A just economy, anybody?

Michael Scaprelanda recently noted (here) the publication of The Church and the Usurers: Unprofitable Lending for the Modern Economy, a book by his OU colleague Brian McCall.

I highly recommend Prof. McCall's book, here below in language I prepared for the book's jacket.  Those who claim to care about economic justice cannot *afford* to ignore McCall's recovery and application of basic principles discerned by a wise but now-lost generation.  What McCall offers is radical (because completely traditional).  The book is available from Amazon and the other usual sources.

 

"Only a fool would deny that we are on the brink of a financial meltdown of global scope and epic proportions, yet even smart and generally sensible people hardly know what to do about our future.  With deep learning and blazing insight, Brian McCall offers in this book both a diagnosis and a cure. Our ongoing free-fall into economic chaos is caused by the ubiquitous but unnoticed practice of usury, the charing of a profit on a loan of money (as distinguished from the investment of capital). The cure is to re-appropriate and abide by the Catholic Church's doctrinal prohibition of usury.  We literally cannot afford to ignore McCall's rigorous argument, animated by the Church's long tradition of reflection, that the economy must be conformed to principles of justice, including commutative justice and not just distributive justice.  As McCall shows, it defies reason and justice for the basic human need of shelter to be an opportunity for wealth redistribution upward.  Western banks have seen the wisdom in providing shari'a compliant banking. Why not banking that avoids usury and meets the demands of commutative justice?  McCall gives readers compelling reason to implore state and Church alike to denounce usury from the housetops and to prohibit it through law.  It is, after all, no more than justice demands.  I applaud McCall's radical and wise call for a return to ancient principles in order to redeem our future."