Michael P. writes:
> Usury promotes capitalist relations by forcing producers to adopt more market
> oriented practices to repay the userer, although it is not capitalism.
>
> Seems pretty clear.
Indeed, no one has equated usury with capitalism, so this clarity does not
appear to settle anything. As repeatedly and unambiguously affirmed
by Marx, however, usury extended to small producers represented
"capitalist exploitation without the capitalist mode of production."
This is the sole context in which I have invoked it, for example, in
my exchange with Mike L.
Usury also promotes capitalist production relations by expropriating
small producers and thus helping to create a working class "free in
the double sense."
In solidarity, Gil