Whitestrake Pelinal
Like a dream without a dreamer
I am willing to go a step further, and say that while usury and insurance/gambling do not inherently require a love of money, they cultivate a love of money. They are a form of temptation, both for the buyer and seller.OK, let me make something very clear.
When Christians speak of 'love of money', we are NOT talking about legitimately acquired wealth, nor about wanting to be paid a fair price for goods and services and labor, nor about investing wisely and saving across generations.
Love of money involves loving money so much that you are willing to commit fraud to get more, willing to steal to get more, willing to embezzle to get more, willing to engage in unethical acts in order to get more. When money is more important to you than family, more important to you than justice, more important to you than God, then you have fallen into the sin of Greed and the love of money.
Likewise 'worshipping at the altar of Mammon' and the rest.
Conflating a condemnation of fraud, embezzlement, and theft with supporting socialism? Really?
The charging of rent for the use of money adds to the utility of money in an unsavory way. Without it, money can function as a lubricant for trade, or a somewhat uncertain means of laying up stores. With usury permitted, money takes on a wretched aspect: having a sufficient quantity of money can be used as a replacement for labor, for actually doing something that adds to the collective wealth of society. Simply having a store of money allows one to rent it and acquire more money, and thereby purchase and consume the wealth of a society without adding to it.
The end result of this decoupling of money from the creation of wealth is citizens who are parasites, consuming without contributing, and because no labor (effort, training, diligence, etc..) is required, this parasitic state offers great temptation to those who must otherwise labor, or at least live off the fruits of past labor.
Fractional reserve banking in particular is such a pernicious practice it ought to be a felony.
Insurance, and any other form of gambling money, does the same. Having a great store of money becomes a means by which to extract more money from others without adding wealth to society.