CHAPTER VI ARISTOTLE

Though Aristotle defines money as representative wealth, like Plato, he fails to apprehend its meaning as representative, and therefore productive capital.⁶⁹⁷ In his eyes, such a use of money is unjust and contrary to nature. He counts usury (τοκισμός) to be a large part of that false finance, which turns money from its true function to be made an object of traffic.⁶⁹⁸ Those who lend small sums at a high rate of interest are contemptible,⁶⁹⁹ and petty usury (ἡ ὀβολοστατική) is the most unnatural and violent form of chrematistik, since it makes money reproduce money.⁷⁰⁰ It is to be observed, however, that his criticism is directed chiefly against petty interest, and that he does not appear to be thinking of “heavy loans on the security of a whole cargo, but of petty lendings to the necessitous poor, at heavy interest.”⁷⁰¹ Though his entire account of false finance exhibits an animus against the precious metals, as its basal cause, and as the source of individual and national degeneration,⁷⁰² yet he clearly appreciates their necessary function in the state, and his hostility is actually directed against the spirit of commercialism. Money, the means, has usurped the place of the end, until domestic and public economy alike have come