[missedthecue]

A loan is when someone sells money. The interest is the profit to compensate for the risk. Is all profit, (including that derived from selling labour) to be thought of as theft?

Should everyone sell everything at cost to avoid "exploiting" others?

[apta]

Selling money is unethical because of the inherent exploitation involved, by taking advantage of someone who is in need of it.

No one is saying not to make profit, just do it properly. You can rationalize interest as being compensated for risk, but it doesn't make any less exploitative. We have already seen how the economy keeps getting screwed, yet we don't learn.

[missedthecue]

"Selling money is unethical because of the inherent exploitation involved, by taking advantage of someone who is in need of it"

This logic holds no water. The great majority of things sold are sold to people to need them. Why should money be any exception?

[apta]

When you're selling a good or a service, you're exchanging one type for another, usually hand-in-hand. You buy food, furniture, etc. in exchange for money. There's value in the thing you're selling in exchange for a certain amount of money (which also has value).

When you sell money for money, this equation breaks. You're exchanging $1 for a different amount in the future, taking advantage of the fact that the borrower cannot pay you in the present. This is what defines interest and usury.

It's easy to get bogged down in the details to legislate or rationalize a certain action. Take a step back and see the destruction that interest based lending has caused throughout history, and in the present.

[johanvts]

If you are lending money at absurd rates because the borrower is desperate then we could call it exploitation, but this can happen in any transaction. All transactions are "taking advantage of the fact that the borrower cannot pay you in the present." If the person I'm selling food to already has enough food, why would he be buying more?

The difference with money seems rather to be that the value is created over time, where other transactions happen based on the current value of the things being exchanged. But given that we all die this doesn't strike me as morally wrong.

[apta]

> If the person I'm selling food to already has enough food, why would he be buying more?

Food is perishable, and people like diversity in what they eat. Your example is an apples to oranges comparison. If he doesn't like what you offer, he'll go elsewhere.

> The difference with money seems rather to be that the value is created over time, where other transactions happen based on the current value of the things being exchanged.

Yes. Furthermore, when lending money to someone with interest, the lender gets what he put in and more, whereas say leasing a car out, he'll get it back, but it would have been consumed. This type of exchange doesn't happen with money.

> But given that we all die this doesn't strike me as morally wrong.

We can take that to it's conclusion and say nothing matters at all. People are out protesting against racial inequality, but we'll all die at the end, so it doesn't matter.

[missedthecue]

The increase in money lending us directly correlated with a vast increase in the standard of living for the average human.

Just because you buy a dollar rather than a shirt does not suddenly make you exploited. Imagine if everything debt is used for had to be bought in full. Very few people would own homes. Very few capital investment projects would be undertaken. Very few automobiles would be owned. Your life is far better because debt exists. There is no society where debt does not exist that is doing better than societies that allow debt.

[apta]

> The increase in money lending us directly correlated with a vast increase in the standard of living for the average human.

You said it yourself, it's correlation, not causation. There are other factors that occurred in that time frame that increased the standard of living for people.

> Imagine if everything debt is used for had to be bought in full

That's how things were generally run back in the day, people saved up, then bought what they wanted. Also, people purchased on installments.

Your argument is basically that the ends justifies the means. That economic growth is the end goal, sell more cars, etc. so we need to put everyone in debt. We are already seeing the huge wealth gaps that exist in hyper capitalistic societies, due to no small part to running everything on interest and other immoral practices. I posit that if there were no interest, things would be more fair, and producers would have to reduce prices, making it easier for people to own stuff, compared to the inflation we see.