4 ms·

I didn't say they were "good", I'm just pointing out that they generally aren't starving, which means your point was hyperbolic. I don't understand why the gov

I didn't say they were "good", I'm just pointing out that they generally aren't starving, which means your point was hyperbolic. I don't understand why the government would need to "take over everything" to avoid starvation. There's no technical reason that capitalism can't exist without usury. Again I'm not saying usury is good or bad, just that it doesn't 'need' to exist. I suspect it is good for society when well regulated (better use of capital), and horrible for society when allowed without limit (indentured servitude, instability e.g. GFC caused by immoral lending). The question is which world are we living in? I'd argue the West is living in the latter world, the GFC is a symptom that shows that our financial system is causing more harm than good. In this case if the US had used the Islamic system, banks would have owned the assets they were "lending" for, and so would not be incentivized to make risky loans and sell them to unsuspecting investors. A bank isn't going to give a loan on an overvalued property if they know it will sit on their books until the losses are eventually realized.

sanderjd 4y ago
> I don't understand why the government would need to "take over everything" to avoid starvation. If the non-starvation examples are all dictatorships, then what's your point here? I agree that it's possible for capitalism to exist without "usury". Definitions of "usury" tend to define it as "unreasonably high interest rates". Interest rates right now are like 7%, which isn't particularly high and certainly isn't "unreasonably" high. The GFC isn't relevant to what's going on here. This is an entirely different (indeed in many ways an opposite) set of problems.
- kragen 4y ago
  you're responding to someone using the traditional definition of "usury", a sense already marked as obsolete in web1913: "The practice of taking interest." that is what is prohibited in sharia, charging interest at all, not charging unreasonably high interest; at least in medieval interpretations of sharia and modern fundamentalist interpretations plausibly the other commenter should avoid using such confusing terminology, but i found their meaning reasonably clear from context
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    Yeah.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  My point is that banning debt wouldn't cause starvation. Apologies for the terminology, the other commenter is right that I was using the original meaning. I don't think the rate of interest is relevant since the mechanisms that make debt dangerous still exist at 7% or 70%. Lending to a "No Income No Asset" person who has 0 chance of paying off the debt is immoral at any interest rate. I'm interested why you think the GFC is the "opposite" problem. Immoral lending was central in that story.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    Lending money is like the grease in the gears of a liberal economy. In countries with such economies, the ability to purchase food is downstream of the economy operating smoothly. If you entirely remove the grease from the gears and the economy siezes up, you do put the ability for people to get food at risk. Agricultural business rely on lending, businesses that transport goods rely on lending, businesses that sell goods rely on lending. Sure, you can potentially avoid mass starvation by having a government step in and direct all that top-down. But that has been far from a universally successful "solution" in fairly recent history. I agree that lending to individuals without assets or income is immoral. That is a very small sliver of debt activity. Lending to a business based on an analysis of their future earnings potential is not immoral. It is a risk, but that's the business banks are in. Honestly in the light of the day I'm not sure what point I was trying to make about the GFC, so I'll give you that one :)
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      I agree with everything besides “business X relies on lending.” Businesses _in the west_ rely on lending. Islamic businesses _cannot_ morally or legally rely on lending, so they must have alternatives. And if you look at the alternatives you will realise that debt is not essential. Sure, if all western governments banned lending tomorrow there would be crisis, but because any major change shocks an economy, not because economies _need_ debt. Haha I knew you’d come around about the GFC, it’s definitely not a good example of the superiority of Western Financial system LOL
      - 4y ago

sanderjd 4y ago

> I don't understand why the government would need to "take over everything" to avoid starvation. If the non-starvation examples are all dictatorships, then what's your point here? I agree that it's possible for capitalism to exist without "usury". Definitions of "usury" tend to define it as "unreasonably high interest rates". Interest rates right now are like 7%, which isn't particularly high and certainly isn't "unreasonably" high. The GFC isn't relevant to what's going on here. This is an entirely different (indeed in many ways an opposite) set of problems.

kragen 4y ago
you're responding to someone using the traditional definition of "usury", a sense already marked as obsolete in web1913: "The practice of taking interest." that is what is prohibited in sharia, charging interest at all, not charging unreasonably high interest; at least in medieval interpretations of sharia and modern fundamentalist interpretations plausibly the other commenter should avoid using such confusing terminology, but i found their meaning reasonably clear from context
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Yeah.
brutusborn 4y ago
My point is that banning debt wouldn't cause starvation. Apologies for the terminology, the other commenter is right that I was using the original meaning. I don't think the rate of interest is relevant since the mechanisms that make debt dangerous still exist at 7% or 70%. Lending to a "No Income No Asset" person who has 0 chance of paying off the debt is immoral at any interest rate. I'm interested why you think the GFC is the "opposite" problem. Immoral lending was central in that story.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Lending money is like the grease in the gears of a liberal economy. In countries with such economies, the ability to purchase food is downstream of the economy operating smoothly. If you entirely remove the grease from the gears and the economy siezes up, you do put the ability for people to get food at risk. Agricultural business rely on lending, businesses that transport goods rely on lending, businesses that sell goods rely on lending. Sure, you can potentially avoid mass starvation by having a government step in and direct all that top-down. But that has been far from a universally successful "solution" in fairly recent history. I agree that lending to individuals without assets or income is immoral. That is a very small sliver of debt activity. Lending to a business based on an analysis of their future earnings potential is not immoral. It is a risk, but that's the business banks are in. Honestly in the light of the day I'm not sure what point I was trying to make about the GFC, so I'll give you that one :)
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    I agree with everything besides “business X relies on lending.” Businesses _in the west_ rely on lending. Islamic businesses _cannot_ morally or legally rely on lending, so they must have alternatives. And if you look at the alternatives you will realise that debt is not essential. Sure, if all western governments banned lending tomorrow there would be crisis, but because any major change shocks an economy, not because economies _need_ debt. Haha I knew you’d come around about the GFC, it’s definitely not a good example of the superiority of Western Financial system LOL
    - 4y ago