> > Well, interestingly Jim first brought up the examples of Byzantine and > > Italian Renaissance, so I have not been talking about Caliphate. > > ... Sorry, mea culpa, I was only halfway down the previous thread at the > time I jumped in. My argument for the Caliphate might be a bit superficial > as well. > The point I am trying to make is that interst is robbery.
Yes, of course, better we discuss the topic debt and interest, which is still actual. After all it is extremely difficult to judge a culture from a distance of 1000 years away, especially since most people cannot even agree about our current day culture. Some will say the Usa is great, pointing to the man on the moon, Marilyn Monroe and Windows XP (ouch :-). Others will say it is terrible and cite the great depression, 15% of the population below the poverty line in 2003, and George Bush Jr with his war in Iraq... It seems to be more a question of taste. If Jim likes the culture and ideas of Byzantine, then who am I to argue with it? > > Obviously none of us lived in this period, so we are all relying on what we > > find in the history books. > > I will just throw in some observations, which as far as I know are > > sufficiently documented. > ... That is exactly where the problem lies. Our judgements are based on > history books which are based on (mostly biased) annecdotes and hearsay. > After all, the winners (re-)write history as they see fit. Precisely. These history books seem to be mostly the history of war, full with stories about Iwan the Terrible, Alexander the Great and other Bushes.. At the most these criminals could be mentioned at the end of the history books, for completeness sake. But why give them 70% of the pages? A few, very imprecise criteria I use to judge an ancient culture are: 1) Great works of art and achievements in philosophy they left behind. 2) The amount of freedom that the average citizen enjoyed. On these points the Caliphate doesn't score very high in my eyes, despite some beautiful mosques and courts they built, but hey, even Saddam Hussein had beautiful palaces, so maybe only the second criterion has some relevance... Practical inventions are not necessarily a sign of great wealth and culture, because often misery and poverty stimulate more new ideas in people in their desperate search for solutions. In other words: if you are having very cold every day, you are more likely to search how to make fire. > > It was a continuous cycle: > > war(destruction) - rebuilding (investment - growth) - saving (stagnation - > > decline) - war ... > > I honestly can't see the social or humanitarian achievement in an economy > that thrieves on destruction and rebuilding. While it appears to be human > nature, I still think it's pretty sad in this day and age anyone would > find it a good thing to kill others in order to destoy things so that they > can be rebuilt. Of course it is a sad story, but unfortunately too common a story in these Middle Ages. >From what I read about Caliphate it also doesn't look like a place of milk and honey for most citizens. Never ending succesion of internal revolts, division, looting, war,... > In fact, i would argue that the lack of interest burdens would allow for > (possibly) more gradual development without the need of looting and > rebuilding. > Don't forget, if prices are stable, then it will take much longer to > benefit from investments on a sensible scale. > If it takes 20 years of collecting rent to have enough to buy the next > house, then there will be demand for centuries to come. Watch out. If it takes 20 or more years of rent to build another house, then the rich may decide not to build more houses because it is not profitable enough. Then what good this will be? That's what usually happens when you tamper with the free market and fix rents and prices and interest rates: you create shortages. > > The free market is there because you are not forced to buy stocks in this > > company. > > > What does the free market do, if I didn't know what was going on and lost > all my money to some CEO who isn't even being punished for looting my > savings? You were not forced to buy stock in a company with such a lack of transparency. > > Yeah, but the countries functioning along these Islamic principles have not > > been that succesful. > > > As argued above, there is none. The closest resemblance might well be > Malaysia. But as they started to embrace someof the principles only four > decades ago, it hard to argue for overwhelming success just yet. No debts and interest in Malaysia??? I have customers there who are paying me with their creditcard.. And if this Caliphate system was so good and beneficial to everyone in the country, then what on earth inspired these countries to give up on it? And if they were forced to give up on it, then why aren't they unanymously scrambling today to put it back in place? I guess the people there know their history better than we do.. What is there that they don't like about this system and the way it functioned in the past? > > If person A agrees to loan money to person B at a certain interest rate, > > then this is a business between them. > > Where is our laissez-faire gone?? > > > I am against laissez-faire if it let's some take unfair advantage of > others by forcing them into financial bondage. I understand what you mean, but is this 'exploitation of unfair advantage' unique to debt/interest based economies? Let's take our example of a poor guy who desperately needs money for something that isn't covered by any social security/ insurance policy. Perhaps his camel has dropped dead and now he urgently needs another one to be able to do his work. (I guess camels weren't free in the Caliphate?) Yes, a loan shark could take advantage and borrow him at a very high interest rate. That's the 'unfair advantage' you are talking , right? But in the Caliphate he cannot borrow, so he takes his rolex watch to the second hand shop and tries to sell it there. Now, this shopkeeper can be a shark too and give him a very unfair price for his watch, knowing that this farmer needs the money... What's the difference? Same unfair advantage... See, you don't get rid of this 'unfair advantage' problem by making borrowing illegal.. In fact if you have borrowing and a well developped credit market, chances are this guy can borrow at a pretty reasonable interest rate. In the second hand shop he may be forced to sell his watch at 50% below fair value... > > And with debt/interest made illegal, what will happen? > > You will get loan sharks where you can borrow at very high interest rates. > ... Why? If nobody has debts and interest is illegal, why would people > start borrowing? Because they desperately need money. Perhaps a dead camel... > Isn't the desire to have something today, consumerism, the driving force > of debt? Not always. And I agree that borrowing for consumption is often a bad idea. But one can also borrow for investment, to aquire necessary tools to do your job, to do an urgent repair to your house,... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
