Avarice

1) The main difference between modern economic thought and the medieval view is that the latter starts from the position that there is a moral authority to which economic considerations of expediency must be subordinated. In contrast, modern economic thought refers to economic expediency as justification for any particular action, policy, or system of organization.

2) The just price of a product is determined according to the amount necessary to ensure that the seller will have the necessities of life suitable for his station. This concept protects the consumer against extortion.

3) In practice, usury was wrong because it enabled profit to be made without labor; it was easy to lend money and make a profit, when the moral was to work hard and "earn" your wages. It hurt the borrower the most because the borrower still had to repay the usurer, whether he succeeded in making a profit with the loan or not, and if he could repay the usurer the borrower usually ended up in debtor's prison or became an indentured servant to pay the debt. Dante put usurers in the 7th Circle of Hell with the blasphemers and the sodomites because usury was considered a sin against nature, like sodomy, because it was to live without labor; and it sells time, which is blasphemous because time belongs to God alone, for the advantage of wicked men.