SECTION CXC.. Interest-Policy.--Aversion to Interest.

INTEREST-POLICY.--AVERSION TO INTEREST.

At the same time, there is a strong aversion to the taking of interest prevalent among nations in a low stage of civilization. Industrial enterprises of any importance do not as yet exist here at all, and agriculture is most advantageously carried on by means of a great many parcels of land, but with little capital. The purchase of land is so rare, and hampered by legal restrictions to such a degree, that loans for that purpose are almost unheard of. And just as seldom does it happen, by reason of the superabundance of land, that the heir of a landowner borrows capital to effect an adjustment with his co-heirs, and thus enter alone into the possession of the estate. Here, as a rule, only absolute want leads to loaning.[190-1] If, in addition to this, we consider the natural height of the rate of wages in such times, the small number and importance of the capitalist class (§ 201), the tardy insight of man into the course and nature of economic production,[190-2] it will not be hard to understand the odium attached in the middle age of every nation to so-called interest-usury[190-3] (Zinswucher).

Most religions, the Christian excepted (the universal religion!), have been founded in the earlier stages of the nations who profess them, and have there, at least outwardly, exercised their greatest influence. No wonder, therefore, that so many religions have prohibited the taking of interest. Thus, for instance, the Jewish which, indeed, allows interest to be taken from foreigners, but raises loaning without interest among Jews in their commerce with one another, to the dignity of a duty binding on the conscience of the beneficent rich.[190-4] [190-5] Similarly in the Koran.[190-6] The Fathers of the Church, also, on the whole, look with disfavor on the taking of interest, relying upon well-known passages in the Old Testament, and, in part, on misunderstood expressions in the New.[190-7] This is especially true of the Fathers of the Church from the beginning of the fourth century, when the Roman empire was frightfully impoverished by the devastations of the barbarians, and as a consequence the conditions as to interest which prevail in the lowest stages of civilization had returned. Mercy towards the poor usually occupies the foreground in the demonstrations of the Fathers.[190-8]