The Federal Reserve printed too much money (even as the government spent too much), leading us to wonder how the establishment players can criticize Bitcoin when they’re in the electronic money business themselves? Let’s see what Shakespeare has to say.

This business of lending at artificially depressed interest rates (which are now boomeranging higher) was highly familiar to Shakespeare and it formed a major theme in The Merchant of Venice. Here is the famous Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, describing Antonio, the Venetian shipping magnate (and recall that Antonio, and not Shylock, is the Merchant of Venice:

Shylock: “[Aside] I hate him for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!”

Shakespeare is contrasting two forms of moneylending; Shylock’s, of lending at market-driven interest rates, and Antonio’s. Antonio lends money at no interest, but only to his similarly aristocratic friends. A recent historical example would be the Russian aristocrats who managed to retain their fortunes after being exiled in 1917 by the communists, lending or even giving money to their fellow aristocrats who lost their fortunes in the revolution. While the large-heartedness may warm us, it’s worth noting that this system kept the moneyed class in its position of power, and efficiently excluded commoners from access to funds. Shylock represents quite a threat to that system, and Antonio, even though he is Venetian and not Russian, knows this. Here the two men meet:

Antonio: “Shylock, although I neither lend nor borrow
By taking nor by giving of excess,
Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,
I’ll break a custom. Is he yet possess’d
How much ye would?”

A little backstory: Antonio loves Bassanio and would do anything for him, and Bassanio, having wasted his fortune, needs a loan so that he can present himself to Portia, a Venetian heiress, with the (false) pomp required to court her. Although Antonio is wealthy, his wealth is tied up in his shipping ventures, and that’s why the two men have gone to Shylock for a loan of 3,000 ducats, to be paid to Bassanio but underwritten by Antonio. Antonio says to Shylock is that he never borrows or lends at interest, but that in this case he will break his custom. After an exchange of pleasantries, Shylock says this (eanlings means newborn sheep; streak’d and pied means spotted or striped; rank means in heat; wands means reeds):

Shylock: “Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.”

Shylock: “When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban’s sheep —”…

Antonio: “And what of him? did he take interest?”

Shylock: “No, not take interest, not, as you would say,
Directly interest: mark what Jacob did.
When Laban and himself were compromised
That all the eanlings which were streak’d and pied
Should fall as Jacob’s hire, the ewes, being rank,
In the end of autumn turned to the rams,
And, when the work of generation was
Between these woolly breeders in the act,
The skilful shepherd peel’d me certain wands,
And, in the doing of the deed of kind,
He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,
Who then conceiving did in eaning time
Fall parti-colour’d lambs, and those were Jacob’s.
This was a way to thrive, and he was blest:
And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.”

To translate: Jacob’s father-in-law Laban agreed that, in the coming year, Jacob would take any of the newborn lambs that were streaked and pied. At mating season, Jacob “peeled…certain wands…and stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,” that is, he collected some reeds and stuck them where the ewes would see them while they were conceiving. It was thought that this would cause their offspring to be similarly streaked. And as the Bible story has it, all of the newborns were indeed streaked, and Jacob collected them as per his bargain with Laban.

Shylock is implying that the streaking of the newborn lambs was similar to interest, and Jacob’s clever practice represented something like wisdom in lending. Here’s Antonio’s answer (that Jacob served for means Jacob risked a period of service for):

Antonio: “This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for;
A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
But sway’d and fashion’d by the hand of heaven.
Was this inserted to make interest good?
Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?”

Shylock: “I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.”…

Was this inserted to make interest good? Throughout the Middle Ages, Christianity interpreted scripture as prohibiting the loaning of money at interest, while Judaism interpreted scripture as permitting it. Antonio is referring to this distinction, which drove the emerging banking industry into the hands of the Jews. England only began to permit the practice in 1571, just a generation before this play was staged. So the question of whether treating money in this manner was good or evil was still very much on people’s minds.

Shylock is boastful that he does as well in his trade as Jacob did in his, but Antonio does not let him finish his thought before insulting Shylock yet again, citing a verse in Matthew (4:6) to call him the devil and evil right to his face, even as he is asking for his money:

Antonio: “Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”

This from a man who wouldn’t lend a single ducat to a starving commoner, but will gladly lend 3,000 to a fellow member of the ruling class. Can you say oligarchy? The ruling class has been intent on stifling market forces in the financial sector for a long, long time.

And from their standpoint, they were right to do so. The lending of money at commercial rates was a key factor in enabling the common man and woman, slowly across the Middle Ages, to accumulate wealth until, finally, they could equal and then surpass the aristocrats. Today’s Antonio, of course, is Jerome Powell, with an assist from the entire federal government. Just as the cost of labor has been kept low across the last 150 years at least by succeeding waves of immigration, the ability to accumulate wealth through effort and thrift rather than through speculation has been undercut by money printing. Antonio wouldn’t lend at all to the working class; Powell debases the currency the working class by the sweat of its collective brow acquires. The goal is the same. And here is Shylock’s response:

Shylock: “Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit
What should I say to you? Should I not say
‘Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;
‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn’d me such a day; another time
You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you thus much moneys’?”

P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.