Home About Table Contact
Sinistrism
Moral usury as the cause of leftward drift.

Up to the 14th century, Europe knew a concert of classes. Constitutions emerged as peace treaties, simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive, being a coordination technology. But somehow, one century later, the merchants defeated the warriors.

Merchants exert their power through debt. Debt is a constant social control technology since the Neolithic. Their power depends on the ratio of debt to wealth.

Therefore, we may note two key moments, among others, in their rise to power:

This allowed merchants to gain virtually unlimited power over warriors. But this also goes backward to the natural hierarchy of warriors over merchants. Why did the former allow it?

In the Neolithic, warriors periodically proclaimed a jubilee, during which all debts were discarded. They prevented thereby a spiral of debt.

In the 14th century, Europe was crowded. No more forests to clear. There was an oversupply of labour in the fields. Then, the Plague happened. One-third of the Europeans died.

This brought great social changes. For instance, inheritance went to all the siblings, including daughters, instead of the eldest son. Having more leverage over their lords, serfs could progressively leave their condition. And as importantly, usury was permitted.

One century later, we may observe great banking families, patronage of the arts, great and costly expedition to the New World. The age of warriors was over; now started the age of merchants.

However, their rise to power was quickly followed by priests.

Wealth and money are to merchants what virtue and status are to priests. There is a finite quantity of wealth and virtue at a given moment. Since they cannot be directly observed, merchants and priests respectively assign money and status.

It is attracting for warriors to borrow money. They then became slaves to merchants. It is attracting for merchants to borrow status. They then became slaves to priests. Because repayment never ends. Because of the mechanism of usury, a system cannot go back in money-borrowing. A system can neither go back in virtue-signalling.

When one stops paying, merchants shout "Warriors! Isolate him. " Priests shout "Merchants! Isolate him. " Nowadays, if one avoids formulating politically incorrect thoughts, it is often by fear of losing one’s professional situation, as a worker or a company.

Warriors lost control and usurious banks multiplied. Merchants lost control and heretical presses multiplied. The Central Bank. Academia. Fiat money. Fiat news. Society-scale debt. Society-scale guilt.

In the past, one could flee unsound money/virtue systems to saner ones. They would collapse by virtue of their unsoundness. There are no serious competitors anymore. Why does inflationary money/the left dominate?

Curtis Yarvin developed “Moldbug’s Monetary Theory” in an Austrian tradition. According to this theory, money derives its value mostly as a savings standard, not a trade standard. In the 19th century, there were two standards: silver and gold. Since silver was more easily produced, people would invest in gold in order to maximise their savings. This led to gold as a unique standard.

If one invested in potatoes, for instance, there would be a ceiling to its future value. Whereas money is a bubble that does not pop. There is a limit in the status one can gain with regular sound values. Not with the latest leftist degeneracy.

In a competitive economic/ideological market, this leads to the Austrian business cycle theory, a case of the prisoner’s dilemma. When the borrowing rate artificially decreases, some investments suddenly appear profitable. One needs to borrow because of competition. Those who do not are outpriced. All those left have now debt, but the quantity of wealth did not change. Borrowers recognise they will not get as much money as they expected. Prices increase and they cannot go back in debt. They need to borrow even more. That is a crisis.

One needs to signal virtue because of competition. […] but the quantity of virtue did not change. Virtue signallers recognise they will not get as much status as they expected. Leftist madness increases and they cannot go back in virtue-signalling. They need to signal even more. That is a crisis.

Let us now study solutions. Ideally, priests should be disciplined by eucivic merchants. However, they face themselves the prisoner’s dilemma. One cannot go to the king of merchants and ask to periodically hire all right-wing people (a merchant jubilee). Therefore, our task is to develop a unification technology for merchants. Did that happen in history? Yes, but it often was not pretty. Stalin, for example.

This need not be the case. Aquinas prohibited usury on the basis that

It is illicit to demand payment for something that does not exist.

Indeed, one is asking for one’s potential property. If one does not have this money, then one cannot offer it.

Indebted people could not be sold into slavery. Also prohibited by Aquinas: the concept of property is meaningful to the extent it is transferrable. Since one’s future labour is not, then slavery is illicit.

In some way, Aquinas provides a “compile-time” safety check for contracts. If there is one instance in which the contract is not fulfillable, then it is void.

Property itself had another meaning. Nowadays, there are two definitions:

  1. One is a kind of semi-god over one’s property. One is free to exercise one’s arbitrary will.
  2. One sets how to govern one’s property and is responsible for it.

These definitions are contradictory. We may nowadays apply the second one to conscious property (one’s wife, children, pets) but the first one becomes always more pervasive.

In Catholic law, property is understood as

an authority that we, as proprietors, hold over other human beings. Authority, in turn, is a capacity to create specific moral obligations that others are morally required to carry out. As with all legitimate forms of authority, compliance with a proprietor’s authority is both mandatory and voluntary.

Indeed, when one makes a promise, one is physically free to fulfil it but also morally obliged to.

Finally, the concept of virtue was also different. Faithful to his Aristotelian legacy, Aquinas understood virtue as one’s disposition towards the fulfilment of one’s end.

For example, suppose I find $20 sitting on my desk that I know belongs to my co-worker. The first time it happens, perhaps I am tempted to pocket the $20 bill quietly, even though I know it is stealing. However, I decide to do the honest thing and give it back to my co-worker. Aquinas would argue that by doing that, I make it easier for myself to do the right thing the next time; he would say that I am forming the virtue of honesty, which is a species of justice. (On the other hand, if I pocket the money, I make it easier for myself to steal the next time, thus forming the vice of dishonesty.) Source.

Virtue is not in the act, nor the intent, but internal to someone. This provides a basis to tame virtue-signalling spirals. A lot of the Ancients’ work could provide a healthy framework for society. In capitalism, masters disappeared but slaves remain. Aquinas’ arguments could prevent it. Lending may, for instance, take the form of shares (I lend you my apple tree in exchange for half of your harvest) owned by the workers themselves. Subsidiarity would naturally emerge.

If priests can provide a sound framework for warriors, why would warriors enforce usury?

Debt is extremely powerful. One can extract a surprising quantity of labour by tormenting a man. Because of the competitive nature of the market, a handful of indebted men is sufficient to set slavery standards for the economy. A handful of virtue-signalling men is sufficient to set clown-world standards for State religion.

Therefore, despite its destructive effect, usury maximises warriors’ property over time. Leftism maximises merchants’ property over time.