Money, Wealth, Exchange, Credit Creation, Moneylenders, Policy, Ethics, Religion, Trust
MONEY
TOPIC PLATO GO ARISTOTLE GO THE OLD TESTAMENT GO THE NEW TESTAMENT GO THE KORAN GO SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS GO NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI GO BARUCH SPINOZA GO KARL MARX GO ALBERT EINSTEIN GO OSWALD SPENGLER GO JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER GO JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES GO FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK GO KARL R. POPPER GO JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH GO MILTON FRIEDMAN GO EDWARD E. AYOUB GO
Money
Wealth
Exchange
Credit
  Creation
Moneylenders
Policy
Ethics
Religion
Trust
  

The Laws.

"Both [money and goods], in excess, produce enmity and feuds in private and public life, while a deficiency almost invariably leads to slavery."1a

"Money must not be deposited with anybody whom one does not trust."1b

Ethics.

" . . . [T]hose who follow illiberal occupations, like . . . moneylenders who make small loans at a high rate of interest; for all these receive more than is right, and not from the right source. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice . . . "1a

The Old Testament.

" . . . [M]oney answereth all things." [Ecclesiastes 10:19].1a

"The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender" [Proverbs 22:7].1b*

The New Testament.

" . . . [T]he love of money is the root of all evil" [Timothy 6:10].1a

"And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers . . . And the scribes and chief priests . . . sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine." [St. Mark 11:15-18]1b

The Koran.

"Let those who hoard the wealth which God has bestowed on them out of His bounty never think it good for them: it is nothing but evil." [The 'Imrans 3:181]1a

On Law, Morality, and Politics.

" . . . [M]oney according to the Philosopher1a, was invented chiefly for the purpose of exchange, and, consequently, the proper and principal use of money is its consumption or alienation, whereby it is sunk in exchange."1 [More below]

The Discourses

"Money . . . not only affords you no protection, but makes you the sooner fall a prey. . . it is not gold, as is acclaimed by common opinion, that constitutes the sinews of war, but good soldiers; for gold does not find good soldiers, but good soldiers are quite capable of finding gold."1a

The Ethics.

" . . . [T]hose who know the true use of money set the limit of their wealth solely according to their needs, and live content with little."1a*

"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself. . . "1b*

Capital. Volume 1.

"The first distinction we notice between money that is money only, and money that is capital, is nothing more than a difference in their form of circulation.
The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities; or selling in order to buy. But alongside of this form we find another specifically different form: M-C-M, the transformation of money into commodities, and the change of commodities back into money; or buying in order to sell. . .
In the circulation C-M-C, the money is . . . spent once for all. In the inverted form, M-C-M, on the contrary . . . [t]he money . . . is not spent, it is merely advanced."1a

"The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what [the capitalist] aims at. This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser."1b

"The capitalist knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money."1c [Karl Marx was born of a German-Jewish family converted to Christianity2a]

 

 

Ideas and Opinions.

"The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.1a 

"Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse."1b

The Decline of the West.

"In the form of democracy, money has won."1a

"Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect."1b

"In reality, money, like number and law, is a category of thought."1c*

"Thinking in money generates money -- that is the secret of the world economy."1d*

"The sword is victorious over money, the master-will subdues again the plunderer-will. . . A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and only one power that can confront money is left. Money is overthrown and abolished by blood. Life is alpha and omega . . . It is the fact of facts within the world-as-history."1e*

Business Cycles.

" . . . [C]apitalism is that form of private property economy in which innovations are carried out by means of borrowed money . . . "1a

"It was the financing of innovation by credit creation . . . which is at the bottom of that 'reckless banking.'"1b

The General Theory.

" . . . [T]he importance of money essentially flows from its being a link between the present and the future."1a*

The Road to Serfdom.

" . . . [M]oney is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man."1a

The Constitution of Liberty.

"[M]onetary policy and its effects should be as predictable as possible."2a

The Open Society and Its Enemies.

"Money . . . becomes dangerous only if it can buy power, either directly, or by enslaving the economically weak who must sell themselves in order to live."1a

Money.

"In all of the panics there were recognizable constants. First came an expansion in business activity. This usually centered on some dominant form of investment . . . Then, as time passed, expansion gave way to speculation . . . The banks, needless to say, provided the money that financed the speculation that in each case preceded the crash."1a

"Could it all be better? The answer is yes.
Proof begins with the people who manage money. If anything is evident from this history, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent . . . Inadequacy is protected further . . . by the fact that failure is not always at cost to those responsible."1b

The Great Crash 1929

Capitalism and Freedom.

"To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers."1a

Money Mischief.

The Essence of Capitalism.

" . . . [U]sing Hobbesian logic, I revealed Capitalism as a Religion of Money (banks as churches, bankers as clergy, loan applications as auricular confessions, bankruptcies as excommunications, credit bureaus as index librorum prohibitorum, etc.)."1a

World War III Against the Money Trust?

" What we really need is a critique of Solomonic morality - 'The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender' (Proverbs 22-7)2a*. This is the deepest and darkest root of Man's servitude . . . This is the shabbiest Magian superstition. . . This is what must be changed . . . Christian morality is the divine rebellion against the 'shabby origin'2b of a moral order based on money. We need to revaluate Capitalism itself. Fictitious Bank-Money cannot be the grand unifying system of Man's Being."2

* Italics in the original. 1 Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.). The Laws. Translated with an Introduction by Trevor J. Saunders, 1970. Penguin Group.
a Wealth (729), at 192.
b The Possession of Money (742), at 211.

1 Aristotle. The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean EthicsTranslated by J.A.K. Thomson, 1953. Revised with Notes and Appendices by Hugh Tredennick, 1976. Introduction and Bibliography by Jonathan Barnes, 1976. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
a
Book IV: Other Moral Virtues, at 148.

1 The Holy Bible. The Old Testament. King James Version. London, England: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1957.
a Ecclesiastes 10:19.
b Proverbs 22:7.

1 The Holy Bible. The New Testament. King James Version. London, England: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1957.
a Timothy 6:10.
b St. Mark 11:15-18.
1 The Koran. Translated, with Notes, by N.J. Dawood. N.J. Dawood, 1956, 1959, 1966, 1968, 1974, 1990, 1993. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
a The 'Imrans 3:181.
1 Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). On Law, Morality, and Politics. Edited by William P. Baumgarth and Richard J. Regan, S.J. Avatar Books of Cambridge, 1988. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. (ST II-II, Question 78: Of the Sin of Interest-Taking, 198-209; First Article: Is It a Sin to Take Interest for Money Lent?, 198-202).
a Aristotle (384-322 B.C.).
Politics. Translated by Ernest Barker, revised with an Introduction and Notes by R.F. Stalley. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995. (The trade of the petty usurer, at 29-30 (1258a35).)
1 Niccol� Machiavelli. The Discourses. Edited with an Introduction by Bernard Crick using the translation of Leslie J. Walker, S.J. Revisions by Brian Richardson. Bernard Crick, 1970. London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd. (Penguin Classics.)
a Book Two, Discourse 10, at 300 and 302.
1 Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). The Ethics. Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Selected Letters . Translated by Samuel Shirley. Edited, with Introductions, by Seymour Feldman. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.
a Appendix, Part IV, at 199.
b Proposition 42, Part V, at 223.

1 Karl Marx (1818-1883). Capital: An Abridged Edition. Edited with an Introduction by David McLellan. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1995.
From Volume 1
a Part II, Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital, at 98.
b Part II, Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital, at 93 and 95.
c Part II, Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital, at 99.

2 Karl Marx. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 3. Translated by David Fernbach with an Introduction by Ernest Mandel. Edition and notes, New Left Review, 1981. Translation, David Fernbach, 1981. Introduction, Ernest Mandel, 1981. London, UK: Penguin Group.
a Marx's biography at 1.

1 Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Ideas and Opinions. Based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, and other sources. New translations and revisions by Sonja Bargmann. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1954.
a The World as I See It., at 8-11. Originally published in Forum and Century, Vol. 84, pp. 193-194, the 13th in the Forum series, "Living Philosophies"; included also in Living Philosophies (pp. 3-7), New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931. 
b
On Wealth, at 12-13. Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934.
1 Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). The Decline of the West. An Abridged Edition by Helmut Werner. English Abridged Edition prepared by Arthur Helps, from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991. The Decline of the West was originally published in two volumes: Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Gestalt und Wirklichkeit, 1918, C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandling, Munich; and Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Welthistoriche Perspektiven, 1922, C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandling, Munich.
a State and History, at 379.
b Philosophy of Politics, at 396.
c The Form-World of Economic Life: Money, at 404.
d The Form-World of Economic Life: Money, at 408.
e The Form-World of Economic Life: The Machine, at 414.
1 Joseph A. Schumpeter. Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process (1939). Abridged, with an Introduction, by Rendigs Fels. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1964. (Reprinted 1989 by Porcupine Press, Inc., Philadelphia PA.)
a Capitalism defined, at 179.
b "Reckless banking," at 197.
1 John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1935). San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1991.
a The Theory of Prices, at 293-294.

1 F.A. Hayek (1899-1992). The Road to Serfdom. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. Introduction by Milton Friedman. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, 1944, 1972, 1994.
a Economic Control and Totalitarianism, at 98-99.

2 F.A. Hayek. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, 1978.
a The Monetary Framework, at 334.

1 Karl R. Popper. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume II: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath. Fifth ed. (revised). Karl Raimund Popper, 1962, 1966. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
a The Legal and the Social System, at 128.
1 John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-). Money. Whence It Came, Where It Went. Revised ed. John Kenneth Galbraith, 1975, 1995. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
a The Price, at 106-113
b Afterword, at 310.
1 Milton Friedman (1912-). Capitalism and Freedom. With the assistance of Rose D. Friedman. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, 1962, 1982.
a The Control of Money, at 51.

1 Edward E. Ayoub, with the assistance of Trudé K. Ayoub. The Essence of Capitalism. Toronto, ON: Macroknow Inc., 2000.

2 Edward E. Ayoub, with the assistance of Trudé K. Ayoub. World War III Against The Money Trust? Book III, Chapter 1: The Essence of Capitalism. Toronto, Ontario: Macroknow Inc., 1998.
a According to Rev. David Fant, Solomon was the principal writer or compiler of Proverbs; see Rev. David J. Fant, Helps to the Understanding of the Bible, in The Holy Bible, King James Version, 1957, at 14.
b Nietzsche's expression for "The supreme values in whose service man should live"; ibid., number 7, at 10-11.