[ASOC]

If the conditions of the loan are too onerous, do not take out the loan. I didn’t see where the activity was forced.

When I read screed like this, I still see local the “Catholic Social Services” van - the one proclaiming that ‘social justice’ is part of its mission.

BTW, not allowing for interest is a major part of a certain militant middle east ‘religion’ that seeks to extinguish all other beliefs. Why play their music?

[Salvation]

“Catholic social ministry begins and ends with Jesus Christ,” he said. “If it doesn’t, it isn’t Catholic.”

Archbishop Chaput

[annalex]

not allowing for interest ...

You read the article, right? Where did you find "not allowing for interest"?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The examples of “unproductive loans” are of people who are actually in need of charity. If you ask me for a loan to pay for a cure for a disease, without any expectation of any repayment before your death, fundamentally you are asking for a gift. I might predecease you.

If you want to make this case against interest, you can start from the premise that being rich is morally suspect - and go from there to the fact that - in comparison with the people of 2000 years ago, the typical American is rich. An American secretary today could be ill-served to accept the circumstances of Queen Victoria (1820-1901)! When you consider the superior medical treatment available to today’s secretary and her family, and the vastly superior ability to travel, etc, that is a believable assertion. So there is a case to be made that we are all of us rich.

Another factor in the equation is the modern bankruptcy law; it’s not as if people were being thrown into debtor’s prison “til thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

But I have to say, having recently read

Freedom's Forge:

How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur Herman

that to whatever extent the US was liberal with British debt from WWI, it was an advantage to us going into WWII. Because in fact, the British spent “the uttermost farthing” in the US during the period after the start of WWII in Europe (9/39) and before US entry at the bombing of Pearl Harbor (12/7/41). The expenditure of that money then was used to make materiel for Britain but also, signally, to build infrastructure for true mass production of weaponry after Pearl Harbor. It was because of that that America, while having little in the way of inventory of military aircraft upon entry into the war, was able to build about 50,000 military aircraft in 1942. And to produce so much war materiel after that, that the decision to scale back war production could be taken well before V-E day.