of certain kinds of undesirable events in large populations. These unpleasant events cannot be statistically calculated individually, but they can be calculated collectively if the population involved is large enough. The seller of insurance then persuades members of these large populations to pay periodic premiums so as to "pool" their risks. When one member of the pool suffers the event that has been insured against, he is reimbursed from the pool of assets. Hence, some of life's inescapable and individually incalculable uncertainties are converted to calculable risk by means of diversification: "the law of large numbers."(10)
The same is true of banking. Borrowers seldom all go bankrupt at once. Most borrowers will repay their debts as specified in their loan agreements. Bad loans are more than offset by the good ones. Thus, the banker can offer a fixed rate of return to depositors. In almost all cases, depositors will be repaid as promised because most of the borrowers repay their loans as promised. (The exception is during an economic depression, when banks fail along with their borrowers. Depressions are the result of prior monetary inflation, which in our day means fractional reserve banking.(11))
The master in this parable protects his funds in much the same way. He seeks out a group of potential entrepreneurs. He gives each of them an amount of money to invest. He makes predictions regarding their future performance based on their past performance, and then he allocates the distribution of his assets in terms of this estimation. He protects the value of his total portfolio by asset diversification.
He is not an interest-seeking banker, however. The money he invests is his own. He is not acting as the legal agent (fiduciary) of other depositors. He legally claims all of the profits. He does not contract with borrowers who agree in advance to pay him a fixed rate of interest. The entrepreneurs are strictly his legal subordinates, unlike the relationship between banker and borrower.
The Forfeited Productivity of Inaction The master in the parable is outraged by the coin-burying servant. The parable is intended to show the subordinate (indebted) position of all men before God. The servant in Matthew's account was cast into outer darkness because he was an unprofitable servant (Matt. 25:30). The parable stands as a warning to all men because the Bible teaches that all people apart from grace are unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10).(12) This is why we need a profitable servant as our intermediary before God, our perfect sin-bearer. But to understand our relationship of indebtedness to God, the parable's language must be taken seriously. We cannot draw accurate theological conclusions about the broader meaning of the parable if the symbolic reference points of the parable are themselves inaccurate, let alone immoral.
The master in Matthew's account not only approves of taking interest, he sends the servant to the nether regions for not taking it. This is strong imagery! The interest payment belongs to the master. By having refused to deposit the master's money with the money-lenders, the servant has in effect stolen the master's rightful increase. The servant was legally obligated to protect the master's interests, and interest on his money was the minimum requirement. He failed.
The idea that the interest return was the master's minimum expectation leads us to the question of the origin of interest. Why did the master deserve an interest return? Because he had possession of an asset that could have been put to productive use, but was not. He had forfeited an economic return that could have been his. This concept of the forfeited return appeared in medieval economic literature as the doctrine of lucrum cessans. The owner of money who could have made a profit by investing it elsewhere, but who loaned the money to someone, was said by some theologians to be entitled to an interest payment from the borrower because of the income he had forfeited. Interest compensated the lender for the opportunity he had missed.
This raises the whole question of cost. What is the cost of any action or any purchase? It is the value of whatever has to be forfeited, i.e., the value of the most valuable foregone use. If I do one thing with my money, I cannot do something else with it. The value of whatever I would actually have done but did not do is what it costs me to do whatever I do.
The lender who transfers to another person the use of an asset, monetary or nonmonetary, has given up whatever other opportunities might have been available to him. There are always other opportunities available. There is therefore always a cost to the lender of lending money.
The master in the parable was being gracious to the servant. He recognized from the beginning that the man was not very competent. The master did not tell the servant that he had failed because he had not made 100 percent on the money entrusted to him. He told him only that he had failed because he had not earned an interest payment. This is the least that the master legitimately expected.
As it turned out, the master could have made a far greater return on his investment by entrusting it to either or both of the first two servants. But he had sought greater economic safety instead. He had adopted the principle of risk reduction through portfolio diversification. You receive a lower rate of return, but a more sure return. But the master had been cheated. He could have deposited his money directly with the money-lenders instead of giving it to the servant. That would have been safer -- greater diversification through the bank -- and it almost certainly would have produced a positive rate of return, however low. Instead, he received only his original capital in return.
He had forfeited his legitimate interest payment because he had transferred the asset to the slothful, risk-aversive servant. This servant is a model of wickedness, not because he was actively evil, but that he was passively unproductive. He did nothing with that which had been entrusted to him. Doing nothing is sufficient to get you cast into hell, when doing the minimum would at least quench the master's wrath. (Warning: only one man in history has ever performed this minimum: Jesus Christ.)
Interest and Capitalization Is interest-taking morally legitimate? This debate has been going on since at least the days of Aristotle, who regarded money as sterile and interest as unnatural.(13) But if money is sterile, why have men throughout history paid lenders to gain access to its use for a period? How are so many people fooled into paying for the use of a sterile asset? Besides, interest is a phenomenon of every loan, not just loans of money. Modern economics teaches this; so does the Bible.(14) Aristotle was incorrect. The phenomenon of interest applies to every scarce economic resource. We always discount future value. Whatever we own in the present is worth more to us now than the promise of owning that same item in the future. Promises to repay can be broken (the risk factor), but more to the point, the present commands a price premium over the future.(15)
We live in the present. We make all of our decisions in the present. We enjoy the use of our assets in the present. While wise people plan for the future by purchasing assets that they expect to produce net income over time, they purchase these hoped-for streams of income at a discount. The rate of discount that we apply to any stream of expected future income is called the rate of interest. Mises called it time-preference.
Thus, the rate of interest is not exclusively a monetary phenomenon. Interest is a universal discount that we apply to every economic service that we expect to receive in the future. We buy a hoped-for stream of rents; we can buy them for cash, but we expect a discount for payment in cash. This purchase at a discount for cash is called capitalization. It is the heart of capitalism. It is the heart of every society more advanced than the utterly primitive.
The person who lends money at zero interest is clearly forfeiting a potential stream of income. He will seldom do this voluntarily, except for charitable reasons. The ownership of the asset offers him an expected stream of income: psychological, physical, or monetary. If it did not offer such a stream of income, it would be a free good. It would not be demanded. It would therefore not command a price. An asset owner expects to receive a stream of income from the asset. He chooses the degree of risk that he is willing to accept, and he then refuses to lend the asset for less than the interest rate appropriate to this degree of risk.
The borrower compensates the owner for his use of the owner's asset, or its exchange value, for a specified period of time. He borrows it only because he values its stream of services more highly than he values the extra payment (interest) to the owner above the rental income generated by the asset. He expects to make a profit of some kind on the temporary exchange of control over it.
Conclusion Non-fractional reserve banking and the taking of interest are both biblically legitimate. The parable of the talents or pounds should be sufficient proof for anyone who is not trying to make an overnight theological reputation for himself based on the promotion of the utterly fantastic. We should take the Bible seriously in preference to Aristotle, and also in preference to the "economics of love."(16) The capitalization of long-term assets, including human services, is biblically legitimate.
Again, I acknowledge that men, in their quest for autonomy from God, are willing to become slaves of sin, and therefore in principle slaves of other men. I recognize the New Testament principle that it is best to owe no man anything (Rom. 13:8a). I also recognize that modern economics has promoted the ideal of perpetual debt for perpetual prosperity, and that a world so constructed will eventually collapse. But to place temporal limits on the judicial enforceability of the discounting of future long-term human services, because the Bible requires that we restrain man's overconfidence about his long-term future, is not the same as denying that there is an inescapable discounting (capitalization) process between the present value of present goods and the present value of expected future goods.
With respect to capitalized debt, if both the lender and the borrower agree that a piece of collateral is acceptable in exchange for the defaulted loan, then the debtor is not in debt, net. He has an offsetting asset. He wants the money in cash; the lender would rather have the money over time. The existence of the collateral reduces the likelihood that the debtor will default. The debtor is therefore not a servant of the lender in this case. Nevertheless, if the loan involves the potential loss of a man's home, meaning his status and his own self-evaluation, then he is in a form of bondage. But if he owns investment assets (a house, for example) with a mortgage on it, and he risks losing the house if he defaults, then this voluntary transaction is merely a shifting of risk to the liking of both transactors. The lender feels better about the future with a stream of income guaranteed by the value of the collateral. The borrower feels better about owning the collateral and paying the money. Neither is a servant; neither is a master.
The top priority here is the multiplication of assets in the broadest sense. God grants assets to His stewards. He demands a positive rate of return.(17) He who hides his assets is comparable to the person who hides his candle under a basket. God is cheated by such seemingly low-risk investing.
Footnotes:
1. This is adapted from Chapter 45 of Gary North, Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, electronic edition (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 2000).
2. This bulk of this chapter appeared first in Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), ch. 23.
3. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987). Revised edition, 1992.
4. Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (Spring Mills, Pennsylvania: Libertarian Press, [1944] 1983).
5. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
6. Kings ceased to be able to declare war on their own authority at the end of World War I (1918).
7. Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (New York: Harper Torchbooks, [1921] 1965).
8. Jews could legally lend to Christians, which is why Jews from the middle ages onward have been found in banking. It was a near-monopoly granted to them by Christian legislators.
9. John T. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957), ch. 10.
10. Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Odds: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York: Wiley, 1996).
11. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1949), ch. 20.
12. Chapter 40, above.
13. "For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. That is why of all modes of getting wealth, this is the most unnatural." Aristotle, The Politics, I:9., Stephen Everson, ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 15.
14. "Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase" (Lev. 25:37). "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it" (Deut. 23:19-20).
15. Mises, Human Action, ch. 19.
16. North, Tools of Dominion, Appendix F: "Lots of Free Time: The Existentialist Utopia of S. C. Mooney."
17. This is possible only because He wipes away the effects of sin.
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