wealth, usury, and the lack of those beat-up clowns Rouault loved to paint
Every once in a while, for any number of reasons, I post in its entirety a post read on another blog. This post is titled, The Virtues of Wealth and Usury. It is from Lotar's venerable Pactum Serva blog. Here is the text, after which some of my own comments follow:
If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.
-G. K. Chesterton
Perhaps because on some level I am a masochist at heart, I find myself listening to Ancient Faith Radio from time to time. Every once in a while there is a gem, usually from Fr. Steven Freeman. More often I find myself listening in a sort of awful fascination, as in last months series by The Illumined Heart on "Managing Mammon".
One often has to wonder about that peculiar development within American Christianity that has led nearly all of its varied parts to subscribe to some form of the "health and wealth gospel". In reality, it should be no surprise that a show based out of an Evangelical convert parish in Orange County, California would do a two part series on how to get rich, or more fittingly, how it is a Christian's obligation to get as rich as he possibly can, even if the show is supposedly "Orthodox". It contained, of course, the usual twisting of the parable of the talents and other such oddities, such as the "tithing will make you rich" routine and the wonderful justification of "get rich so you can give more to the Church". One is left wondering why Christ did not tell the rich man to make more money, so that he could give more, or why so many Saints gave up the entirety of the wealth, instead of using it to make more so that they could give more.
Sadly, this is the state of American Christianity, by and large. Let me emphasize further that it is not merely an Evangelical or Charismatic problem, or even just a Protestant problem, even if they perhaps display it to a greater degree. American Christianity in general has merged with the bourgeois capitalist virtues of wealth as virtue. I, for one, have sat in Mega-churches and heard sermons on how Christ did not really mean what he said about the rich man and the camel, and I have sat in Orthodox parishes and heard homilies on how one should fulfill pledge card obligations before feeding the family and material blessings will come of it. What I have rarely heard are homilies on the virtue of suffering and poverty. It seems that we want all of the Old Testament "do as I command and you shall have", and none of the New Testament "do as I command and you will be persecuted."
Truly, what place does the pursuit for wealth have in the Christian life? I think it more fitting for us to seek the opposite, to give up our money hording. St. John Chrysostom once said in a homily, "if we are to tell the truth, the rich man is not the one who has collected many possessions but the one who needs few possessions; and the poor man is not the one who has no possessions but the one who desires many."
The worse thing still is that the virtue of wealth is no longer linked to such things as hard work, the production of goods or other such natural virtues, but rather through "making your money work for you." Which, to be certain, is nothing more that what the Church has always called "usury." It is a rather strange proposition, that money can somehow do work. What this really means is that we are to earn interest with our money by the labor of another. Theft really, or as St. Leo the Great ever more eloquently put it:
A man's possessions are indeed multiplied by these unrighteous and sorry means, but the mind's wealth decays because usury of money is the death of the soul. For what God thinks of such men the most holy Prophet David makes clear, for when he asks, "Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle, or who shall rest upon thy holy hill?" he receives the Divine utterance in reply, from which he learns that that man attains to eternal rest who among other rules of holy living "hath not given his money upon usury" and thus he who gets deceitful gain from lending his money on usury is shown to be both an alien from God's tabernacle and an exile from his holy hill, and in seeking to enrich himself by other's losses, he deserves to be punished with eternal neediness.
Still, how pervasive this perversion is. It has touched and infected everything. I have but to look no further than my own parish putting its building fund into a money market account. Yet, at one time participating in usury could get a priest defrocked. I look at my own 401K and I am ashamed to have it, though the money put in it is not by my choice.
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I am particularly taken with the phrase "the virtue of suffering and poverty" and the contrast of this virtue with the quotidian praxis one finds in virtually all of American Orthodoxy - the unquestioned embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by folks who like to talk and hear about ascesis. It is no surprise that converts, virtually all of whom come from the middle classes, and immigrants, who came to America largely in order to achieve a middle class lifestyle, would embrace bourgeois banalities. What is something of a surprise is the number of these who live a bourgeois life, even defend a bourgeois life, and then have the gall to wax on and on about the Orthodox ascetical life. Just this morning I read a bit by a fellow (who for all I know may not live a bourgeois life) who was writing about how Orthodox mission, unlike that of other faiths, starts with the ascetical life of the would-be missionary or evangelist, and the life of the mission is rooted in that ascesis. I agree with this outline of things missional.
But this begs the question of what counts as ascesis and the context of life in which that ascesis is rooted. One can embrace occasional veganism (with lots of fancy vegan things from Whole Foods even), rote bureaucratized almsgiving that never hurts given one's substantial financial liquidity, a modest prayer rule fit into a life not lacking in leisure times (one might keep in mind that those professions which bring great wealth frequently call work that which is not - networking, socializing, looking pretty, playing with electronic gadgets, etc. - thus many wealthy folks speak about how much they work while in fact their work is largely gratuitous leisure), the prayer rope on the wrist worn as spiritual jewelry, the going to see the Sex in the City movie after Vespers, the reading some life of an Athonite Elder after coming home from the trendy fusion restaurant. The accoutrements of ascesis, in an American bourgeois context, so easily become the brand symbols of a certain spiritualized lifestyle.
One then, in American Orthodoxy, sees a rather different extreme, something which on the surface seems like the opposite. In this fashion of ascesis, someone (or a family) living in the world begins to mimic perceived monastic styles of ascesis - the 3-4 hour prayer rule even to the neglect of children, the quasi-monastic attire, a purposefully stilted countenance, a spirituality very focused upon the works of certain elders (to the neglect of those holy fathers that many bishops over hundreds of years have taught us should be bulwarks in the Orthodox home), the constant cartoonishly stylized prostrations and crossing of one's self (soon the personal piety seems to override the normal, established pieties proper to the Liturgy), an attachment to the physical things of the Church that veers from normative piety to the almost magical, a fasting style that is, shall we say, loud and pronounced, etc., etc. What I find most interesting about this style of ascesis in America, is that in virtually all the cases I am familiar with, the folks who have done this did so without giving up the bank accounts, the various other financial assets, the means of capital creation (lucrative career path, etc.). Thus, they are play monks with hefty 401ks.
In both of the above forms of ascesis-lifestylization, that of the trendy - ascesis as spiritually fashionable accessory, and that of the pseudo-monastic - ascesis as affected, yet still ultimately comfortable, rejection of the trendy, it would seem that ascesis has fallen into mere aestheticism.
Why, if one wants to be ascetical as an Orthodox living in America, do we not consider the option of following, in an unpronounced manner, the norms of Orthodox piety, while taking upon oneself the suffering associated with the acquisition of some form of voluntary poverty? Why does one virtually never hear or see this as an option in American Orthodoxy, except among a few mission priests (obviously, I am considering here those who are not monastics) and the very occasional oddball. I know an Orthodox man, a doctor who works with an Evangelical medical mission in Memphis, whose piety, so he claims, is "Orthodoxy Lite." He lives in a neighborhood most people here would consider a ghetto. I suppose that what is Lite about his Orthodoxy is that instead of embracing the normal aesthetic styles of American Orthodox so-called ascesis, he actually managed to do something moderately ascetic with his life and the life of his family. Why, when speaking of ascesis in an American context, do we not even consider in our rhetoric the option of encouraging Orthodox singles and families to live lives in which they will make little money (or at least less money), and thus dress and act and carry themselves in the manner of Christians who happen to be, say, in the bottom 35% of the American socio-economic scales? Would this not be a better interpretation of Chrysostom's many admonishments concerning money and family life than either trendy ascesis or pseudo-monk ascesis? Does the Church not teach us that with regard to wealth and usury we should, as much as we possibly are able, seek to bow out of those affairs which attach us to it? One can still be a doctor or a lawyer or a university professor, but one might, by American standards, be a rather eccentric one, for the sake of the Gospel. And one might also choose to do something truly stupid from a financial point of view, like farm, or become a professional dishwasher. Why not teach that?
The only thing that can save America from her bourgeois lusts and damnable comforts is holy foolishness. Until our Church in this land is producing and encouraging Holy Fools (or even modest attempts at Holy Foolery), our talk of ascesis is, generally speaking, a spiritually fashionable game.
Thank you, Lotar, for the provocation.
posted by The Ochlophobist at 9:00 AM
24 Comments:
What of saints-in-the-making such as Elizabeth the New Martyr who lived a lavish lifestyle in her day, far above the peasant lives of the poor of Russia? What of the Royal Family themselves who lived 'lavishly' while maintaining piety?
I don't disagree with your points, and in someways the call itself is a form of Holy Foolery, but wonder if the all or nothing tone is perhaps an overstretch.
Of course, I am most of the things you describe, so it hits close to home. Then again, simply bowing to an authority outside of yourself on simple matters like 'no meat, no dairy, no alcohol' even if they are replaced with gourmet vegan dishes is seen to be eccentric, even ludicrous by those around me. Wait till they hear my thoughts on gay marriage and abortion. Simply holding such values knocks one down a peg. Making choices not to work 12 hour days and leaving early to go to Vespers during the week is proof one is not promotable or serious.
All that being said, I don't think my life is the best life, it is not ideal, it is rife with sin. It may be an acceptable life and I would prefer it to be the best life, but I'm really not certain my faith would survive. I always thought the sky was the limit when it came to increasing my Orthodox praxis - until I went to an Athonite style monastery in the US and found my ceiling. I couldn't do that. I can barely stay faithful to my little prayer rule and am a terribly lazy employee, husband and father; I also swear a lot, eat too much and judge others mercilously; I am arrogant and proud and love God not at all, but He keeps me in his grasp nonetheless. I remind myself of these as barbs toward humility, toward acceptance of the little suffering I am given rather than as a prod toward undertaking bigger sufferings self-chosenly. When I add to my rule myself, I find I fall. When I accept and suffer unchosen suffering - such as being laid off earlier this year when my wife was 5 months pregnant - I seem to thrive. I think God is giving us some unchosen opportunities of askesis as far as we can bear in the current recession/depression - I hope I am faithful enough to take the lesson in prayer.
Owen,
The most unfortunate aspect of what you have pointed out is how narrowly the word "usury" is now defined. It is sad that folks do not put two and two together to realize that "making money work for you" entails that someone, somewhere is being inhumanely robbed or manipulated. Money must grow on trees after all.....
I can't get over how bent out of shape some of my acquaintances were when I declined the opportunity to go to work for Primerica.
I'm not sure I buy into the idea that '"making money work for you" entails that someone, somewhere is being inhumanely robbed or manipulated'. I don't get the sense that Orthodoxy has defined usury in terms as broad as were once common in the West or in Judaism - or in Islam. "Excessive" is a relative term. Of course, I am not sure what an "appropriate" level would be either, and I'm not sure what sort of responsibility there might be on the part of the lender to determine whether a person 'should' be borrowing money at all, regardless of the cost of that borrowing in interest. Is there a case to be made for lending at high rates when a person needs to borrow money but has a terrible credit history that would warrant such a high rate of interest to protect against default? Not sure.
Take shorting, for example, too. If you borrow the stock to sell, that means the persons who lent it to you and bought it from you believed the stock would be worth more. You disagree. One of you is going to be wrong and pay a financial price. If these are parties that have some level of financial understanding, it is simply a matter of who is 'smarter', 'luckier', 'harder working' or 'blessed'. It's like having a good eye for talent, for diamonds in the rough, for seeing something that others do not. The fact that a company's equities or debt is all expressed on spreadsheets and numbers doesn't necessarily make a difference; overlooked, unrecognized potential in farm land or stock is no more 'real' than ownership or the debt obligations. Of course, if there is transparency and a presumed equality in understanding of the instruments and figures - maybe not just anyone should be allowed to trade.
I'm sort of thinking out loud here, so forgive me. Trying to think it all through. There is a line that is often crossed in finance, just as there is in commerce and trade. I'm just not sure where that line is, and whose responsibility it is to point it out. Should I not buy an antique for cheap knowing I can sell it for more elsewhere? Is it my duty to inform the seller he could make more?
I would love to read a study on the Orthodox use of such financial instruments, of laws around the use of debt and equity, etc. The lack of Orthodox positions could stem either from a lack of familiarity or due to the fact that they aren't deemed to be as bad as the 'old view' of usury in the West would have us believe; how had Christ and the NT changed the OT view of usury, if at all?
"I'm sort of thinking out loud here, so forgive me"
Christopher,
That's all I was doing too. It was a bit of an over-generalization. Both of your comments leave as much to ponder as the original two posts. My main concern in dealing with all of this is to crack down on so much of the naivete that exists among those who really think that working with (as opposed to working for) money never leads to a few cracked eggs here and there. But I will leave these concerns to my betters.
I have been adding info perhaps relevant to these questions on my blog. Most recently:
http://orrologion.blogspot.com/2008/12/financial-planning-market-timing-by-st.html
and
http://orrologion.blogspot.com/2008/12/integrity-in-practice-introduction-for.html
During the height of the financial crisis in August-October I also had a number of posts discussing/ranting/noting things financial and economic.
Owen,
I have to thank you for the thoughtful comments.
For me it would be a vast improvement if we simply did not look down our noses at those families who wear the same old church clothes every Sunday or who only own one working vehicle that looks like a piece of shit or who can't afford to go to the latest fundraising banquet. Or, at very least, it would be great if we began telling our children that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a neddle than for a rich man to enter the kindom of God."
I do have to admit that my family is not in poverty - I have too many friends who struggle to feed and clothe their children to claim that. Though we do know that we are heading that direction, at least as long as my wife and I refuse to keep a piece of rubber between us.
Orrologion,
The value of money is created through labor by the production of goods and services. So, if you are making money without labor (ie, making your money work for you, charging interest, ect) then you are making money from someone else's labor.
The problem is that for many, especially converts, and I am not only thinking of Orthodox converts here, are enthusiasts - their religion is their hobby, even a consuming one.
Meanwhile, greater blessing awaits those who give cold water to one of these little ones.
Naturally we should follow the traditions as given through the church. But, when we deny the spirit thereof, it all comes to nothing.
Och, thanks for your running commentary on financial issues. It has made me think about them, whereas I hadn't much before.
Lotar, you write:
>> The value of money is created through labor by the production of goods and services. So, if you are making money without labor (ie, making your money work for you, charging interest, ect) then you are making money from someone else's labor. <<
Is this necessarily bad? Any absentee landlord would automatically be an evil person, regardless of how what they paid their workers or how they treated them. Your statement is fine as a statement of fact but immediate denunciation of this fact would be a rather crude form of Marxism. Can you clarify?
Another unrelated point that might contribute to this discussion: how were such questions addressed in the disputes about monastic wealth that periodically arose in the church? One example is the founding of the Great Lavra on Mt. Athos by St. Athanasios in the late 10th century, with imperial monetary support and introduction of time- and labor-saving technology. Another is the Non-Possessor dispute in late medieval Russia, ostensibly between the parties of St. Joseph of Volokolamsk and St. Neilus Sorsky.
I know next to nothing about the latter, but have some knowledge of the former. As far as I can tell, St. Athanasios ran into trouble mostly because his foundation upset the established structures of monastic life on Athos. I don't know how much the monastery's wealth was a point criticized by his opponents. He himself strongly emphasized the duty of the Lavra to provide hospitality to all and sundry, and he even "imported" blind laypeople from the world to live and work at the monastery, in order to provide them with a stable community in which to live and the dignity of a livelihood. Recent research has shown that the larger Byzantine monasteries, far from being the dead weight on the economy that earlier stereotypes assumed, were usually quite entrepreneurial and careful with their wealth. The hesychast Fathers criticized this tendency in the late Empire, arguing that the monasteries should be philanthropic stewards, rather than hoarders, of wealth.
Orr,
Good question. I am inclined to think thus: Elizabeth the New Martyr and the Holy Royal Martyrs were different from today's middle classes in a key regard - they did not choose their manner and style of life in the manner in which an American middle classman chooses his lifestyle. And, their lavishness was not, by any Orthodox reckoning, for their salvation. In one case by martyrdom, in the other cases by passion bearing, these had to make an all or nothing choice at the end of their lives. Their piety in the midst of that lavishness (which was not entirely of their own choosing) prepared them to make that all or nothing choice, but it was that choice that brought them to a level of sanctity that the Church recognizes so formally. Without the manner of their deaths, it would seem unlikely or less likely that they would be venerated today – certainly so should they have not at some point rejected the lavish. In the last years of her life Elizabeth the New Martyr was doing just that.
The social order of former Russian and European aristocracies was existentially different than what we see today among middle class Americans. Because of technological advancements and other factors, the American middle class member today lives a life which is more comfortable than the life lived by most aristocrats in the 18th and 19th centuries. That comfort is taken for granted, and the desire for more of it is insatiable and is itself an ideology. Indeed, it is the totalizing nature of American bourgeois life that merits its total, or all or nothing, rejection.
I would entertain more than two options of rejection, for I hold that there are numerous ways in which to reject bourgeois life, not all of which require giving away all of one’s possessions or all so-called economic security – though at least a reduction in such economic means would be the most obvious manner of rejection. Most American bourgeois are mindless of the cost of their way of life in terms of the labor of others, labor which is compensated in a manner the American bourgeoisie themselves would never agree to, nor want for any of their children or grandchildren (regardless of the skill levels and experiences of those children), and in terms of the vast use of natural resources spent and used in order to maintain such a lifestyle (natural resources that are, effectively, subsidized in this economy to meet the demands of the American middle class).
With regard to ascesis one might well wonder. If a former Tsar “suffered” because he only had 50 servants to attend to his needs one day instead of his usual 75, it is hard for me to imagine this suffering was of much spiritual benefit, but God might well use anything, so who knows? But there is something one might be a bit more sure of – if the Tsar thinks that by such a suffering he is growing in his spiritual life, that he has borne a real cross – that Tsar is spiritually deluded. So it is I think with an American bobo who, during Lent, takes the money he normally spends on his dog’s pedigrees and gives it to OCMC and thinks this a great spiritual accomplishment. It’s like Fr. Hopko’s old comment about the fellow who eats Lobster with margarine sauce during Lent and thinks himself as bearing a cross because he is not having his usual steak. The American bourgeoisie are so far removed from a human appreciation of actual hurt, from real pain (all pain, for them, seems to be experienced as surreal), that the slightest decline in comfort or consumption is experienced as serious cross-bearing (something like our econ0my – if it is not growing at a heavy rate all hell breaks loose). I simply cannot follow the logic that a cross is a purely subjective existential phenomena – in which what matters is how bad it feels to its victim. No, for the Gospels to bear meaning, there must be some demands upon humans which are of an ontological sort, having to do with the very nature of the human person, a sort which is not widely negotiable based on experience. The sort of denial Christ speaks of when speaking of His own denying themselves must be, universally, recognizable.
A friend of mine, a Prot, went with me to an Orthodox Divine Liturgy this weekend. Afterwards he noted that it makes no sense for people to worship in the manner that Orthodox worship and then go on to live typical American middle class lives (my friend lives a life that is rather untypical). I assure you that his comment was not provoked on my part; I rarely discuss religious matters with him. His intuition, in my opinion, is correct. Again, I see it as no surprise that Orthodox live as those around them, given the general backgrounds of converts and immigrants in the American Church, but again one would think more restraint would be in order with regard to ascesis-speak.
The Gospel also makes total demands of the human person. A priest friend of mine likes to point out that while the OT demands 10% of our gain, the NT demands we give all we have away. A NT tithe is the widow’s mites. Very few live up to those demands. Will some who fall short still be saved? With God all things are possible. Should a member of the American bourgeoisie be remorseful of his wealth, apologize for it, be embarrassed of it, confess it, and know in his heart that he should get rid of it but feeling unable to do so (recognizing the sin of this), these would be signs of hope. But when Orthodox defend their wealth, ease, comfort, vast means of consumption, gain made through non-work and usury, and so forth, they mock the Gospel, adulterating it to suit their own desires and justify their own shortcomings.
You mention the differences between Western Christian, Jewish, and Islamic views of usury with those of the Christian East. This is a difficult matter. On the one hand, as with most things the East is less legalistic in a defined sense. That said, there are so many passages from Eastern fathers regarding usury that one gets the sense that the pastoral advice and admonishment was as strong or stronger than in the Christian West. It is true that the Western scholastics gave us the most precise definitions of usury, and the most detailed debates of what is and is not acceptable (some of which I find quite helpful), but as a Catholic friend of mine who is not as uncomfortable with contemporary economics as I am pointed out to me, it was some of the schoolmen who also provided the intellectual vehicle which ultimately was the undoing of the old Christian view of usury – namely sophistry. The evolving sophistry of some schoolmen regarding usury would ultimately end up in the intellectual lap of John Calvin, who would completely rethink usury for modern Christian thought, and whose followers would formulate the “Christian” defenses of usury that are used by all Christians, including Orthodox, who defend usury today. That modern capitalism is intellectually a close relation to Calvinism is a matter beyond dispute. So yes, the early schoolmen provided the most defined arguments against usury in Christian history, but the thought of other schoolmen led to the nominalism which led to Calvin which led to modern capitalism and its Christian defenders. In this matter, both sides are intellectual heirs of scholasticism. It is impossible to avoid this as soon as one begins to define the boundaries of usury.
Orr,
One more thought, if I may. With shorting, as you and others describe it, it is hard for me to see how, at best, this practice is any more a humane vocation than the fellow who, through great research and use of knowledge, makes his living betting on NFL games. At worst, shorting is far more devious because the shorting can in some instances effect companies and even whole industries with regard to their access to capital, which then effects persons who depend upon companies and industries for their livelihoods, etc. It is a dishonest thing, a fraud even, to make a living from gambling, from money that comes from work that disconnected to the things of this world – it is precisely this quality that relates to the “health and wealth” nature of Christians who see capitalist wealth as virtuous in American society. Their wealth is connected to chance, which they often see as providence, in a manner similar to the gambler’s. The wealthier one is, the less one generally loses, the less risk is involved, because the game is set up so that the house always wins in the end. The climbing of the economic order in America generally involves becoming more and more a partner with the house in the house’s game. It is a game which requires losers.
The farmer who speculates on a piece of land that he will work does not depend upon another man’s loss.
Collator,
In the case of the absentee landlord, he does work his land, if he is an honest landlord. If he pays no attention to his property and those who depend upon it, he is a usurist. If he does, he is not, and in large part because he has assumed real risk in the affair. Unlike most aspects of modern capitalism, in which the only loss is the money on the gambling table and the assets which have been secured with that money, the property the landlord owns (assuming it has one owner unprotected by usurist schemes) is a real liability that can cost him something real, the property itself (which is a real thing, unlike many of the paper or electronic things bought and sold in markets today), and perhaps even more of his real assets, if he does not honor the responsibility of owning the property.
I have often commented on this blog regarding the significance of the Church’s canonization of both St. Joseph and St. Nil. I am fairly confident, by the way, that both would reject usury as practiced in contemporary capitalist economies. But I grant what seems to be your point, that St. Nil would represent more of the position that Lotar and I hold.
I have long argued that at various times in Russian history, the image of repentance that Russia needed, vis-à-vis Sts. Joseph and Nil, is the one which is most the contrast to their given spiritual inclinations. The Great Russians need the witness of St. Nil. The Little Russians need the witness of St. Joseph.
Hence, in this American context of ubiquitous consumption and the raping of people and things to maintain and advance the so-called American Dream, we need the image of St. Nil.
A lot to think about. Thank you.
I thought it might be useful to try and drum up a little on usury in Orthodoxy to get a sense of the way in which it is dealt with, what they mean by usury, etc. I found a couple of things, with no particular motive or intent behind them - I'm just searching for info so as to think through this issue and its application.
"Eighth Torment. "When we rose still higher, we came to the station of usury, where those are accused who lend money for illegal interest; and here too are stopped those who gain riches by exploiting their neighbors; and those who take bribes, or by some other way stealing indirectly, acquire what really belongs to others." ('St. Theodora's Journey Through the Aerial Toll-Houses')
There is a section in "Readings in Russian Civilization: Russia Before Peter the Great, 900-1700"
by Thomas Riha that deals with the legality of usury in the Eastern churches and in contrast to the West:
http://books.google.com/books?id=-8bUs0iLtNsC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=usury+greek+russian+orthodox&source=web&ots=FtZGUW2q-m&sig=dLE9H0qBhzitehA2NA3wWPLnJAc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA15,M1
Here is a part of "Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of Differences that Separated the Protestant Reformers" by David W. Jones entitled 'The Doctrine of Usury Prior to the Protestant Reformation' - see note 23:
http://books.google.com/books?id=dGWP9IDXxjAC&pg=PA40&dq=usury+orthodox+christian#PPA37,M1
I think Maloney's book "The Background of the Early Christian Teaching on Usury" would be an extremely pertinent read. (I think he is now Orthodox, too).
There is a section in "Oxford Slavonic Papers: publications of the lectures and documents dealing with the languages, literatures and history of Russian and other Slavonic Countries" by G. C. Stone, J. L. I. Fennell (Clarendon Press, 1985) entitled 'OLD RUSSIAS STRUGGLE WITH USURY'.
Finally, for this evening, Gregory of Nyssa's "Against Those Who Practice Usury" is available here:
http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0330-0395,_Gregorius_Nyssenus,_Against_Those_Who_Practice_Usury,_EN.doc
An odd thing is that many of the first results that come up regarding usury and the Orthodox Church have to do with same sex attraction. The argument goes that usury was clearly seen as bad, but that opinion has changed; why not with homosexuality which is less clearly attested to in the written record.
Has anyone pursued any line of thought concerning what one would need to follow a calling to the writing of song? There is an unreal demand on the artistic market for a product, which is why, I think, poetry and music -- the temporal arts -- have always fared badly compared to the plastic arts or the arts of drama and dance as they deal in the thing of play and body. Musically speaking, it remains hard for independent (though -- really -- dependent) musicians to succeed without having a record out and about for consumption. To remain even remotely 'current', said musician must continue to release music, to garner a 'hit', to get some good airplay on radio, tour incessantly (thereby leaving family and friends at home whilst chasing the dream), and other things which are considered needful for the successful life. One must, of course, ask whether such a life is truly successful in any sense of the word. Success, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is derived from the Latin 'sub-cedere', 'to go under'. It may, thus, have a Christian connotation to baptism, to death, to the God for Whom the waters do not part, and then and only then to life. The word can also mean 'to go up', 'to come close after', and 'to go near'. Such a range of meaning also has some clear connotations to Christian life.
To be a dependent musician and a Christian, it is clear that one's goals and vision for life must be tempered by one's faith. One cannot leave one's family to fend for themselves because one has those obligations and responsibilities. One must remain local in place and particular in expression, not devolving into provincialism, but allowing the local and particular to open up generously and truly into a qualified universal. There are certain aspects of a human life, these qualified universals, that can be addressed and draw on a tradition, whether explicitly or implicitly acknowledged. These things may be the 'objective correlatives' of which T. S. Eliot writes in his essays (see Frank Kermode's edition of Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot). Somewhere the Ochlophobist has written that it is better to have a tattered life with open hands than the sterility of a clean grasping and that will be the case for the musician who is a Christian. Ambition and flattery, the search for votes and the currying of favours, will not do in the rhetoric of peace that is the Christian life. (I am heavily indebted to D. B. Hart's wonderful work, The Beauty of the Infinite: An Aesthetics of Christian Truth, for the 'rhetoric of peace' stated above.) It is better to have a small place and a small gathering of those who love and appreciate the music of self and others than to have a large arena and a large gathering of those who want to be 'with it' and 'in the know'.
I, also, am thinking on my feet, here, so I apologize for my meandering words. It would be worth visiting anew the clowns which Rouault painted, his collection of engravings ('Miserere'), and his biography, a way of seeing how the Christian artist supremely sensitive to the suffering of others can live and work in the world. Another excellent example of such a writer is Leon Bloy, whom I encountered through Thomas Merton's autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Perhaps even Georges Bernanos may be good to re-visit again.
I should return to my original question. There is a definite need for privacy, an element of contemporary society that is eroding. With the prevalence of Facebook, Myspace, and other social networking sites, one's privacy and conscious refusal to engage in them is paramount. Again, for the independent musician, not having a Myspace site makes it very difficult to get shows. (I do have one.) What is wearying is the constant pressure to 'sell one's self', to advertise, to present one's accomplishments in the best light. It's something similar to what Owen wrote about looking for a job. Even today, in the local paper, cutting 450 jobs in the steel manufacturing industry here in my hometown is known as 'adapting one's workforce'. ('Congratulations. You have been adapted. For what? Well, no-one's quite sure.) So, there is ambition there, too. Even entertainment, that old word of holding and being held, of supporting and feeding (an obsolete meaning), finding room for, receiving, abd accommodating, is swallowed up in defeat as it indicates now one who can amuse another, dangle a trinket, and (worst of all) distract. What was once hospitable and welcoming is now a tasteless meal of empty thoughts, chaotic and unformed ramblings, meandering words.
Musically speaking, there is a tendency to emphasize virtuosity and speed over virtue. In the world of classical music, there is an undeniable need for technical proficiency (one does need to know how to play a scale, practice well, and continue one's training and growth), but there is also a tendency to see those things as the end of musicianship. There is the story of the tango musician who spent his life practicing to play in perfect, metronomic time and then threw the metronome away, concluding a life's worth of practice. The loud, the violent, the bombastic stylings of contemporary music is sometimes less moving than the simple, the quiet, the melodically beautiful. Of course, minimalism has its price and its tendencies toward some sort of odd, John Cage-like silence (take his work 4'33", four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, as an example), but Christian music must never be tempted toward complete silence. After all, the heavens declare (make clear) the glory of God, the stones themselves would shout were we silent, and in the beginning was the Word, with God and God. Privacy is needed (Jesus withdraws to the desert to pray), yet it is not everything (His disciples come to Him and tell Him that all have been seeking for Him). There is a need for speech, for rhetoric, for some gesture to indicate what must be said. Competition, however, is the arena of contemporary music, a fight for prizes, accolades, awards. Critical judgment is a good thing, but one must never seek to be praised by all, but to hold to the true, good, and beautiful, writing the best lyrics that one can about the truest thing one knows. That tendency, in and of itself, will not endear one to the contemporary musical market, but it will sustain you and allow you to look yourself in the mirror in the morning and pray for mercy.
This is tough stuff, and it has been in my own thoughts lately. I find myself in agreement with what you are saying. Would something like a checking account still be considered usury? (I'm receiving a service I'm not paying for directly, but instead by providing the bank with its means for usury.) How can Christians give up things like checking and savings accounts and continue to function in American society? You would almost have to create an alternative economy...
Things like worrying about the security of your money because every cent of it is under your mattress or having to purchase a money order just to pay your taxes would certainly be a "hardship" for any middle-class American.
Difficult questions, these, but well worth struggling with.
JMGregory,
There is no way to participate in the American economy without participating in usury, to some degree. Even the Amish participate in it.
I think that one might well focus on what one can do to minimize the extent of one's participation in usurious orders.
With regard to banking, if one uses a local Credit Union (some are far better than others) or even a local bank (a few small banks are quite good with regard to keeping their money in the local economy) one is doing about as best as one can while still participating in the American economy.
Use cash whenever possible. Large financial institutions want you to use cards as often as possible because it increases the amount of money made by persons who essentially do nothing, or at least very little. Checks are increasingly akin to cards. Those little machines that read your check in the check-out line involve big financial institutions getting a little fee. But I admit that sometimes cash is not so feasible. When you live in a high crime area, for instance, you accept a higher liability to carry cash with you for most of your purchases.
Thank you for your comment.
Most of the things I've read so far seem to focus on the fact that lending money at interest (a 'use' fee, thus 'usury') to those in need is the problem, or lending to them in such a way as to make it likely they will become 'needy', is at issue. The fact that wealth was lent for a fee in Christian countries (including Byzantium) and by Christians seems the important context to the language - much like any language about Roman primacy is contextualized by the facts regarding how most non-Roman churches treated the Church of Rome, i.e., as not being infallible and not having universal, immediate jurisdiction.
What this points to is that one may not lend wealth (money, real assets, land, means of production) to someone who needs it to survive - lending is no substitute for generosity and charity. Wealth can't be made on the needy by lending them wealth to be repaid with interest. Money also can't be lent at a high rate of interest such that it would endanger the borrower's financial and physical security - there are people that cannot be lent to no matter how high the rate of interest; these people require gifts and assistance, charity, and not financing.
A difficulty arises when dealing with 'corporate personalities' - corporations and institutions. Must the same protections be provided entities rather than persons?
Do the bankruptcy laws and a social welfare net change how one understands 'need' in defining what rate of interest is 'too high' and what potential borrowers are not only not credit-worthy but off-limits to be lent to given the 'danger' involved? If there is no debtors' prison and you will not find yourself a beggar on the street with no food, is there 'danger' involved? Is there a minimum standard that must be guaranteed a person if they are planning on borrowing?
What of risk and reward? Should we therefore limit the risk people (and institutions and corporations) take on in hope of building a business and making more money? Risk is often a measure of how much money one puts on the line? Should there be curbs on the amount of risk a person is allowed to take on? Should all those auteur indie filmakers not be allowed to max out their credit cards to make a film? What of inventors who go bankrupt, but then hit it big on another product?
I am also struck by the fact that land is never referred to as being lent 'with usury'. It seems to be a strictly money focused concept. Why? It seems at odds with some of the comments here that describe usury in far broader terms, e.g., a absentee landlord who does not work his own land (which seems contrary to the idea of renting out the land and being absentee at all). Perhaps it is an equally valid concern, but I think it may not be 'usury', properly (or perhaps only narrowly) defined.
Just thinking out loud again. I need to do more research in patristics and history, as well as economics.
Och - interesting topic . . . if I'm not mistaken the issue on usury largely boils down to the 'lender'/'investor' level of risk in the venture. In other words, one of the key problems with usury or lending money on interest is that there is insufficient risk on the lender/investor's part. What is the difference between earning $100 on a $1,000 investment in a joint venture as an agreed-upon distribution of profits and a loan with repayment at principal plus 10%? I submit it is only risk - in the joint venture the investor must share in the loss.
I think if you look at Islamic Sharia-compliant banking systems there is a great deal of sophistry to resolve the technical usury problem, such as profit sharing, cost-plus contracts, and deferred payment sales.
I think it is extremely difficult to address these issues in a credit-money system where we use fractional-reserve banking (i.e., banks create money in the economy when they loan against a fraction of their reserves, and destroy money when those loans are repaid). Our entire economy is a credit economy and there is systemic incentive, nay, imperative, to create loans. A decent primer on that is John Kenneth Galbraith's "Money: Whence it Came and Where it Went" if you can find a copy.
I suppose Rothbard or Von Mises are other more hard-core economics/monetary policy writers (of the Austrian liberal school) but Galbraith's paperback is a straightforward and easy read.
I am not smart enough to know whether we realistically can get our monetary system back to a commodity-based currency (whether gold or other commodity) but it seems that it is interrelated to other matters of usury and such economic practices.
. . . and congratulations on the birth of your daughter - many years!
- Eric John
Orr,
Good questions.
With regard to the landlord (whether absent or not may be irrelevant), the issue is exactly that of risk. He engages in usury when he unfairly reduces his own risk, and/or increases the risk to his tenants. The classic modern example of this would be those companies that paid their factory workers or miners in company script, and these workers were forced to rent company homes or flats. The workers were charged for even regular up-keep repairs on their homes, and could never get ahead (with regard to their renting situation and with regard to everything else the company forced them further and further into debt with). More recent examples of rent usury would involve the activities of urban slum lords. That said, I concede your point and agree that it is not common in a regular renting relationship for usury to occur.
We should never eliminate risk from business transactions. Indeed, the problem of usury is that it unfairly eliminates risk for one party. It is only that the risk should be as equal as possible for both parties. If I take a loan to purchase seed for my farm, it is fine that I use some of my land for collateral, but the amount of that land should equal the cost of the seed plus a fair administrative cost. Any addition to the cost of the seed involved in the loan should not be allowed to keep growing and growing beyond the value of the original administrative fee (assuming constant dollars - thus an interest equal to inflation is acceptable in my opinion, as it is not really a gaining on the part of the lender). The farmer then either has a good harvest and pays back the loan plus fee, or he does not and owes the lender a portion of his land. The risk to the farmer is his land. But this is the clincher - the most he stands to lose is the most he stands to gain - his greatest possible earnings are the potential output of the land, his greatest possible losses are the loss of that same potential output. When I buy a house on a 30 year mortgage, I could pay three times the value of the house and still lose it in foreclosure, possibly, and end up with nothing (unlikely at that point, but possible, this sort of thing happens in economically vulnerable communities with some frequency).
With credit card debt the situation is more fluid. It is hypothetically possible that with my credit cards I spend 50k at high interest and end up making millions on my movie. I may spent 20k on a surgery for my child whose life is saved and whose life is priceless. But in most cases I am spending 3 times the value of things because I am heavily and unduly encouraged by the lender (and by my politicians and the omnipresent media) to make poor economic decisions. Persons should have access to loans in cases of real emergency - such as the sick kid. In the case of the movie maker I question whether easy credit is proper in this regard. In my mind if someone wants to make a movie they should either have the funds to make it or find backers who have the money (in that case, the idea man is essentially working for those who back him, and those with the money stand to take the risk and stand to fairly make the bulk of the profit). It is romantic to think of easy credit helping film geniuses, but my guess is that it hurts far more than it helps, and it is financially ethereal insofar as money from Nowhere at high cost is used on a big gamble. That lacks a prudent accountability and is, in a sense, an anti-social affair.
As I have said before, I do not believe in risk mitigation for corporate personalities. I think that every investor should be fully liable to the extent of his percentage of ownership in the company. If Exxon loses a lawsuit for $5,000,000,000, and you own 1% of Exxon, and Exxon has no cash or assets on hand, you should have to pay $5,000,000 to the winner of the suit. That would make for much more honest and fair business, and much less free wheeling raping of persons and earth.
Eric John -
I agree on Islam and sophistry with regard to usury. Indeed, in their system there are those who make money unfairly by the means through which their legal definition of sophistry is avoided.
In any economic system, under any set of rules, unfair practice is going to be possible, one way or another. Perhaps this is one reason why the East never got as involved with as much judicial defining of what does and does not constitute usury, as those definitions will still not eradicate greed and greedy mechanisms. My biggest concern here is simply that we point out that there are financial activities that are, by their nature, unfair, and that we not be so quick to assume that they are just and even go so far as to see them as virtuous.
Your further point is important. There is no way, at this point, to move from our current economic system to a commodity-based system without uprooting and economically displacing many people. I disagree with many of those who agree with me on certain economic matters in this regard - I think any movement to change the system should be incremental and slow, in order to protect the innocent. I know some persons who long for economic catastrophe simply to be able to say "I told you so." That said, I see no signs that we will move in the direction of a commodity based economy, thus the real question for me is how I can live a domestic economy that is based more on commodity than on credit.
Thank you for your kind words.
My biggest concern here is simply that we point out that there are financial activities that are, by their nature, unfair, and that we not be so quick to assume that they are just and even go so far as to see them as virtuous.
Agreed.
the real question for me is how I can live a domestic economy that is based more on commodity than on credit.
Very good.
The only credit my wife and I actually avail ourselves of is for our mortgage and (only very recently) for a car payment - the latter we plan on paying off far sooner than the 7 year term, but we thought it best to keep more cash on hand since I was unemployed with a non-working pregnant wife when we needed to get a car. We use credit cards quite a lot, but only for the convenience or for an introductory rate allowing us to spread out the cost of a major purchase. We (almost) always pay the balance off on time. I always think of these uses of credit cards as free loans - but with very strict penalties should I choose to break my promise and not pay them off when I said I would (a financial spanking so I take the lesson).
"In reality, it should be no surprise that a show based out of an Evangelical convert parish in Orange County, California would do a two part series on how to get rich, or more fittingly, how it is a Christian's obligation to get as rich as he possibly can, even if the show is supposedly 'Orthodox'."
I'm a member of this parish and agree that this pair of shows was both shocking and shameful. Despite the implication in titling the show "Managing Mammon" that the world's economy is evil, that was not a point that was even hinted at in the discussion itself. In fact, the single moral judgment that was made was against the "foolishness" and irresponsibility of those who are victims of usury. And there was nothing "Orthodox" about the discussion beyond the use of the word itself. It could have been given by Dave Ramsey.
Lotar is right in suggesting that Orange County is possessed by a very evil spirit and you're right Owen in suggesting that active and very intentional resistance is required. To be fair to my parish, the three folks on the show are not representative. They're each wealthy, well-educated boomers whose thinking is too-much formed by their strong political partisanship. Most at our parish live (relatively, OC is an expensive place) simple and sacrificial lives. And many are converts out of the punk scene and are very much on board with the resistance that you're calling for. It's just so hard to know what to do and even find ways of resistance that rise above individualistic ego stroking.
Anon,
It's just so hard to know what to do and even find ways of resistance that rise above individualistic ego stroking.
Indeed. Sometimes I think that our entire society has been turned into a reality TV show. One naturally then wonders what one has to do to win, or at least post a respectable, even quirky, loss; you know, not the first fellow or two to be voted off.
We might think we can sneak off of the island in one of the camera man's vehicles, but even that could be done for show. All things might be done for show. My life, the movie. Is there any escape? One would have to be superbly skilled at hiding from camera's, even the camera's in the soul. Tough business.
Thank you for your report of your parish. Much appreciated.
the going to see the Sex in the City movie after Vespers
... ah, yes ... speaking of which ... >:)
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