What else is it about?

Last time I mentioned that there were two issues involved here. The one has to do directly with the scenario, but the other one can be thought about separately as well. We saw that the conquered people had no yet paid off their debt. There was still a lien against them. Sure, you can say, why should they pay, it wasn't there decision to take on the debt in the first place. But apart from that, just looking solely at the numbers, if we assume that the regular payments were made, when is a debt actually paid off?

Why do we find it reasonable to borrow, say, 100,000 (€ or $, it doesn't matter), at, perhaps, 5% interest, and think that the debt has first been repaid when almost half-a-million dollars or euros have left our bank account and go to the lender? Don't get me wrong, I know how interest works and I know how compound interest works as well. Uncle Al (Einstein) was once asked what he believed to be the most powerful force in the universe to which he answered "compound interest". He was know for being a pretty smart guy. He nailed this one, too.

It is interesting to note that we have a strange relationship to such things. At 5%, the lender should be saying the 5,000 is what his troubles are worth. I don't think that's all that unreasonable, but when considered in absolute terms, I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that the lender thinks his efforts are worth more than three times the principle. That sounds more like extortion than business to me. My question is then, why do we put up with it?

It is not by accident that almost every religion in the world abhors usury, that is, the practice of demanding too much for your trouble when you lend money to another. I don't think this is a religious issue, but for most of their existence, religions have purported to be the bearers of a culture's moral standards. In other words, in most times and in most places, demands of this type were simply considered immoral. And now, we think they are normal. Obviously something has changed, and I don't think I'm too far off base to maintain that one of the first things we've sacrificed has been our innate morality.

The fact of the matter is that all such relationships, all such money relationships, are simply immoral acts. Just like the guilt you accrue when you don't speak out against aggression, so too do you express your own immorality when you don't speak out against de facto extortion as well.