(urth) Interest

[David Stockhoff]

I hardly think that state legislatures allowed payday loans because they sympathized with poor people suffering at the hands of loan sharks. After all, such people don't have an association lobbying on their behalf in state capitols across the USA, though they do have groups advocating against their further abuse. No, it's another case of following the money---not where it comes from, but where it goes.

However, that's beside the point. You are absolutely right about the way Wolfe treats current society. Science fiction was not invented, after all, to support the status quo. 

To paraphrase James, you know that a novel's questioning of the status quo is successful when you don't even know it's going on.

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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 08:39:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Smith <jsmith2627 at att.net>
Subject: (urth) Interest
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <132371.66757.qm at web180205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii



Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all, at times, condemned the lending of money at any rate of interest at all.  Usury today means a very high rate of interest, especially a rate higher than that allowed by law.  

Sometimes religions have presented philosophical reasons to oppose interest, like it being unnatural for money to breed money, but the underlying objection seems to be that interest charges hurt the poor.

However, if lenders cannot earn a return, they will not lend money at all.  Compounding the problem for the poor, lenders charge higher rates for less credit-worthy borrowers.   So you have some very high rates for credit cards and pay day loans.  And if government completely bans high interest rates, the poor are forced to go to loan sharks, who are even more greedy than pay day lenders.  No wonder economics has been called the dismal science.

To come back to Gene Wolfe , I think we all agree that Wolfe is a conservative.  One of the great things about him, however, is that he is not an apologist for the status quo.   He shows us the cruelty and corruption of today in his societies on Urth and Sainte Croix and the Whorl and Blue.  He has a fearless vision of what we all face.  When Nicholas complains that Dr. Island has lied,  Dr. Island says, "if you are released you will have to deal with your society, which will lie to you frequently."  That's a good thing to remember.


Best wishes,

Jack



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