In thinking about how modern intellectuals have evaluated capitalism, we must keep in mind the premodern traditions that formed the backdrop against which modern thinkers developed their ideas. Commerce and moneymaking were regarded with suspicion in two of the great traditions of the West. In the civic republican tradition, which went back to ancient Greece, commerce was seen as ignoble, and the pursuit of economic selfinterest was seen as a threat to civic virtue and the protection of the polity. In the Christian tradition, wealth was seen as promoting pride and hence impeding salvation, and the lending of money at interest was condemned as “usury.” In medieval Europe, the stigmatized activity of lending money was permitted to Jews, who were seen as beyond the community of the saved.