[Arthur McGowan]

I have a ten-dollar bill.

You may have the ten-dollar bill right now.

Or, you may have it one year from now.

Do you choose to take the $10 now, or in one year?

Is there some additional sum I can offer to give you that will induce you to take the $10 a year from now? E.g., an additional dollar?

This is the one and only reason there is interest.

All the stuff about “productive loans” and “non-productive loans” is irrelevant. So is anything to do with the Reformation, or Catholicism, or the Bible, or gold, or silver, or feudalism, or capitalism, or class struggle, or Jews.

[annalex]

[incentive to lend] is the one and only reason there is interest

Yes, that is the motivation for the lender. We are not discussing whether the lender is motivated by usury, -- often he is, -- but the morality of it. Then the distinctions explained in the article become very relevant, and indeed this is universal morality common to all serious religions.