IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dah/aeqjce/v137_y2017_i3_q3_p301-329.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From “Usury” to “Financial Alchemy:” Martin Luther’s Economic Writings Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Hecker

Abstract

This paper deals with the economic writings of Martin Luther, especially his critique on usury, against the backdrop of the recent financial crisis. It demonstrates that Luther developed several arguments that are still relevant to current problems regarding financial markets. The most remarkable points in Luther’s critique are his warnings against contingency, fraudulent activities and power abuse, and his demand for personal liability of investors. Today, Luther’s arguments should be understood as a call for reform to improve the financial sector’s functioning, especially regarding its task to provide services for consumers and other businesses in a proper way.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Hecker, 2017. "From “Usury” to “Financial Alchemy:” Martin Luther’s Economic Writings Revisited," Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 137(3), pages 301-329.
    • Handle: RePEc:dah:aeqjce:v137_y2017_i3_q3_p301-329
    DOI: 10.3790/jce.137.3.301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3790/jce.137.3.301
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3790/jce.137.3.301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B11 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Preclassical (Ancient, Medieval, Mercantilist, Physiocratic)
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dah:aeqjce:v137_y2017_i3_q3_p301-329. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: E-Publishing-Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.duncker-humblot.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.