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Literary notes about usurious (AI summary)

In literature, "usurious" is often deployed as a critique of exploitative financial practices. For example, in James Joyce's depiction, an obscure financier amasses wealth by lending money to workmen at exorbitant interest rates, thus highlighting the predatory nature inherent in his early dealings [1]. Meanwhile, Suetonius draws attention to a form of moral inversion, where individuals who benefit from low-interest borrowing turn around to profit usuriously by lending that money at inflated rates, thereby underscoring the ethical decay in such transactions [2]. Together, these examples encapsulate the term's longstanding association with financial impropriety and social injustice in literature.
  1. He had begun life as an obscure financier by lending small sums of money to workmen at usurious interest.
    — from Dubliners by James Joyce
  2. Some he disgraced for borrowing money at low interest, and letting it out again upon usurious profit.
    — from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

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