ABSTRACT
Anyone that seriously considers the currency problem is bound to encounter the problem of interest. With the exception of the Goldsborough Bill all the writers whom we are considering touch upon it. Silvio Gesell has derived from his insight into the nature of money a theory of interest quite of his own, and along with it a stupendous programme of economic and social reconstruction. Considering, as he does, interest as exploitation, extortion, a wrong, his genius as an observer and thinker has been perverted to the meaner uses of the agitator and revolutionary. He may have influenced Professor Soddy, who also looks upon interest as usury, and debt a device for depriving the workers of the fruit of their labour. He, too, holds interest to be the direct outcome of a faulty monetary system. He writes (p. 34):
For interest, once the distinction in question is grasped, appears as the simple and natural result of abstinence from publicly coining sufficient money to circulate the revenue, to keep prices and therefore our mutual indebtedness constant. If prices are held constant that is an absolute proof that the community can meet the demands made upon it for wealth, and from such a community interest on money loans could not be asked.
