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 Ethics. Translated
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.
|