Like pipe (npub1qfk…j6kq) said, a thing can be immoral yet legal. Or vice versa.
If lender and borrower agree, let them be.
But usury remains immoral, since no well informed person would borrow money from his future more than what he’s getting. You’re getting 10 gold coins, your future self is losing 11 gold coins. No one would make that deal, unless the borrower is uninformed, and the lender is exploiting that, and that’s how it becomes immoral.
If you’re a well informed person, you’d be incredibly high time preference to take such loan. But it doesn’t make sense for a well informed person to be this short sighted.
Finally, we’re not arguing to ban loans. Simply saying usury, aka charging interest, is immoral, and I personally would ban usury if I ever get my own kingdom.
P.S.
Only reason usury looks like a good thing in our time is because fiat has distorted our perception of reality. It never was a good thing, and it never will be.
finrod / Finrod Felagund
npub1ec…qs735
2023-08-31 14:06:03
in reply to nevent1q…zpgz
Author Public Key
npub1ecdlntvjzexlyfale2egzvvncc8tgqsaxkl5hw7xlgjv2cxs705s9qs735Published at
2023-08-31 14:06:03Event JSON
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"content": "Like nostr:npub1qfkcklnmes45z75y7y8dkud5yll8vp5eq5ysk9rmgqdxeasv8unsrfj6kq said, a thing can be immoral yet legal. Or vice versa.\n\nIf lender and borrower agree, let them be.\n\nBut usury remains immoral, since no well informed person would borrow money from his future more than what he’s getting. You’re getting 10 gold coins, your future self is losing 11 gold coins. No one would make that deal, unless the borrower is uninformed, and the lender is exploiting that, and that’s how it becomes immoral.\n\nIf you’re a well informed person, you’d be incredibly high time preference to take such loan. But it doesn’t make sense for a well informed person to be this short sighted.\n\nFinally, we’re not arguing to ban loans. Simply saying usury, aka charging interest, is immoral, and I personally would ban usury if I ever get my own kingdom.\n\nP.S.\n\nOnly reason usury looks like a good thing in our time is because fiat has distorted our perception of reality. It never was a good thing, and it never will be.",
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