lat. usura (usum, uti); ūtor, usus sum, uti (mache von etwas Gebrauch, wende an, genieße); usura, -ae (Gebrauch, Nutzen aus geliehenem Geld, )

usura: (1) Anticamente, il normale interesse pagato per un prestito; ora, interesse eccessivo o esorbitante, illecito: prestare a u.; anche, l'attività di chi presta a tali condizioni e il reato che compie (2) Logoramento, deterioramento dovuti all'uso prolungato o al continuo funzionamento

cf. François Villon. Le Testament, v. 896.

Cf. Ezra Pound, How to read? in: Ezra Pound. Literary Essays, p. 17 et sq.: Later it struck me that the best history of painting in London was the National Gallery, and that the best history of literature, more particularly of poetry, would be a twelve-volume anthology in which each poem was chosen not merely because it was a nice poem or a poem Aunt Hepsy liked, but because it contained an invention, a definite contribution to the art of verbal expression. With this in mind, I approached a respected agent. He was courteous, he was even openly amazed at the list of three hundred items which I offered as an indication of outline. No autochthonous Briton had ever, to his professed belief, displayed such familiarity with so vast a range, but he was too indolent to recast my introductory letter into a form suited to commerce. He, as they say, “repaired” to an equally august and long-established publishing house (which had already served his and my interest). In two days came a hasty summons: would I see him in person. I found him awed, as if one had killed a cat in the sacristy. Did I know what I had said in my letter? I did. Yes, but about Palgrave? I did. I had said: “It is time we had something to replace that doddard Palgrave.” “But don’t you know,” came the awstruck tones, “that the whole fortune of X and Co. is founded on Palgrave’s Golden Treasury?” From that day onward no book of mine received a British imprimatur until the appearance of Eliot’s castrated edition of my poems. I perceived that there were thousands of pounds sterling invested in electro-plate, and the least change in the public taste, let alone swift, catastrophic changes, would depreciate the value of those electros (of Hemans, let us say, or of Collins, Cowper, and of Churchill, who wrote the satiric verses, and of later less blatant cases, touched with a slighter flavour of mustiness). I sought the banks of the Seine. Against ignorance one might struggle, and even against organic stupidity, but against a so vast vested interest the lone odds were too heavy."

Cf. Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur p. 27. "I suggest that finer and future critics of art will be able to tell from the quality of a painting the degree of tolerance or intolerance of usury extant in the age and milieu that produced it."

1. Cf. Gino Zaccaria, L'inizio e il nulla. Colloquio di un logico, di un aiutante e di un pittore, p. 9. Tutti conoscono il senso delle due parole. Ognuno le usa continuamente nel discorso quotidiano. L'inizio è l'avvio, la partenza, l'abbrivio, il primo periodo, l'origine, il principio. Il nulla, invece, è il niente, lo zero, l'inezia, il vuoto, il baratro, l'abisso, il non essere. Ma l'uso usura. Lascia credere che la lingua sia un utensile nelle mani dell'uomo. In verità, è l'uomo, piuttosto, che è nelle mani della lingua - mani che, però, nun usano e non afferrano, ma lasciano e liberano, ossia forgiano l'essere e lo custodiscono. L'uomo, nel suo stanziarsi, si affida alla lingua. È il suo fidato abitante. Egli resta tale anche quando la diffida e la rinega, quando tenta di soggiogarla con la potenza dell'espediente tecnico o di superarla con la violenza della trovata sofistica. L'uso non può dunque guidarci nell'intesa delle parole e delle dizioni. Queste ultime non sono solo i mutevoli segni (i vocaboli e i termini) del mutabile nesso fra la mente e la realtà, ma innanzitutto gli insegnamenti e i doni del sapere più alto e più misconosciuto - e perciò sempre avveniente. La lingua non è mai linguaggio. Mentre l'uso usura la parola, ammutendola nella scempiia voce, la lingua parla. Parlando, tace. Tacendo, indice il mondo. [...]

2. Cf. Mary de Rachewiltz, Prefazione, in: Ezra Pound, ABC dell'economia e altri scritti, p. 9. Gli mancavano le parole, i termini, e volle risalire quasi alle origini del linguaggio economico per trovarle. Fra gli economisti contemporanei non ce n'era di 'donativi': quelli orto¬dossi non intendevano dilungarsi con un poeta inquisitivo. [...] Voleva trattare di eco-nomia come trattava di poesia, in termini assoluti. [...] Ma ripeto, mancava una terminologia ordinata e razionale. Mancava forse soprattutto l'onesta mentale in chi avrebbe potuto fun¬gere da guida. [...] Pound non stava inventando, bensì inseguendo un 'lume', il suo istinto, per scoprire l'errore del ragionamento ortodosso.

1. Cf. Ezra Pound, Selected Prose. 1009 - 1965, p. 282. You cannot make good economics out of bad ethics. 2. The original meaning of the Greek word ethos ↗  is “habitual residence”, “abode”, “dimension of sojourn” or “sojourn itself” – which is to say in other words: “man’s dwelling” or “site for man’s dwelling”. Consequently ethics is in the first place not knowledge about a system of moral rules derived from underlying moral values and supposed to orient human action in a given operative context, but, understood in the strictest sense of the word, that knowledge that forms an understanding of man’s dwelling on earth and is therefore capable of sustaining the building of the whole of sense-relations for this dwelling. On behest of usura ignorance holds sway and no economic knowledge originating from a more fundamental understanding of man’s dwelling will occur insofar as it is subjugated ab initio – and therefore the element that bestows and allots the whole of sense-relations of human existence is not sufficiently sustained, or to be more precise: is ignored in such a way that no man can find site for his dwelling. In this sense, and not just in a moral sense, usura is essentially unethical.

Cf. Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound Speaking. Radio Speeches of World War IIp. 40. My generation was brought up ham ignorant of economics. History was taught with OMISSIONS of the most vital facts. Every page our generation read was over shadowed by usury.

Cf. Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur, p. 281. „Usury is contra naturam. It is not merely in opposition to nature's increase, it is antithetic to discrimination by the sense. Discrimination by the sense is dangerous to avarice. It is dangerous because any perception or any high development of the perceptive faculties may lead to knowledge. The mony-changer only thrives on ignorance.“

In contrast nature can be seen in the light of production and productivity, where as a matter of fact nature means neither the mere sum of so called natural things, nor the correlative togetherness of such things. Nature is first and foremost the inexhaustible source of all the above-mentioned ways of taking care destined for men. That is why, with regard to the human being, “contra naturam” indicates the impossibility of taking care of the whole of sense-relations and thus indicates the continued prevention of each of the human ways of taking care from coming to its own end, i.e. from being accomplished. Accordingly “contra naturam” means at the same time: no true house construction, no true art of masonry, no true painting, no true sculpture, no true art of weaving, no true craftsmanship, no true trade, no true agriculture, no true art of love and so forth. Ursura occurs as the continued subjugation of the true nature of all of them, i.e. as the continued subjugation of their original possibility – i.e. the first and ultimate possibility of any kind of human production.

Cf. Ralf Lüfter, Notizen zu Ezra Pounds Ökonomie, p. 436 et seq. Auf Geheiß von Usura: Ignoranz. Auf Geheiß von Usura: keine Menschen beim Gastmahl – allenthalben seelenlose Leichname, denen das festlich Dargereichte nichts sagt (»Corpses are set to banquet | at behest of usura«). Auf Geheiß von Usura: Unvermögen in den menschlichen Bezügen – zuerst im Handwerk (»Usura rusteth the chisel | It rusteth the craft and the craftsman | It gnaweth the thread in the loom | None learneth to wave gold in her pattern«), dann in der Kunst (»with usura the line grows thick | with usura is no clear demarcation« [...] »no picture is made to endure nor to live with | but it is made to sell and sell quickly«) und im Handel (»wool comes not to market | sheep bringeth no gain with usura«), zuletzt im Zeugen und Bewahren des Gemeinsamen (»Usura slayeth the child in the womb | It stayeth the young man's courting«). Auf Geheiß von Usura hat keiner ein wirtliches Haus (»With usura hath no man a house of good stone«) und findet keiner Ortschaft für sein Wohnen (»and no man can find site for his dwelling«). Indes bleibt auch die Vernichtung der menschlichen Bezüge auf den Grund ihrer Ermöglichung angewiesen (»with usura«; »contra naturam«): auf die Natur des Handwerks, auf die Natur der Kunst, auf die Natur des Handels, zuletzt auf die Natur des Zeugens und Bewahrens eines Gemeinsamen.

Addendum by Ezra Pound: "N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production."

When usura takes the place of the element that bestows and allots the whole of sense-relations of human existence, on the one hand, we remain excluded from a sufficiently clear understanding of the true nature of economics and “we are brought up ham ignorant” (cf. Ezra Pound Speaking. Radio Speeches of World War II, Greenwood Press: London 1978, p. 40) of it, on the other hand, we remain at a loss for a form of knowledge that is able to understand, i.e. that is able to sustain the whole of the sense-relations of human existence insofar as it is ignorant of its originally bestowing and allotting element. The reading of Canto XLV suggests that usura is first and foremost the subjugation of this element – or in other words: subjugation is the form of originating which is characteristic of usura – therefore what arises is never a whole of sense-relations for human existence (namely, an oikos, the world) but sheer senselessness (namely, an un-world) that turns out to be the inhuman phiz of the modern economic crisis as we roughly outlined it here.