I was never much one for parties, neither the cocktail variety, with its polite and awkward small talk, nor the wilder sort, with loud music and shouted "conversations". I generally end up in the kitchen at parties, where it is quieter and real conversation is possible. My idea of a good time, socially, is a meal with friends who share an interest in the things we were taught not to discuss in polite company: religion and politiics, Dylan’s "God and man and law".
So I took well to the constraints of family life, when it finally arrived, and our New Year’s Eve celebration has become a tradition: after family prayer before the icons we watch It’s a Wonderful Life, and stay up to see the new year arrive. Survivors get a sip of the inexpensive champagne we uncork at midnight.
This year we are spending the first week of January at my mother’s house, near Flint, Michigan. Mom, who is a youthful 81, retired around 10pm, but we all stayed up for the movie and the new year.
Only I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to play the DVD.
Mom used to have a pretty simple setup, even for a technological dunce like me: you could skip through the channels and stop when you saw something interesting, or you could look at a menu and see what was playing and make your selection. Or not: even with hundreds of channels there often is "nothing on". And there was a button to push if you wanted to watch a movie instead.
Of course, the children are always up for cartoons, a rare treat, as we do not have television at home. Modern cartoons are pretty creepy, though, so I keep them tuned to channels that play the relatively innocent older cartoons. An exception is Sponge Bob Square Pants, which if you don’t know, manages to be at once winsome and wacky.
But tonight it was going to be the traditional Wonderful Life, a film that strikes me every time I see it with its profoundly Catholic outlook. It was made in the days before Catholic social teaching was hijacked by economic liberals (ie, neoconservatives) and the ruthless capitalist is the bad guy. Solidarity and community are more to be valued than profit, in Capra’s Bedford Falls.
A few years back, though, my mom switched her service to some sort of satelite system, the ironically named "Direct TV".
It is anyting but.
The remote has 48 buttons, most of them mysterious. There are 8 arrow buttons, one of them at the end of a half-circle, which I would suppose to mean "head ‘em off at the pass". Another arrow appears to head directly into a vertical line ("Dead end"? "Up against the wall?") There are four unmarked plain buttons in the primary colors, plus green. There is a button marked "info", another misnomer, which proved to be no help whatsoever.
I’ve had bad experiences with this gizmo before, and have been known to shut the whole system down just trying to turn the damn thing on. This necessitated a call to "DIrect" TV’s central control center, which I suppose is somewhere deep in space, from whence they beamed down a cosmic ray, which rebooted my mom’s TV.
It didn’t go that far on New Year’s Eve, but neither Michelle, nor I, nor Patric, our usually techno-savvy 10 year old, could figure it out.
So we saw the new year in watching Sponge Bob. I don’t know what that portends. We could do worse than winsome and wacky, I suppose.
The whole episode sparked a renewed frustration with modern technology. While I am hardly the Luddite I once was – I do have a DVD player, after all, and I probably owe my life to modern medicine- it does seem obvious that when a technological innovation complicates rather than simplifies a task it ought to be rethought.
And I would suggest that mom’s anything-but-direct TV is not an isolated incident. How many times do we have to wait while making a purchase while the retail clerk pecks away endlessly at a keyboard? I always think how much quicker the transaction would be if the clerk were using a simple calculator, or even writing out the arithmetic. Or how many times have we heard the dread words "our computer is down", rendering the simplest tasks- research at the library, ordering a meal- impossible?
More broadly, this is a symptom of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It is a law, often thought of as modern, but actually human, which manifests itself in countless ways, every time some good intention backfires. It is a grand theme in world literature, including sacred scripture.
I thought of it the other morning, when I attended the 7:30am Mass at the Roman church around the corner. The early crowd was small and mostly older. Nevertheless, there was a gaggle of lay eucharistic ministers, who gathered around the altar after the Agnus Dei. One by one they received the Body of Christ, then the chalice. Next they received their individual ciboriums and marched off to distribute communion. I didn’t time it, but I doubt very much it would have taken any longer if the priest had simply done it himself.
Not a big thing, but symptomatic of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Or take the "simplification" of school consolidation, one of the little-remarked upon but major factors in the social decline of the last half century. Indeed, I can think of no better single step to rightly ordering society than returning schooling to the townships, for those unable to return it to the home. Which grand idea may or may not bring unintended consequences. It’s hard to see how school culture could be worse than it is, though.
Then there is the Christian Right, which started out with the promise of a broadly based coalition, a bulwark against the decadence and excess of modern society, and has ended up revealed as a hyper-Zionist, nationalistic enterprise, unraveling even as its leaders endorse Giuliani or sink under the weight of personal and financial scandal. That the "prolife" Right has not rushed to the standard of Dr Paul’s candidacy – he of the perfect and principled prolife record- shows their true colors. Like the Catholic neocons, they are Americanists first, enthralled by empire, and Christians second or third.
Another instance, one with deadly consequences, is found in the book I am currently reading, Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, subtitled "The secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001". It is quite a tome, around 700 pages, and it is one long exercise in unintended consequences. Time and again in history we see this sort of thing, shaky alliances against a common enemy that end up creating another enemy, at least as threatening as the original one.
It really brings out the latent Augustinian in me. In general, Eastern Christian theology is more hopeful than Western when it comes to Man’s state and his promise. But that human wiles reap human woes? That Man’s fallen state often seems one long episode of "blowback"?
The evidence is all around us, in geopolitics, in American cultural history, in the Church. And if we look within, we see evidence in our own lives, in our souls.
But that is a longer, more introspective essay.
–Daniel Nichols
Your ideal evening is the same as mine, and Spongebob is great.
Wonder how many people reading this post thought I bet I could figure out how to work that thing? Some probably already know because they have DirectTV, but I would guess not that many.
I don’t doubt that a lot of people could have figured it out; as I have said before I am technologically retarded. However, it is far from simple; heck, Patric, who is a very clever lad, couldn’t figure it out, either.
And did I mention that there are actually three remotes for the thing? One is for the “Direct” TV thing, the other is for the DVD player, and I’m still not sure what the third one does…
I’m not saying they/we could have figured it out, but they/we (mostly male) would think they/we could–the challenge and all.
It takes three remote controls for me to watch a movie: one for the dvd/vcr, one for the tv, one for the stereo to which the sound of the dvd/vcr is routed.
Oh, and speaking of being technologically retarded: my daughter (Clare) will never let me live down the time I got irritated because the tv channels wouldn’t change no matter how many buttons I pushed…on the cordless phone.
I too love It’s a Wonderful Life. I have since I was a child. That said however after I was exposed to the Catholic Social Teachings, the cynic in me wondered if there was an agenda in the movie to push for usury (charing interest on an non productive loan ie mortgage). Notice that the landlord is portrayed as evil, while the usurer is the hero. I do not know enough of the history of the time, but I wonder if the whole mortgage thing at the time was considered a little bit sleazy. I can only imagine what mortgages did to the cost of housing. Suddenly, there is a spike in demand for houses, supply takes some time to catch up, housing cost goes through the roof, and those that own land make a killing. We also get the idea that a house costs the monthly payment and not the actual cost. All right enough of the cynic. I watch the movie every year.
I don’t know that the Baileys merit the nasty title of “userer”; it is evident that their motive is not profit, that they do not foreclose but show mercy when their clients get behind, etc.
The only thing that stirs some apprehension in me is the more or less suburban development, treeless and mostly porchless, that the Baileys construct. Still, the point is to enable workers to own their own homes, which is noble. And I don’t think the early developers of the modern subdivision were culpable for all the -once again- unintended consequences of their project.
And I don’t think a loan for land is “nonproductive”…
Mr. Nichols,
If the land were something like a farm ie something that produces wealth, I would agree with you, but a home does not produce any wealth. Could you explain how you think that a home is productive of wealth. Secondly, there is no risk in the loan to the bank, unless they are stupid and make a loan for more than the home is worth, or the government has any unstable currency. A landlord has responsibility to maintain the home and all the obligations of ownership. A bank on the other hand owns the home, receives a profit, and yet has none of the responsibilities of ownership.
Finally, the movie did portray the Baileys as “good” usurers, which is my point. In order to sell usury, you have to portray it and the usurers as good. But that is irrelevant because this is a matter of principle. The principle is the same whether practiced by the “good” Baileys or the “evil” Potters. In order to charge interest on a loan, the loan must be invested in something that produces or hopes to produce a profit.
When I shopped around for money for a home, I found investors to buy the home, and I agreed to pay them a 7% rent on their investment. I would take care of any small repairs (less than $500), they would take care of any big repairs. I would be allowed to buy the house with any money over the 7%. So if I paid them 10% of the cost of the home over the 7% rent, the next year I would own 10% of the home and the rental income but also 10% of the responsibilities. To me this is much better arrangement. The landlord makes a fair profit, for some risk (the need to make major repairs), and the owner gets a home and works toward full ownership. I only wish some Catholic would set up an investment company for this purpose. It would be a great investment for Catholics, and provide a great service to people who want to buy a home without crawling to a bank.
The homes in question were on small plots of land. Most of the beneficiaries of the Baileys’ kindness appear to be Italian immigrants; in my experience Italians make the most of where they are: grapevines and gardens were the norm even in urban environments. In Wooster, where I work, there are many descendents of Calabrian immigrants. Even several generations on, gardens are the norm.
And generally, one can expect a home to grow in value.
The question of what does and does not qualify as usury is an open one, it seems. There are things which clearly are- the payday loan sharks that are everywhere- and things that are not- the investment company you envision- but there are many ambiguous enterprises.
Clearly the Baileys had an altruistic ethos; they certainly weren’t in it for the money. Time and again George and his father sacrificed profit for the common good, which Potter was oblivious to.
Daniel,
I haven’t seen the movie in probably twenty years, so I’m not sure what money lending the Baileys engaged in. But, in typical mortgate loans, the interest charged is not a percentage of the production of the investment — bringing in greater returns to the mortgager in times of plenty and lower returns outside those times. It is, thus, not investment, properly speaking. It is interest charged on money loaned, regardless of the production or nonproduction of the investment. The return doesn’t vary, whatever the wealth-producing situation of the lendee is. It is, basically, a charge on the use of money, which is what usury is.
I love the movie, but have long had a twinge of uneasiness about Bailey Park, like the one Daniel mentions several comments back. It’s the beginning of the suburbs and the end of Bedford Falls proper. I try to keep in mind that in real life as in the movie, the new suburbs of the 20th century were often a welcome escape from packed city slums or near-slums. Still, knowing what was coming gives the movie an unintentional mild irony.
There is an interesting exploration of this idea at the blog of Patrick Deneen, a Georgetown (!) law prof: here.
Deneen mentions something that I never noticed: that Bailey Park is built on a cemetery. Without watching the movie again I’m wondering if this is correct. Or is the idea that the area became a cemetery only in the alternate world where Bailey Park was not built?
I had read Deneen’s piece before seeing the movie the other night and watched closely for that. When George Bailey was shown the world as it would have been if he had not been born, Bailey Park was indeed a cemetary, the one where his brother was buried, as George had not been there when Harry drowned to save him.
This would indicate that the land indeed was a cemetary, upon which Bailey Park was constructed.
I think this is a hole in the plot, that Capra was only trying to indicate that without George’s life this had become a place of death. I don’t think he really thought through the implications of this.
I think, in fact, that Dineen- and we- are straining at the philosophical implications of every detail of what was, in fact, fairly light entertainment.
I mean, the theological errors of the thing- men becoming angels, for example- make the social “errors” pale in comparison.
Not to mention the historical errors, like Clarence reading Mark Twain, when he supposedly died 200 years ago (in 1945)?!
“I think, in fact, that Dineen- and we- are straining at the philosophical implications of every detail of what was, in fact, fairly light entertainment.”
Agreed.
I agree about the straining of a light entertainment, but the usury topic is interesting in itself. The model that Christopher Sarsfield proposes above has merit, but in effect is it not just a modified conventional mortgage, where the lender has to handle the big repairs in proportion to how much of the property he still owns? I don’t see why a lender would want to do this, when he could loan money at 7% to someone else and NOT have to hold the bag for the large repairs. It would seem more reasonable for a lender/investor to say they would handle big repairs, but charge maybe 10% instead of 7% to make it worth their while, or tack on some kind of “large repair insurance” fee onto the monthly mortgage payment to cover any unexpected repairs.
In the Sarsfield model, shared ownership of the house just gets so messy, it seems to me. What is the difference between a repair and an improvement? If your water heater conks out, who decides if the right thing to do is replace the heater with exactly the same size, type, and quality, or put in a larger tank heated by solar panels on the roof, with a water softener system ahead of it to protect it from future corrosion? You would have to agree with the lender/investor on what should be done, how it should be done, and of course, what it should cost.
In a regular mortgage situation, the lender does take a risk: he turns over complete control of the upkeep/improvement of the house to the borrower, hoping that they don’t destroy the house and hoping that the appraisal value doesn’t drop, and hoping that the borrower can keep making payments.
Houses don’t last forever. A brand new roof will be replaced in 20 years. Brand new windows will be replaced in 30 years. Siding will be replaced in 30 years. Paint, fixtures, flooring all wear out even sooner. When you take over a house, it is somewhere in the countdown of those maintenance/repair cycles for every element of the home. And I would prefer to make the decision in each case myself for what should be done. I want to be able add on, remodel, tear out walls, all without having to work out a deal with the landlord investor, haggle over what is a repair, and what is an improvement.
Other ideas that can gray this idea of home purchase usury:
It would seem that if you already have a home, and you are buying another property as an investment, then borrowing money for that would be okay (according to usury theory), because you are planning to make a profit with the property, right? Well what about those who buy their home with the direct intent to improve it, let it appreciate in value, and sell it in a few years for profit? Is that really any different? What if you buy a property with a mortgage, thinking that you are going to raise your family in it, build up equity, and then sell it when you are at retirement age, so that the property is an investment in your retirement plan?
What about the idea of insurance? It seems that you can reduce risk of anything these days by paying for insurance against it. The amount of money I pay for insurance, (some optional, some required by law) is staggering when I think of what I could be doing with that money instead. Maybe the concept of insurance is more insidious than usury. Methinks insurance, usury, and risk are intertwined somehow.
Just a note on one narrow topic. Usury is the charging of more than the principal for a loan – it makes no difference whether the loan is for a business or a home. The key point is that the extra amount is charged purely because money is loaned. But this is not to say that often there aren’t other titles by which licit interest can be charged, e.g., lucrum cessans, damnum emergens, etc. See Benedict XIV’s encyclical Vix pervenit on this: “II. One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.
III. By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles -which are not at all intrinsic to the contract -may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract. Nor is it denied that it is very often possible for someone, by means of contracts differing entirely from loans, to spend and invest money legitimately either to provide oneself with an annual income or to engage in legitimate trade and business. From these types of contracts honest gain may be made.”
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Ben14/b14vixpe.htm
Unfortunately Belloc (a thinker and writer for whom I have the greatest respect), got it wrong in his essay on usury in Essays of a Catholic.
Tom,
It’s been a while since I read what Belloc wrote on interest, but I seem to recall that he made a distinction between a charge based for the use of money loaned (as Aquinas defined usury) and investment which gives one tital to some ownership in a business venture, and thus a claim to a portion of the profts. The former Belloc condemned, while the latter he recommended. Is this not correct?
Christopher,
My memory (I’ll check on this) is that he defined usury as interest on a non-productive loan. That is wrong. Perhaps he had in mind some sort of profit sharing on a business loan, but wasn’t precise in his language.
Tom,
He did make the productive/non-productive distinction, as I recall. But I think the distinction he made in the productive loan is that whatever over and above the original “loan” the lender gains is directly proportional to the the wealth-production of the investment. Thus, if the enterprise produces a great deal of wealth, the “lender” earns more; if it produces less, he earns less; if it produces nothing, he gets nothing. This seems to me to be the essence of an investment, not a mere lending activity. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of Belloc’s Essays of a Catholic, so I look forward to hearing what you discover in your re-reading.