Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3158

Typed transcription by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath at 11 Waverly Place, New York City 3, NY

July 1955

ON INTEREST AND USURY

When the Church law against usury became established, there were at that time few if any loans other than distress loans. To charge usury on a distress loan would be getting paid for one’s benevolence, which in such case would be any­thing but benevolence. When society evolved so far that property was administered productively, then it was perfectly proper that a portion of this productivity should go to the person who supplied the property — or the means of obtaining it. Moreover, in productive lands, the rate of interest is determined by the bidding and asking of the market instead of by the degree of distress suffered by the borrower. They could charge interest or usury on a distress loan according to how much distress there was, and not as prescribed by the market.

All the wickedness of usury springs from lenders taking advantage of persons in distress and trying to make a profit out of their misfortune instead of out of their increased productivity.

The trouble is, anybody who gets in the hands of a loan shark is getting worse and worse off all the time. It never does him any good. Where money is lent and employed as capital, all parties are benefited and none injured.