Marxian Economics; A Popular Introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx's "Capital" (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ...that the merchants forming such associations were the prominent men of those states and as much interested in emancipating their state as themselves from the exactions of usurers.") Just as Mohammedan commerce had first dominated the Italian cities, so the Italian cities now extended their influence to the German and French markets. Along with the Jew came the Italian financier, established himself in Karl Marx, Capital, volume III, chapter XXXVI. the chief markets of Europe, and for centuries played a prominent role in European finance. So long as small scale production for direct consumption had been unable to furnish any surplus, with which the parasitic classes could carry on their competitive struggle for wealth, the ban of the church on usury would not have been necessary at all, in order to make the lending of money at high rates of interest unpopular and socially unessential. The social conditions themselves were powerful enough to restrict usury to the dealings between money monopolists and wealthy spendthrifts. And now, when social conditions opened large avenues of opportunity for the money lender, the ban of the church proved as ineffectual as it had once been unneccessary. This social power over more platonic church decrees asserted itself to such an extent, that the church itself became helplessly involved in the practices of the money lenders and accumulated immense riches through them. "The taking of interest had been forbidden by the church. But the sale of property for the purpose of getting out of a tight place had not been forbidden. It had not even been forbidden to transfer property for a certain period to the money lender as a security, until such time as the debtor should repay his loan, so that the money lender might have...