Nice write up. Usury, it can so quickly enslave people such that they will no longer have time or life energy for spiritual cultivation.
Seventh.—Are Friends careful to live within the bounds of their circumstances, and to avoid involving themselves in business beyond their ability to manage; or in hazardous or speculative trade? Are they just in their dealings, and punctual in complying with their contracts and engagements; and in paying their debts seasonably? -JaiGuruYou ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raph...@yahoo.com> wrote : Re Bhairitu's post about the scandal that "just 62 ultra-rich individuals . . . have as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity" : The problem goes back to the acceptance of usury [pronounced YOUsury] in western societies. That inevitably concentrates wealth in the hands of those who are rich to start with. Usury is, today, the practice of making immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. In ancient India, Vasishtha forbade Brahmin and Kshatriya castes from participating in usury. St. Thomas Aquinas argued that the charging of interest is wrong because it amounts to "double charging", charging for both the thing and the use of the thing. Aquinas said this would be morally wrong in the same way as if one sold a bottle of wine, charged for the bottle of wine, and then charged for the person using the wine to actually drink it. [Nice analogy!] In The Divine Comedy, Dante places the usurers in the inner ring of the seventh circle of Hell. That's close to the bottom. As an alternative to usury, Islam encourages direct investment in which the creditor shares whatever profit or loss the business may incur. That's the key difference: not taking your kick-back in the good times and still taking your kick-back in the bad times but seeing that we are all in this together.
