Aristotle’s Thoughts on Money Lending
January 22, 2015 by admin
Filed under Finance & Loans
The practice of money lending has a long history of hostility and unpopularity. The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote about the subject of lending money, which he considered to be “unnatural,” throughout the first book of Politics. To Aristotle, moneylenders were not unlike parasites that leached from the people borrowing from their assets.
In Politics, Aristotle called usury the most hated form of moneymaking. He argued that money was intended to be used as a method of exchange, and that money that grew by itself from that exchange was a non-productive gain.
To understand what he meant by “non-productive,” we must delve into what the Greeks considered to be productive. For Aristotle, an orchard seemed a simple comparison to make. When someone lets someone else use an orchard, that orchard bears fruit. The orchard is productive, because the people responsible for it put the effort and time into growing the product to bear fruit. Money is not like an orchard, according to Aristotle, because it does not grow naturally of its own accord.
To further contextualize this belief, Aristotle also believed that there were no selfless acts. Every act, according to his teacher Plato, had some value to the user itself. Thus, money lending could not be considered philanthropic because the lender would invariably get a return. That return represented a selfish act.
Within this definition of usury, Aristotle leaves no room for money lending to be considered a noble practice. It is impractical, not producing assets on its own, and it is therefore morally imperceptible.
About the Author: Samuel Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media & Technology group. You may contact Phin on his Samuel Phineas Upham website or Facebook.
Comments