ABSTRACT
The chapter talks about the defense of usury. Turgot provides one of the earliest outright defences of usury presented in the West since the raising of the Christian ban. Borrower's motives, in Turgot's view, make no difference to the justice of a lender's collecting interest; the money belongs to the lender, and the debtor has agreed to the terms at the time of borrowing. Bentham, like Turgot, may appear to have defended usury purely on the basis that individuals have the right to make whatever contracts they prefer. In a letter to Adam Smith, appended to his Defence of Usury, he aims, like Turgot, to demonstrate that the purposes for which usury allows money to be used are, upon balance, productive, even where interest rates are very high. Usury protects creditors from inherent limitations of their underwriting on risky loans.
