Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [106]
One difficulty I faced in trying to understand the role of usury was that it was not always clearly separated, at least in the popular imagination, from legally approved lending practices or from the socially embedded rotating credit practices that used to form the backbone of the poorer residents' resistance to severe economic distress. This reflects a similar ambiguity in the church's repeated attempts to make a distinction, or at least to operate as though there were one, between extortion and money lending at reasonable interest rates. Even priests had sometimes been known to lend money at relatively low interest rates. The more inflexible ecclesiastical critics, especially from the sixteenth century on, had cited formal dogma in condemning such practices; others argued instead that the papal pronouncements on the subject allowed a considerable degree of latitude in interpretation. Ultimately the question remained a classically Catholic dilemma for individual consciences faced with material temptation and unclear directives;" this logic favored a relatively hands-off policy on the part of the papacy, especially as its own financial interests would not have been well served by a complete suppression of usury.
The civic authorities, under papal rule as much after as before Unification, have tolerated and perhaps even benefited from a practice that contravened both ecclesiastical and civil law and that offended popular morality as well. We should view these ambiguities as practical accommodations to the imperfections of the secular world by authorities and citizens alike; the resulting arrangements facilitated the daily lives of the poorer citizens but also strengthened the power of the elites over them. Comparing a rotating credit club with the culture of the usurer Ala cultura dell'usuraio~, a jeweler who was seeking membership-more for the sake of tradition and friendship than from need-claimed that the group in question had actively sought to protect its members from the far higher risks attendant on dealing with usurers.
Credit and Default
The rotating credit associations, like the pawn societies before them, skirted the edges of illegality and theological irregularity. So common in Rome until the last quarter of the twentieth century that they are often simply called "the famous societies," they still exist, although in greatly reduced numbers. In their heyday they ranged from well-organized groups of artisans, merchants, and professionals-one association had over two hundred members, but closed down as recently as around 1998 when the outgoing president could not find a replacement owing to the considerable amount of work involved-to the odd team of some ten waiters in a restaurant investing a small part of their meager wages in pursuit of an equally meager profit and the occasional minor loan. They should not be confused with what is still a relatively common arrangement in various government and company offices, where small amounts can be borrowed at the low interest rate of under 4 percent; this structure, the cassa mutua savings group, has legal status.
The rotating credit associations functioned reasonably well as a source of support in dealing with the petty personal crises of a financially restricted lifestyle, less so when, as gradually happened more and more frequently, they were used to redress the difficulties of business ventures that were foundering, and least of all when members lent out their own loans at even higher interest and then failed to get the money back. The authorities were reluctant to close them down because they relieved an inadequate banking system of the need to extend credit to small artisans and merchants who lacked sufficient collateral. The banks' interest rate was also usually about 3 or 4 percent higher than that of the associations.
Lending to outsiders not only could trigger total collapse and the ruin of the