Usury | Ezra Pound

The first thing for a man to think of when proposing an economic system is: WHAT IS IT FOR? And the answer is: to make sure that the whole people shall be able to eat (in a healthy manner), to be housed (decently) and be clothed (in a way adequate to the climate). 

 

 

 

Another form of that statement is Mussolini’s:

DISCIPLINE THE ECONOMIC FORCES AND EQUATE THEM TO THE NEEDS OF THE NATION.

The Left claim that private ownership has destroyed this true purpose of an economic system. Let us see how OWNERSHIP was defined, at the beginning of a capitalist era during the French Revolution.

OWNERSHIP is the right which every citizen has to enjoy and dispose of the portion of goods guaranteed him by the law. The right of ownership is limited, as are all other rights by the obligation to respect the rights of others. It cannot be prejudicial to the safety, nor to the liberty nor to the existence, nor to the ownership of other men like ourselves. Every possession, every traffic, which violates this principle is illicit and immoral.

Robespierre.

 

The perspective of the damned XIXth century shows little else than the violation of these principles by demoliberal usuriocracy. The doctrine of Capital, in short, has shown itself as little else than the idea that unprincipled thieves and antisocial groups should be allowed to gnaw into the rights of ownership. This tendency ‘to gnaw into’ has been recognised and stigmatised from the time of the laws of Moses and he called it neschek. And nothing differs more from this gnawing or corrosive than the right to share out the fruits of a common co-operative labour.

 

Indeed USURY has become the dominant force in the modern world.

 

Moreover, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, which, as we have seen, amounts to 4 or 5 thousand million pounds sterling in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather a Stratum, of rentiers, i.e, persons who live by “clipping coupons” who take absolutely no part in any enterprise, and whose profession is idleness. The exportation of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still further isolates this rentier stratum from production, and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country living on the exploitation of the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.

V. I. Lenin, quoting Hobson in ‘Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism’.

Very well! That is from Lenin. But you could quote the same substance from Hitler, who is a Nazi (note the paragraph from ‘Mein Kampf’ magnificently isolated by Wyndham Lewis in his ‘Hitler’) – ‘The struggle against international finance and loan capital has become the most important point in the National Socialist programme; the struggle of the German nation for its independence and freedom.’

You could quote it from Mussolini, a Fascist, or from C. H. Douglas, who calls himself a democrat and his followers the only true democrats. You could quote it from McNair Wilson who is a Christian Monarchy man. You could quote it from a dozen camps which have no suspicion they are quoting Lenin. The only people who do not seem to have read and digested this essay of his are the British Labour Party and various groups of professing communists throughout the Occident.

Milton Friedman — Lie for hire.

Thomas Piketty — Worse than Jewspapers.

Some facts are now known above parties, some perceptions are the common heritage of all men of good will, and only the Jewspapers and worse than Jewspapers try now to obscure them. Among the worse than Jewspapers we must list the hired professors who misteach new generations of young, who lie for hire and who continue to lie from sheer sloth and inertia and from dog-like contempt for the wellbeing of all mankind. At this point, and to prevent the dragging of red herrings, I wish to distinguish between prejudice against the Jew as such and the suggestion that the Jew should face his own problem.

DOES he in his individual case wish to observe the law of Moses? 

Does he propose to continue to rob other men by usury mechanism while wishing to be considered a ‘neighbour’?

Quoted from:
Ezra Pound (1939) - What is money for?

 

Fed Governors — Prevent the dragging of red herrings.

 

Larry Fink — Considered a ‘neighbour’?

See also:

Neema Parvini (2022) - The Liberal Political Theology.
Stephen Mitford Goodson (2019) - Who Ever Sets the Price of Gold and Silver.

TPR (2014) - Modern Money Mechanics — The Alchemy of Neo-Feudalism.

Asatizah of Al-Munawwar (2013) - The Dazzling Proof for the Return of our pure Money. The Judgment on Fiat Currency.

 Serhii Hrabovsky (2010) - Lenin. Money. Revolution.
Nikolai Starikov (2010) - The Conspiracy of the Counterfeiters.
Anthony C. Sutton (1974) - The Bankster's Paradise Conspiracy Theory.
Hjalmar Schacht (1967) - The Magic of Money.
Gaetano Mosca (1898) - The Rulers and the Ruled.

The Magic of Money | Hjalmar Schacht

Hjalmar Schacht (1967) - Man needs money and cannot exist without it. The diabolic magic of money is here clearly visible. It has helped mankind to make immense strides in economic development, and has at the same time enslaved him. Regression to a money-less condition, or the modern method of exchange by means of money any kind of money, but still money - these are the alternatives. Money plays the role of the sorcerer's apprentice - created to serve a master who cannot now rid himself of his indispensable sprite. It is the master now. 

Hjalmar Schacht (1877 – 1970), President of the Reichsbank.

[...] Modern paper money, the banknote, is backed by its creator, the State. It is true that John Law, the inventor of paper money, recommended a kind of cover based on landed property, but Law too saw that the principal security for paper money lay in confidence in the government, which has legal control over all kinds of things which would provide security. The failure which put an end to Law's measures was not so much caused by a paper money inflation, as by a collapse of speculative activity in the shares of the overseas enterprises he had founded. The value of his paper money was not based on these public companies, but only on their relationship with the state. Law rightly recognised that money, if it does not consist of tangible metal, is purely an internal affair of the national state. This remains true today.

For this reason there is no such thing as international currency. It is unlikely that it will ever come into being. International money would have to be granted the status of legal tender in all countries in which it circulates. In all these countries it would have to be possible to settle every state and private obligation in this currency. Any institution controlling this. currency irrespective of whether it is a bank or a government department would dominate the world an unthinkable situation. Currency is the most nationalistic factor in political life. Every central bank responsible for issuing it is dependent on the government of the country by whose laws it was instituted, and which makes its notes legal tender in the country's home territory.

The granting of credit is unthinkable without a central bank. No central bank can be allowed to act against the government of the country. The government is over the central bank, and influences its policies. It is thus also in a position to inflate the currency by taking up too much credit with the central bank. No international central bank could countenance such a situation. It cannot permit one of the governments with which it is associated to misuse its facilities unless every other government is in agreement. This however is a condition which cannot be reconciled with the fight of all against all in time of economic difficulty. No state will surrender so much of its sovereignty that its partners or competitors are given the power to prescribe its economic and financial policies. Standing over and above central bank and government, both of which are led and administered by changing personalities, there is a higher, impersonal, and substantially necessary law: the stability, the constancy of value, of money. This higher law has in the past granted the central banks an autonomous, independent position. Governments change, and can pursue good or bad currency and credit policies according to whether or not it is to the advantage of the party in power. 

 

Schacht in an Allied internment camp, 1945.
"Dr. Schacht, you should come to America. We’ve lots of money and that’s real banking".
Schacht replied, "You should come to Berlin. We don’t have money. That’s real banking".

[...] Even if common currency is regarded and desired as the crowning achievement of the European Common Market, it would be wrong to leave the relationship between the government and the central bank out of account. [...] The closer the economic ties between various countries, the easier will it become to reach agreement on currency policies. Whether these will ultimately lead to a unitary currency will always depend on the extent to which the participants are prepared to surrender their sovereignty. Here in fact is the Common Market's chief problem.

Quotes from:
Hjalmar Schacht (1967) - The Magic of Money

Who Ever Sets the Price of Gold and Silver | Stephen Mitford Goodson

There was an increase in trade and Rome became one of the most prosperous cities in the ancient world. [...] bronze coins represented national money and were paid into circulation by the state and each was only of value in as much as the symbols on which its numbers were recorded, were scarce or otherwise. This money was thus based on law rather than the metallic content. [...] This can be considered as an early example of the successful use of fiat money.

While fiat money is much criticised in some quarters, for example by the followers of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it is issued by government, not by private bankers, and is carefully protected against counterfeiters. Non-fiat money, in contrast, has the serious drawback that who ever sets the prices of gold and silver, i.e. private bankers, can control the nation’s economy.

[...] in September 45 BC, Caesar found the streets and cities crowded with homeless people, who had been forced off the land by usurers and land monopolists. 300,000 people had to be fed daily at the public granary. Usury was flourishing with disastrous consequences. [..] Caesar fully understood the evils of usury and how to counter them. He recognized the profound truth that money is a national agent, created by law for a national purpose, and that no classes of men should withhold it from circulation so as to cause panics, in order that speculators could advance the rates of interest, or could buy up property at ruinous prices after such panic.

Caesar introduced the following social reforms:

1. Restoration of property was done at the much lower valuations which held prior to the civil war (49-45 BC).
2. Several remissions of rents were granted.
3. Large numbers of poor citizens and discharged veterans were settled on allotments.
4. Free housing was provided to 80,000 impoverished families.
5. Soldiers’ pay was increased from 123 to 225 denarii.
6. The corn dole was regulated.
7. Provincial communities were enfranchised.
8. Confusion in the calendar was removed by fixing it at 365¼ days from 1 January 44 BC.

His monetary reforms were as follows:

1. State debt levels were immediately reduced by 25%.
2. Control of the mint was transferred from the patricians (usurers) to government.
3. Cheap metal coins were issued as the means of exchange.
4. It was ruled that interest could not be levied at more than 1% per month.
5. It was decreed that interest could not be charged on interest and that the total interest charged could never exceed the capital loaned (in duplum rule).
6. Slavery was abolished as a means of settling debt.
7. Aristocrats were forced to employ their capital and not hoard it. 

These measures enraged the aristocrats and plutocrats whose “livelihood” was now severely restricted. They therefore conspired to murder Caesar, the hero of the people. 

 

The 'Ides of March' Denarius (43/42 BC), a declaration of the Republic's 'liberation' from tyrannical Caesar.
Ironically, Brutus appears on the obverse professing he killed Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.
This is one of the most sought-after coins from the Roman world.

Quotes from:

Stephen Mitford Goodson (2019) - A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind.

 

See also:

Stephen Mitford Goodson (2017) – How The Banking System Works.

 Alfred Deahl (2020) - Money Talks: A Very Short History of Roman Currency.

Stephen Mitford Goodson (1948 - 2018) was a South African economist, author, politician and former Director of the South African Reserve Bank. He was the leader of South Africa's Abolition of Income Tax and Usury Party, and stood as a candidate for the Ubuntu Party in the 2014 General Elections.