Richard Westra

“Capitalism and its logic, however, are attuned to material goods production-centered activities where close to half of working age people are employed in manufacturing related activity. Current employment profiles of advanced economies do not look very capitalist. And these profiles run too much interference on capitalist logic as we will see.”
― Richard Westra, Unleashing Usury: How Finance Opened the Door for Capitalism Then Swallowed It Whole

“When merchants intervened between producers and consumers, pricing became increasingly “irrational” from the perspective of feudal interpersonal socioeconomic relations. The “measure” of costs in feudal society was always “geared . . . to preserving a traditional way of life”.48 But merchants sought to buy cheap and sell dear. What drove their trading had little to do with “traditional” life. Rather their pursuit was abstract mercantile wealth. Hence, they strived to circumvent guild production wherever possible to garner the greatest profits. It is precisely this kind of deviation from expectations that everything in feudal society should have a “just price” that factored into Christian inveighing against usury as the money economy of trade and abstract exchange struck hard at peasant life.”
― Richard Westra, Unleashing Usury: How Finance Opened the Door for Capitalism Then Swallowed It Whole