(Jewish Group) When 'Finance' Becomes a Code Word for Jewish

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

In July, Elizabeth Warren published a nuanced overview of the mechanics of private equity firms and how to better regulate them. It may sound dry but as a millennial who graduated out of college into the Great Recession without a large safety net, I felt a strong personal stake reading Warren describe the consequences of our current lax rules on private equity and detail suggestions for more responsible regulation. Warren, who has been eating away at Joe Biden’s lead in the polls for months and steadily making gains toward becoming the front-runner in the Democratic primary, has a background as a legal scholar who specialized in debt and credit. Starting long before she entered politics, Warren has devoted her career to fighting the disastrous regime of deregulation, tax cuts, and upward wealth redistribution that began in the 1980s, a background that makes her seem like an ideal candidate to fix the systemic issues in our economy that have caused the collapse of the middle class. Yet, one line in her article gave me pause:

“But far too often, the private equity firms are like vampires—bleeding the company dry and walking away enriched even as the company succumbs.”

Here, even Warren supporters such as myself should pause at what comes dangerously close to a sinister, conspiratorial trope. Language that compares bankers to parasites has long been a staple of anti-Semitic scapegoating and a way for demagogues to rile up their base. Warren shows no evidence of being either a demagogue or an anti-Semite, but she does seem to be a party to the left’s growing reliance on outrage in their search for a bogeyman in the financial elites—a search that invariably appeals to conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites. Warren and others on the left should be applauded for their necessary critiques of the financial industry and bringing attention to dangerous policies like the deregulation of risky investment vehicles. But it’s necessary to step back and examine the roots of the left’s contempt for finance when that contempt extends beyond the specifics of policy and to the nature of the financial industry itself. The idea that finance is “vampiric,” that it feeds off of the honest productivity of hard workers to extract unmerited earnings, is a sentiment that has direct roots in a long history of anti-Semitism.

The idea that money derived from finance is parasitic because it is not from “productive” labor was developed by medieval Christian natural law theology but has even older origins in the work of Aristotle. In Aristotle’s Politics, he divides wealth into two categories: natural and unnatural. Wealth is natural when it derives from productive pursuits, defined as the fruits of physical labor like agriculture and craftsmanship. By contrast, Aristotle condemns what he calls unnatural wealth that is produced not from making things, but from trade and exchange.

While Aristotle is scornful of commerce, the brunt of his contempt is reserved for usury, the lending of money at interest: “The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes again out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it.” Simply, that which is natural is good and productive and that which is unnatural is bad and parasitic. Here, in Aristotle’s philosophy of naturalism, is the philosophical foundation for the Western world’s distrust of moneylending, which has survived in recognizable form to this day

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How timely.

[mitch96]

1. "developed by medieval Christian natural law theology"

I read about this a while ago.. The landlords could not/would not collect rents on certain holidays. They hired Jewish money changers to collect the rents. The Jews were the brunt of the "blue collar" ire and the birth of the Jews = money thing.. At least that's the way I read it... YMMV
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[Farmer-Rick]

2. A bit of a leap in my mind.

Because I hate the filthy rich means I could hate an entire religious sect? I understand the association of Jewish folks with the most hated professions.

But as an atheist, I dislike all religious sects equally. They are all superstitious and rediculus to me.

But just because I hate the filthy rich, and hope their stolen wealth get's taken away from them, doesn't mean I have a particular animosity towards Jewish folks.

It's really, really the filthy rich I despise. I think here in the US we worship money more than gods, so it is difficult for some folks who have internalized this social bias to believe people would really despise the filthy rich. To them it is almost heretical.

[question everything]

3. I lived in Iowa in the 80's during the farm crisis.

Farmers overextended themselves, could not pay and ended up in bankruptcies. I am sure I am not more detailed now. Anyway, the farmers blamed the “Easr Coast Bankers” which really was a code word for Jews. Many, who have never met a Jewish person in their lives developed hatred to Jews.

And, by the way, most Jews are not “filthy rich.” Until the 70’s I think, many Jews could not get many jobs, so they had to rely on their own and, yes, on the community -hence the “cabal” conspiracy.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. I never meant to imply all filthy rich are Jewish,

Nor do I want to imply all Jewish folks are filthy rich. My sister is Jewish and do not consider her filthy rich.

Believing in the Jewish religion and being filthy rich are not correlated. They are 2 different things. As an aithiest, I think the Jewish religion is illogical and superstitious like ALL religions.

As a worker and socially aware member of the US society, I see the corruption of the filthy rich and think their power, their wealth, should be taken away from them. They have used that wealth merely for corrupt purposes. To whom much is given, much is expected. The filthy rich have failed to live up to their social obligations and their power should be removed.

But just because I see the filthy rich never ending crimes, doesn't make me want to blame Jewish folks for it. There are many, many more corrupt and criminal filthy rich who are Christians or other religions.