Usury (the practice of charging interest on lending money) was illegal almost everywhere and morally frowned upon until the middle ages (see a play by a little known English author "William Shakespere!" called The Merchant of Venice) . I would argue that the fundamentals of our current economic malaise rest in it being legalised and bought into general use. Whilst not suggesting it be banned again-wishing to avoid legal and contractual problems at least in relation to bitcoin (a new economic approach) should it not be discouraged and considered morally reprehensable again? discuss. reg.
Because, well known fact, middle age morals and ethics are
absolutely something we want to take inspiration from.
+1
and
Usury let us exit from middle ages? Well then it isn't so bad!
Also on wiki i read money lending exist since the Roman Empire
Banking during Roman times was different from modern banking. During the Principate, most banking activities were conducted by private individuals, not by such large banking firms as exist today; almost all moneylenders in the Empire were private individuals because anybody that had any additional capital and wished to lend it out could easily do so.[6]
The rate of interest on loans varied in the range of 4–12 percent; but when the interest rate was higher, it typically was not 15–16 percent but either 24 percent or 48 percent. The apparent absence of intermediary rates suggests that the Romans may have had difficulty calculating the interest due on anything other than mathematically convenient rates. They quoted them on a monthly basis, as in the loan described here, and the most common rates were multiples of twelve. Monthly rates tended to range from simple fractions to 3–4 percent, perhaps because lenders used Roman numerals.
