[Avodah] early bird specials and ribbis

[Zev Sero]

David Riceman wrote:
> From: "Zev Sero" <zev at sero.name>
> 
>> <me>
>>>  an early payment is a loan which lasts until payment is due, and 
>>> that's why giving a discount for an early payment is assur.
> 
>> <RZS>
>> Except that that's clearly not true.  Giving a discounted wage advance
>> to a future employee is only forbidden because it *looks* like a loan,
>> not because it is one.
> 
> You've forgotten the gemara and Rashbam I cited in the previous post.  
> Wages are not fixed.  Hence a discount is merely a reduction in wages.  
> Hence it merely "looks like" a discounted loan.

Nor is rent; that's why it's OK to do this with rent.  And nor are
camp fees, or concert tickets.  Their price is whatever the vendor
says they are, and when the vendor publishes a schedule of fees and
discounts, it's clear what's going on.


>>  Giving such an advance to a current employee
>> involves exactly the same transaction -- he's not legally entitled to
>> the money, he hasn't performed the work for which it's paying, and he
>> isn't legally obligated *ever* to perform that work -- and yet it's
>> permitted because it doesn't *look* like a loan.

> No!!!  "Lo nire'h k'agar natar": it doesn't look like a discounted loan. 
> It's the discounting, not the loan, which is ribis.  Giving loans to 
> people who need them is a kiyum mitzva.

Same thing.  It's not ribbis because it's not a loan; it doesn't look
like ribbis because it doesn't look like a loan.  In the case of the
future employee, it looks like a loan, and therefore the discount
looks like ribbis.

I think what you're missing is why it is that the case of the future
employee is forbidden.  If their deal were public knowledge, there
wouldn't be a problem.  The problem is that an observer won't see it
at all like it really is.  The observer will think that Reuven went
to Shimon for a simple loan, unrelated to any possibility of future
employment; later, when the time came for Reuven to pay, he offered
to work it off, accepting a lower rate than the prevailing wage at
that season.  If that were really the case, then the discount would
be clear ribbis.  The reason it's not actually ribbis is because
that isn't really what happened, but an outside observer is not to
know that.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas