The post title is quite objective, some might say objectionable but so is the nature of politics, similarly objective is what gets people sexually aroused. They are also both incredibly relative; it is almost impossible to separate life experiences, our cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs from how we form opinions, and react sexually. So I qualify by stating this is the sexist political idea I have had the pleasure of entertaining in many years. I’ve toiled over getting it into one succinct statement, and I’m really only three quarters happy with it. but I want to finish this post tonight.
The legalised lending of money at interest is at the centre of our economic malaise, making moneylending with interest illegal will change the world with benefit for all.
I don’t know if I can adequately and eloquently, explain just how much this very simple idea has turned me on. Firstly I need to tease you through, introduce you to parts of it’s journey. The idea comes from Peter Maurin. Maurin believed lending with interest allowed people to live off the physical labour of anothers. Important to his idea was that while people were taking the profit they weren’t exercising any responsibility for the land. He believed that everything had been has been mortgaged from homes, to government to the church, and he felt the financial owners were then absent from making responsible decisions about it’s usage.
I feel his sense of betrayal and abandonment, society wasn’t focused on making our biggest resource look after us for the future. Maurin believed when people started only producing for profit the values of society were only then concerned with competition instead of co-operation. He often uses the terms individualist; as in profit emphasised competition rewards only the individual versus personalist; where he is trying to describe localised co-operation through emphasising the person as human beings with our our biggest resource. Maurin began to feel the bank account had become the dominant standard for our values.
I absolutely love thinking through the idea of a world without banks. It makes my heart beat faster and I explode numerous ideas. Importantly I begin to feel that there is hope to finding other ways, and my children and my grandchildren have a chance. As my mind races, my palms start to sweat, think I might be heading out on a first date as I could dance with this idea for hours.
Maurin’s ideas eventually culminated with other thinkers and economists into the theory of distributism. A third economic system! We don’t have to choose a spot on the political spectrum just between communism and capitalism anymore, how ridiculously sexy is that! I can’t tell you how many times, I have felt frustrated and almost stagnant having to place my political bent somewhere between left and right. I often felt I slid up and down that political pole far too much. However creating a triangle of options, of differing, almost three dimensional places to sit my opinion is so wonderfully tantalising it almost makes me feel faint.
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