Responding to C.H. Nightingale
on Interest Theory

L.D. Beckwith

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, September-October 1938]

My thanks to C. H. Nightingale for his argument that we should not drop this matter of interest till we get to the bottom of it; and my thanks to you for publishing his statement.

But while we are delving into this matter, and while C. H. Nightingale is supposing all these things mentioned (see your page 126, July-August, 1938), suppose some one devote himself to explaining how interest "would go to zero," if the earnings of the people (which would include the earnings of business) "increased to such an extent that every one became a capitalist."

Our earnings in the commercial sense include returns on our capital; this is interest. Suppose borrowing does cease, what of it? Interest is still interest; and it can't "go to zero," when it is soaring in the stratosphere of prosperity.