Essay（s） by Israel Zangwill
Credit
Israel Zangwill
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Every day makes clearer the evils of our complex credit system--that Frankenstein creation we have lost control over, that ampulaceous growth of capital, most of which is merely figures in a book, and which only exists in virtue of not being asked for, much as the tit-bits on a restaurant menu are "off" when ordered. The real meaning of National Debts is that every civilised country is bankrupt, and only goes on trading because its creditors give it time. To the uncertainties of the weather, and the chances of cholera, war, and earthquake, we have added an artificial uncertainty worse than any of these--we have invented a series of financial cyclones, which sweep round the globe, devastating all lands, and no more to be predicted--despite theories of sun-spots, cyclones and financial crises--than wrecks at sea; indeed, far less predictable, for I believe with the ex-mayor quoted by Bonamy Price, that finance is a subject which no man can understand in this world, or even in the next. The infinite ramifications, the endless actions and reactions, are beyond the grasp of any one but an impostor. The Professor just mentioned thought he had found the right thread of theory in the labyrinth of "Currency and Banking," and really did make a most sensible analysis of what actually went on in financial operations. Only he left out one great factor--the immense influence on the market of other people's wrong theories. No, if there is a right thread of theory, it must be so tangled as to be worse than useless. My friend the business man tells me that for success in business one requires four things: a large capital, industry, insight, and caution--and then it's a toss-up. I am fain to believe this whole system of modern commerce was devised to please the amateurs of the aleatory.
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Israel Zangwill's essay: Credit