Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles - The Ludwig von Mises ...

32 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycleshe and his successors are most certainly obliged to carry outthe task accepted and to fulfill the trust placed in them. 41It is recognized, in short, that those who receive money ondeposit are often tempted to use it for themselves. This isexplicitly acknowledged elsewhere in the Corpus Juris Civilis(Novellae, Constitution LXXXVIII, at the end of chapter 1),along with the importance of properly penalizing theseactions, not only by charging the depositary with theft, butalso by holding him responsible for payment of interest onarrears “so that, in fear of these penalties, men will cease tomake evil, foolish and perverse use of deposits.” 42Roman jurists established that when a depositary failed tocomply with the obligation to immediately return the tantundemupon request, not only was he clearly guilty of the priorcrime of theft, but he was also liable for payment of interest onarrears. Accordingly, Papinian states:He who receives the deposit of an unsealed package ofmoney and agrees to return the same amount, yet uses thismoney for his own profit, must pay interest for the delay inreturning the deposit. 43This perfectly just principle is behind the so-called depositumconfessatum, which we will consider in greater detail in thenext chapter and refers to the evasion of the canonical prohibitionon interest by disguising actual loan or mutuum contracts41 Si is, qui depositam a te pecuniam accepit, eam suo nominevel cuiuslibet alterius mutuo dedit, tam ipsum de implendasuscepta fide, quam eius successores teneri tibi, certissimum.est. (Ibid., p. 491)42 “Ut hoc timore stultorum simul et perversorum maligne versandi cursumin depositionibus homines cessent.” As is clear and we will laterexpand upon, it had already been demonstrated that depositaries madeperverse use of money entrusted to them by their depositors. See ibid.,vol. 6, pp. 310–11.43 Qui pecuniam apud se non obsignatam, ut tantundem redderet,depositam ad usus proprios convertit, post moram inusuras quoque iudicio depositi condemnandus est. (Ibid., vol.1, p. 841)