My favorite is - “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.” - Exodus 22:25
That’s one of the reasons a lot of Medieval kingdoms kept Jews around despite despising and occasionally massacring them- they could make loans. Of course, that’s where the “Jewish banker” antisemitic trope came from.
Isn’t that passage lifted directly from the torah, though? Why doesn’t everybody abide by it? Islam isn’t too keen on interest either, as I recall. It is a peculiar thing.
Lending without interest discourages lending, which is actually really terrible for even pre-modern economies. Money gets hoarded by the rich instead of at least used in some capacity by the rich. Cultures which maintain that absolute stance on interest are often overtaken by similar cultures which do not maintain that stance, because a functioning finance system, even in its most primitive form, is a huge advantage.
lol if you want a more elaborate answer, it’s because interest-free loans don’t offer any incentive to lenders, which mean they would be incentivized to hoard. The way it works now, however, makes it so institutional lenders benefit massively from injecting colossal amounts of wealth directly into the economy itself; that too in a way that directly benefits the working class by increasing their purchasing power and helping shift goods, which helps boost employment.
Of course, injecting too much money into the economy is also terrible (the world has limited resources, after all) so interest rates can also help act as ‘breaks’ to prevent uncontrollable devaluation of currency. If all loans were interest-free, then we’d be far more irresponsible with our money (eg venture capitalists who took massive loans that could be poured into money pits like Reddit and Twitter).
My favorite is - “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.” - Exodus 22:25
Funny how you RARELY hear about that one.
That’s one of the reasons a lot of Medieval kingdoms kept Jews around despite despising and occasionally massacring them- they could make loans. Of course, that’s where the “Jewish banker” antisemitic trope came from.
Isn’t that passage lifted directly from the torah, though? Why doesn’t everybody abide by it? Islam isn’t too keen on interest either, as I recall. It is a peculiar thing.
The key is ‘to one of my people’ here. You can charge interest, just not to your fellow countryman.
Edited to add: There is more far nuance to this than I’m familiar with, but I’m pretty sure that’s the basic idea.
Two reasons:
Lending without interest discourages lending, which is actually really terrible for even pre-modern economies. Money gets hoarded by the rich instead of at least used in some capacity by the rich. Cultures which maintain that absolute stance on interest are often overtaken by similar cultures which do not maintain that stance, because a functioning finance system, even in its most primitive form, is a huge advantage.
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Because it’s not a good idea.
oh um right okay
lol if you want a more elaborate answer, it’s because interest-free loans don’t offer any incentive to lenders, which mean they would be incentivized to hoard. The way it works now, however, makes it so institutional lenders benefit massively from injecting colossal amounts of wealth directly into the economy itself; that too in a way that directly benefits the working class by increasing their purchasing power and helping shift goods, which helps boost employment.
Of course, injecting too much money into the economy is also terrible (the world has limited resources, after all) so interest rates can also help act as ‘breaks’ to prevent uncontrollable devaluation of currency. If all loans were interest-free, then we’d be far more irresponsible with our money (eg venture capitalists who took massive loans that could be poured into money pits like Reddit and Twitter).