Debt: The First 5,000 Years,Updated and Expanded
By the eighteenth century, a new ideology was taking form, especially in Britain, that “greed is good” (to use a recent summary formulation), because greed spurs a society’s efforts and inventiveness. By giving vent to greed, the logic goes, societies can best harness the insatiable ambitions, great energies and ingenuity of their citizens. While g
... See moreJeffrey D. Sachs • The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions
The principle here is reciprocity, but notice that it is not simultaneous. Unlike the notion of barter, time is allowed to elapse before one deed is repaid by another. Trust is required to bridge that gap. Unlike barter, the exchange is not mechanistic in that it does not place a concrete value on one deed versus another. Rather it is inherently pe... See more
Richard Pickering • Reciprocity as a Business Model
With the Reformation, the situation changed. Many of the most earnest Protestants were business men, to whom lending money at interest was essential. Consequently first Calvin, and then other Protestant divines, sanctioned interest. At last the Catholic Church was compelled to follow suit, because the old prohibitions did not suit the modern world.
... See moreBertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
He became convinced that ordinary commercial financing could be done for a service charge plus an insurance fee amounting to much less than the current rates of interest charged by banks, whose rates were based on supply and demand, treating money as a commodity rather than as a sovereign state’s means of exchange.