Appendix 1

A Historical Overview of Economic Events

from an 'Integral Perspective'

Premodern Era
• Old Testament (Torah) references specify the terms for charging or collecting usury:

• You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in
everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. Deuteronomy 23:20 (NIV) - circa
late 7th C. BC to early 6th C. BC

• " 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you
would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any
kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. You must not
lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit." Leviticus 25:35-37 (NIV) - circa mid 6th C. BC to
early 5th C. BC

The Old Testament is further augmented in establishing conditions for 'debt release':

• Leviticus 25:10-13 introduces the concept of 'jubilee' which is developed through additional passages (see
also Jubilee (Christian)).

• "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no
interest." Exodus 22:25 (NIV) - circa mid 5th C. BC

• The New Testament includes additional references which allude to receiving 'interest':

• Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with
interest?' Luke 19:23 (NIV) - sometime between 37 and 90 AD

• Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have
received it back with interest. Matthew 25:27 (NIV) - sometime between 70 to 100 AD

• In its 17th Canon, the First Council of Nicaea (325 CE) by referencing Psalm 15:5, forbids
clergy members from practicing usury as committing "contrivance for the sake of dishonourable
gain" (Tanner, 1990).

• The Qur'an (610-632 AD) as revealed to the prophet Muhammad and Sunnah, denounce the
gain of interest (capital) or commodity without an equitable exchange of service as 'riba' or usury
(Riba, 2009).

• That they took usury (riba), though they were forbidden; and that they devoured men's substance
wrongfully;-we have prepared for those among them who reject faith a grievous punishment. An-Nisa 4:161,
Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

Brian McConnell 1 January 25, 2010

 • Those who live off the interest on loans will never stand up, except in the way those whom Satan knocks
down with a fit rise up again. That is because they say: "Trading is just like taking interest." Yet God has
permitted trading and forbidden taking interest. Anyone who receives such an instruction from his Lord and
stops doing so, may keep whatever [capital] is a thing of the past, while his case rests with God; yet those who
do so over and over again will become inmates of the Fire, to remain the for ever. Al-Baqara 2:275, T. B.
Irving.

• The Second Council of the Lateran (1139), in its 13th Canon condemns the practice of usury
depicted in both the "old and new Testaments" as "despicable and blameworthy by divine and
human laws". The canon warns clergy against receiving "usuers" and advises the deprivation of a
'Christian' burial "unless they repent" (Tanner, 1990).

• The Third Council of the Lateran (1179) declares in the 25th Canon "that notorious usurers should not be
admitted to communion" nor "receive christian burial" if they were to "die in this sin" (Tanner, 1990).

• In its 67th Constitution, the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) bemoans that "the perfidy of the Jews"
engaging in usury was "exhausting the resources of Christians" to such an extent that those found to be
extorting "oppressive and excessive interest" were to be removed from contact with Christians until
satisfaction was made. It further levied restitution on the usuers for "tithes and offerings" otherwise "due the
churches" (Tanner, 1990).

• An edict issued by the Second Council of Lyon (1274) in its 26th Constitution forbids a college,
community, or "individual person, of whatever dignity, condition or status" to rent houses to
"those foreigners and others not originating from their territories" who practiced usury. Those
continuing in usury are either suspended as clerics, excommunicated, or subjected to Church
interdict.

• Terms were stipulated in the Council's 27th Constitution for receiving restitution as directed in the will of
deceased "usuers".

• Beginning in 1311, the Council of Vienne in withdrawing papal support of the Knights
Templar also in the 29th Decree condemns those who errantly affirmed that the "practice of usury
is not sinful" to "be punished as a heretic" (Tanner, 1990).

• The Fifth Council of the Lateran in 1515 (Session 10) while attempting to determine whether
the charge of interest to recoup the administrative costs associated with loans to the poor was
morally justifiable, defined usury as:

“when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any
work, any expense or any risk” (Burke, 2008).

Modern Era
• Nicolas Copernicus authors a treatise on currency in 1526 reflecting his views on the

Brian McConnell 2 January 25, 2010

importance of coinage entitled, "Monetae cudendae ratio".

• Established in 1609, and as the first public bank to "offer accounts not directly convertible to
coin", the Bank of Amsterdam is considered the "first true central bank" (Quinn, 2006).

• Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, William Paterson introduces central banking to
Great Britain by founding the Bank of England in 1694.

• Isaac Newton is appointed warden of the Royal Mint in 1696.

• Though Great Britain broadens its sphere of influence simultaneously on both North American
and European continents as a result of the French and Indian and Seven Years' War(s), its
national debt subsequently soars from £72 million in 1755 to £130 million by 1764 (Stamp Act,
2009).

• English Parliament imposes the Stamp Act on American colonists in 1765.

• The Rothschilds amass substantial wealth between 1813 and 1815 in their handling of bullion
shipments to the Duke of Wellington's armies in Portugal and Spain.

• In the aftermath of economic Panic(s) in 1893 and again in 1907, a U.S. Congress enacts the
Aldrich-Vreeland Act in 1908.

• This bill establishes the National Monetary Commission under Nelson Aldrich's direction and also makes
provision for the issuance of "emergency currency" (Wicker, 2005).

• In 1910 Aldrich is secluded for 10 days at Jekyll Island, Georgia with banking representatives of J.P.
Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb & Co. These executives include Frank A. Vanderlip, Henry Davidson,
Charles D. Norton, and Col. Edward House, future advisor to President Wilson and founder of the Council
on Foreign Relations (AIER, 1993).

• After months of Congressional debate, Aldrich's revised plan establishing the Federal Reserve is signed
into law as the Glass-Owen Bill by President Wilson on December 23, 1913 (Johnson, 1999).

• Following a period from 1880 to 1914, later considered "the heyday of the 'classical'
international gold standard", most countries suspend convertibility of their currencies into gold
with the outbreak of World War I (Snowdon, 2002).

• The Great (global) Depression begins in the United States with the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

• John Maynard Keynes publishes ''The Treatise on Money'' (2 volumes) in 1930 encapsulating
his Wicksellian theory of the credit cycle.

• Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek critiques the treatise in 1931 (Hayek, 1931), to which Keynes asserts that 'the work
no longer reflected his thinking'.

• Keynes releases his 'magnum opus', "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money''

Brian McConnell 3 January 25, 2010

in February of 1936.

• Henry Hazlitt, an Austrian School commentator and journalist writes a paragraph-by- paragraph
refutation of Keynes' theory in his ''The Failure of the New Economics''.

• The Atlantic Charter is agreed as a blueprint for a post-war world between British Prime
Minister Churchill and U.S. President Roosevelt in August of 1941.

• The Bretton Woods system is adopted in 1944 which in turn creates the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The dollar (USD) becomes
the system's key currency.

Postmodern Era
• President Richard Nixon terminates the Bretton Woods system in 1971 by ending direct
convertibility of the United States dollar to gold.

• As industrial nations allow their currencies to 'float' following Nixon's unilateral withdrawal from Bretton
Woods, the OPEC cartel issues a communiqué announcing that oil will be priced against gold, leading
eventually to the 1973 oil crisis.

• Beginning in 2005, events surrounding the announced opening of an Iranian oil bourse and its
slighting of the dollar (USD) as a 'payment currency', signal the prospect of economic upheaval to
international markets.

• The financial crisis of 2007–2009 is cited as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression
by leading economists (Three top, 2009).

This is a slightly modified Appendix to one accompanying the 'preliminary draft' of "An Integral
Perspective" as submitted for review to Dr. Mark Forman in response to a 'call for papers' addressing
the theme, "Enacting an Integral Future" for the Integral Theory Conference (ITC) 2010.

All rights reserved by the article's author, ©2010.

Brian McConnell 4 January 25, 2010

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Brian McConnell 5 January 25, 2010