Tom Hodgkinson at Occupy on usury
By Mark Vernon on Friday, November 11 2011, 07:32 - Personal observations - Permalink
There was a calm irony to Tom Hodgkinson's sermon on the evils of usury, at the Occupy camp by St Paul's yesterday. He cited the Bible as happily as an evangelical preacher, not on homosexuality or abortion, for which you have to know the handful of references, but on usury, which it unpicks on almost every other page.
Going way beyond references to God and Mammon, he drew out how, with the Reformation - which St Paul's celebrates magnificently in Baroque statuary on its facade - usury came in from the cold and has undermined all manner of goods, from neighbourliness and merrymaking to a fair price for a sheep. He wrote up some of the ideas here.
He wasn't saying, wind back the clock, though he did recommend his gold dealer just around the corner. He was saying, let's look the usury, upon which so much of our life depends, squarely in the face.
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Excerpt from the leading Swiss newspaper today, re an interview with a sociologist:
swissinfo.ch: How much wider can the gap grow?
U.M.: Ten years ago we thought it couldn’t get any bigger. Five per cent of individual taxpayers had as much taxable net income as all the rest put together. Last year, in our study “How the Rich Think and Live” we showed that less than three per cent of the population owns more than the remaining 97 per cent. And now the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Study has revealed an even more extreme proportion.
It is quite possible that in the next two or three years the explosive pressure in society could build up even more and even drive people into the streets who are far from being left-wing sympathisers. Increasing numbers of comfortably-off people are saying that if things go on as they are, it will be dangerous for everyone. Something must happen that will help make society fairer again.
But precisely Modernity is based on looking at usure, and all other human passions, on the face and then trying to make 'the best of it'. You know very well, no doubt better than me, that this is the difference between Locke or Hobbes and Aristotle. We, the moderns, aim lower but then we are more demanding with the results. Plato never expected the Republic to exist but we want the markets to work well. And now we are expecting virtue as well!
On the other hand, I am not on the top 25% of earnings, probably not even on the 40%, and I fiind no reason to complain just because other people earns more than me. We should begin by asking ourselves if the concept of the so called justice is the best one to understand the world. And if the idle people at S. Paul (oh, if they at least were honest enough to admit that to be there is only possible for those who do not need to work: that is athenian spirit indeed!) wants to read the Bible, Job would be a good point to start.
But what does the market have to say about it?
Yes, Germaine Greer was on Radio 4 last night, making the point (among many others) that Islam is a viable and radical opposition to capitalism because of its rejection of usury.
The links between the Reformation and modern Capitalism are extremely complicated, but it might be that the relationship is merely historically coincidental. At the very least, we need to acknowledge that the activity of lending money with interest is so woven into the fabric of our society that a wholesale condemnation (which some of the protesters seem keen on) is hopelessly simplistic.
But your final point is spot on. We need to look at it, and see it for what it is. Part of the problem is that the structure of finance is so complicated that we are easily bamboozled by the experts. Coming up with our pet solutions is a bit like shouting ideas on software at Bill Gates. Look at how readily Europe seems to welcome the idea of "technocrats" sorting out the crisis. I long for an ethical and unbiased economics primer.
You might enjoy this. At one point, I confront the rep with the concept of usury.
I made a video protest recently for my blog. It is quite funny even if you are pro-megabank. I called my credit card's customer service line to do some negotiating. Having a bit of leverage, I thought it presented a great opportunity to mess with them a little and make a few points about the unfairness of the credit card lending system. Since it's a protest at home, I called it my kitchen counterstrike against Bank of America. . http://www.ragingwisdom.com/?p=508