Source: CounterPunch
by David S D’Amato
“[O]ne need not accept the Pope’s Christian faith in order to oppose usury as a social relationship of unjust, exploitative power. And it is a relationship of power rather than one of mere economics, as if the latter exists in a sphere separate from the former. It may surprise some that one of American history’s most ardent and consistent proponents of free markets and individual liberty was also one of its greatest critics of usury. The anarchist Benjamin Tucker set forth to confront ‘a most momentous question,’ the question of who receives ‘the surplus wealth that labor produces and does not consume.’ For Tucker, usury was the key characteristic of capitalism, but it was the result of political power, not economic relationships of free and voluntary exchange.” (08/14/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/14/usury-is-politics-not-economics/