Samuel Gregg - For God and Profit: How Banking and Finance Can Serve the Common Good

Advance Praise for
For God and Profit

For God and Profit is a formidable book, packed with interesting and regularly unacknowledged and unknown historical information, especially about the contribution of Christian thinking to the development of banking, the rise of the markets and Western prosperity. It is also closely argued with Christian and natural law categories of right and wrong being used to evaluate the economies and financial systems of today and yesterday.

Cardinal George Pell,
Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy,
Vatican City

Christians have long been suspicious of the worlds of finance and capital. But Samuel Gregg has produced just the book we need. It is ecumenical, patient in explaining concepts and practices that Christians of all confessions should know, characterized by logic and clear moral analysis, and attentive to the contributions made by Christians throughout history to the development of modern finance systems. At a time when finance not only seems bereft of a moral compass but also to be lurching from crisis to crisis, this is a book sorely needed by Christians today.

Michael Novak, author of
The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Many relationships between people today are based on finance and the exchange of financial value. Often the potential of these relationships and institutions are lost and damaged through harmful action and misguided thought. Both are challenged by Samuel Gregg in this timely, thoughtful, and accessible book. He seeks not only to analyze and critique but to exhort, and his appeal is to reason and the Judeo-Christian tradition. His breadth of scholarship and understanding of contemporary finance make this book a relevant and insightful resource for thinkers and practitioners alike.

Peter S. Heslam, Transforming Business,
University of Cambridge

In his typically erudite fashion, Samuel Gregg has successfully synthesized an understanding of two topics which are, regretfully, too often seen as being in opposition to one another: God and finance. Grounding his analysis in a narrative which is equal parts modern economics and morality, he leaves the reader thankful for new and at times surprising insights.

Frank J. Hanna III, entrepreneur,
merchant banker and author of
What Your Money Means

FOR GOD
AND
PROFIT

The love of money is the root of all evils, and there are some who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith, and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds.

1 Timothy 6:10

But his master answered him, You wicked and lazy servant! So you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered? Well then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have recovered my capital with interest.

Matthew 25:2617

FOR GOD
AND
PROFIT

HOW BANKING AND FINANCE
CAN SERVE THE COMMON GOOD

SAMUEL GREGG

WITH A FOREWORD BY

GEORGE CARDINAL PELL

The Crossroad Publishing Company
www.CrossroadPublishing.com
2016 by Samuel Gregg

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Title by Samuel Gregg
Cover design by Ray Lundgren
Book design by The HK Scriptorium

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 9780824521882

ISBN EPUB: 9780824522230

ISBN MOBI: 9780824522247

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Contents

Foreword

1.Introduction

Knowing before Judging

Faith, Morality, and Money

Renewing a Tradition

The Way Ahead

Some Caveats

Going Backward to Go Forward

2.Detestable to God and Man

Scandal Time

Hellenes, Latins, and Money

Israelites and the Poor

Premedieval Christianity, Money, and Interest

Zero-Sum Economies, Zero-Sum Economics

A New Economic World

Further Reading

3.Financial Revolution

From Stagnation to Growth

Finance and the New Economy

Institutionalizing Capital

The Not-So-Dark Ages

Back to Aristotleand Rome

Gods Time, My Time

Work, Creativity, and Money

Partnership and Investment in a Growth Economy

Just Titles to Interest

Spreading the Risk

Money Markets, and Speculation

Toward the Full Justification of Interest

Tradition and Innovation

Further Reading

4.Caesars Coin

Measurement and Stability

The State and Debasement

Debasement as Economic Injustice

Money, Power, and Tyranny

Debt, Bonds, and Public Finances

Bankers and Princes

Against Monopolies

An Uncultivated Part of the Vineyard

Further Reading

5.Freedom, Flourishing, and Justice

Doing Good, Avoiding Evil, and Human Flourishing

Sociability and the Common Good

Material Goods: Common Use and Private Ownership

Surplus and Essential Wealth

Finances Ultimate Legitimacy

Getting Justice Right

From Theory to Practice

Further Reading

6.Understanding Capital, Civilizing Capital

Speculators and Speculation

Speculators and the Real Economy

Speculation, Currencies, and Financial Crises

Short Term versus Long Term:

A Detached Financial Sector?

The Knowledge Issue

Just and Unjust Compensation

Rewards, Justice, and Equality

Finance, Regulation, and the State

Further Reading

7.The Common Good, the State, and Public Finance

Hazardous Lending, Evading Responsibility

To Bail or Not to Bail

Regulation and Its Limits

Regulation and Virtue

Central Banks and Monetary Stability

Monetary Policy, the Poor, and the Wealthy

A World Central Bank?

Humility and a Higher Calling

Further Reading

8.Finance as Vocatio, Finance as Magnificentia

Understanding vocatio

Making Money Good

Building Trust, Pricing Risk, Enabling Opportunity

Growing Capital

Credit, the Poor, and Loving Our Neighbor

Debt and the Developing World

Greed, Virtue, and Life in Christ

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgments