What is the difference between an entrepreneur and a usurer? Ans: None………… except that if you call Richard Branson or Bill Gates an ‘entrepreneur’ they would smile beatifically and nod, while if you called either of them a ‘usurer’ the Devil would appear behind their eyes and you would have a court case on your hands. They would have you up for libel. And who’d win? Would ‘Right’ and ‘Justice’ prevail? Do ‘Right’ and ‘Justice’ have anything to do with it? Of course they do not. Those who could afford the most and best lawyers would win, i.e. them. You would end up having to pay some ridiculous fine but, also, it would go down in the statute books that entrepreneurs are not usurers and that it is an offence to call an ‘entrepreneur’ a ‘usurer’…………….
………………such is progress.
What has happened is that lawyers gave used reason and logic and have made spurious, fine distinctions in how words are defined in order to CREATE a distinction between ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘usurer’.
Why are usurers now called entrepreneur? Because ‘usurer’ has a bad odour and so usurers want to ‘change their image’ and their name to distance themselves from that bad odour. They want more power and more status and more influence and they could not worm their way into the heart of society, into the places of maximum power and influence, so long as their reputation as ‘usurers’ forced them out into the fringes where the dubious and the shady lurk and ply their trades. So the change of image brought about by the change of name and by the arguments of philosophers and lawyers has made usury respectable and has allowed usurers to get right to the ‘top’, right into where they can have most influence.
This process, this circulation of the ‘bad eggs’ from the fringes of society right into its heart had been going on for a very long time. It is how the aristocracy got control, how monarchs, tribal leaders got to the ‘top’; it’s how lawyers, philosophers, scientists, religious leaders and all the rest got into positions of power.
In fact, this circulation of the worst elements from the fringes to the heart of society is how our society ‘works’; it is the engine of what we call ‘progress’. The ‘worst’ move in from the fringes and become the ‘best’, and then a new ‘worst’ arises in the fringes and in turn work their way in and join the ‘best’. How can this be anything other than catastrophic? How can it lead to anything but a downward spiral?
This process, however, relies upon the collusion of the ‘masses’, or, at least, enough of the masses: a single man can tyrannise his own family, but to tyrannise a whole community he will need the support of a number of followers or allies — unless, or until, he can persuade people that he is not a ‘tyrant’ but a paternalistic ruler without whom their society would sink into chaos and would be vulnerable to attack from other predatory tribes, and so on. Once he has transformed himself in peoples’ minds from devil to saint his job is easy and he is secure.
Also, he has transformed society, changed its values and the way it is run and organised, and it will be called ‘progress’. He has created a social hierarchy with people like himself at the top wielding power and dictating to those below him. Now he does not have to worry about the masses. He has got them onside. Now he has to turn his attention to the next set of power-seekers rising in the fringes and looking hungrily in his direction.
Let’s go back to the lawyers and philosophers who are ‘creating’ a distinction between entrepreneurs and usurers. I’ve just had lunch. I bought the food from the supermarket and I got it cheap because it had reached its sell-by date. The price label reads: £3 reduced to £1.49. I would say that I got the food for half-price. A lawyer or philosopher working for the supermarket would insist that I got the food for less than half-price. They would insist that there is a distinction between £1.5 and £1.49, and that ½, being defined mathematically as X divided by 2, then etc etc. I would be forced to agree with them. I might argue that 1p is insignificant. They would insist upon the technicalities, and perhaps might add that the issue of whether 1p was significant or not was up to the individual. Again, I would be unable to disagree, technically speaking.
What is happening is that the lawyers and philosophers are focusing on INSIGNIFICANT details and using them to create spurious distinctions between things that are actually, in all IMPORTANT and SIGNIGICANT respects, indistinguishable. The way to deal with this is to refuse to be drawn onto their territory. Refuse to argue. Go with what your senses and experience and intuition tell you, and hold your ground no matter what.
Unfortunately, lawyers, and particularly philosophers, have been sanctified. Once reprobates on the margins of society, they have got themselves into its heart and have had themselves and their doings re-classified from ‘bad’ to ‘good’. People accept their doings and allow their thinking to be led by philosophers, allow their ideas to be manipulated by them, and even try to emulate them. The GOOD practice of going with one’s senses, experience and intuition has become reprehensible, and is sneered at as ‘primitive’ or ‘unsophisticated’ and lacking in ‘rigour’, while the very BAD practice of philosophy has been elevated to become the ruler of the world of ‘thinking and understanding’ — and this elevation is called ‘enlightenment’ and PROGRESS???
Some would argue that I am just describing the way things are and have to be, and that you just have to accept it. Some would say, backed by science, that it is just human nature to be selfish and to seek power. And animals ditto. I have argued elsewhere that usurers create misery, for themselves as well as everybody else. A system whose outcome is the creation of misery for all cannot be the natural order because is just is not viable. It simply cannot work.
So the is no JUSTIFICATION for allowing our society to be run by usurers. It is an aberration, an illness. It needs to be seen for what it is and cured.