EZRA POUND: THE ECONOMICS OF HUMAN VALUE IN CAPITALISM

Best known as a modernist poet, Ezra Pound formed a controversial theory on capitalism, most focusing on the aesthetic aspects of it. He studied the artistic aspects of human relationships. Notably, Pound hated usury, which is the concept of loaning money with an interest rate. Pound believed that usury was exploitative and unfairly enriched the loaner, corrupting economics, creativity, labor, and people.

There are a variety of roots that provide the foundation for Pound’s theory. One is Medieval and Renaissance thought, which had unique patronage systems and guilds that considered money as a counterpart of art and morality; this interested Pound greatly and ultimately led to his formation of the theory. Pound was also influenced by the social credit theory by C.H.Douglas, which believed that citizens should get access to social dividends in order to create even production and purchasing power. Another popular philosophy was Aristotle’s ethics, which resounded with Pound’s theory that natural wealth–earned through work–and unnatural wealth–earned through interest or usury–are very different and should be distinguished. Finally, we have fascist corporatism; as dangerous and insane Mussolini’s theory is, Pound supported him because he believed that they both agree that state-coordinated economies’ purposes are to protect manufacturers from exploitation.

Let’s now delve into the actual beliefs of Pound’s theory. As seen through the many philosophies he supports, Pound believes that money should be representative of actual hard work in order to be of real value, and not from taking advantage of someone else’’s debt. He believed that usury was essentially a way of economically enslaving humans by simply taking away more money from them despite them not having any to begin with. Finally, Pound believed that only creativity, craftsmanship, and production that has genuine effort into it should be rewarded by the economy; mass producers who don’t credit real artists and financially manipulate individuals should not be rewarded by the economy.