It was generally admitted by the theologians that the taking of usury might be permitted by the civil authorities, although it was insisted that acting in accordance with this permission did not absolve the conscience of the usurer. Albertus Magnus conceded that 'although usury is contrary to the perfection of Christian laws, it is at least not contrary to civil interests';[1] and Aquinas also justified the toleration of usury by the State: 'Human laws leave certain things unpunished, on account of the condition of those who are imperfect, and who would be deprived of many advantages if all sins were strictly forbidden and punishments appointed for them. Wherefore human law has permitted usury, not that it looks upon usury as harmonising with justice, but lest the advantage of many should be hindered.'[2] Although this opinion was controverted by Ægidius Romanus,[3] it was generally accepted by later writers. Thus Gerson says that 'the civil law, when it tolerates usury in some cases, must not be said to be always contrary to the law of God or the Church. The civil legislator, acting in the manner of a wise doctor, tolerates lesser evils that greater ones may be avoided. It is obviously less of an evil that slight usury should be permitted for the relief of want, than that men should be driven by their want to rob or steal, or to sell their goods at an unfairly low price.'[4] Buridan explains that the attitude of the State towards usury must never be more than one of toleration; it must not actively approve of usury, but it may tacitly refuse to punish it.[5]
[Footnote 1: Rambaud, op. cit., p. 65; Espinas, op. cit., p. 103.]
[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 3.]
[Footnote 3: De Reg. Prin., ii. 3, 11.]
[Footnote 4: De Cont., ii. 17.]
[Footnote 5: Quaest. super. Lib. Eth., iv. 6.]
§ 7. The Justice of Unearned Income.
Many modern socialists—'Christian' and otherwise—have asserted that the teaching of the Church on usury was a pronouncement in favour of the unproductivity of capital.[1] Thus Rudolf Meyer, one of the most distinguished of 'Christian socialists,' has argued that if one recognises the productivity of land or stock, one must also recognise the productivity of money, and that therefore the Church, in denying the productivity of the latter, would be logically driven to deny the productivity of the former.[2] Anton Menger expresses the same opinion: 'There is not the least reason for attacking from the moral and religious standpoints loans at interest and usury more than any other form of unearned income. If one questions the legitimacy of loans at interest, one must equally condemn as inadmissible the other forms of profit from capital and lands, and particularly the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages…. It would have been but a logical consequence for the Church to have condemned all forms of unearned revenue.'[3]
[Footnote 1: Ashley, op. cit., vol. i. pt. ii. p. 427.]
[Footnote 2: Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle, p. 29.]