Chapter III Plato

His attitude toward it was somewhat similar to that of many people today toward speculation in futures in the stock market, as a practice contrary to public interest and policy. The application of the term τόκος to interest by Plato¹⁹² and Aristotle, as though interest were the direct child of money, is probably only a punning etymology, and not intended seriously. It can therefore hardly be used, as it often is, to prove the superficiality of the theory of the Socratics. Plato, however, would have no money-making by usury,¹⁹³ nor indeed any loaning or credit at all, except as an act of friendship.¹⁹⁴ Such contracts should be made at the loaner’s own risk,¹⁹⁵ and held legal only as a punishment for breaking other contracts.¹⁹⁶ He calls the usurer a bee that inserts his sting, money, into his victims, thereby beggaring them and enriching himself.¹⁹⁷

Such strictures against interest were common in mediaeval Europe, reappeared in Ruskin,¹⁹⁸ and are implied in the present opposition, in some quarters, to so-called “unearned income.”¹⁹⁹ The motive in mediaeval times, however, was distinctively religious, and