Canto XLV Strength and Skill Quotes

According to Pound, modern art isn't built to last, but only to sell. In other words, artists don't make art anymore wondering if people will still like it in 100 years. They only care about whether someone right now will be willing to pay money for it.

In a world where people can just make money off of other money (like playing the stock market), truly talented people don't bother producing anything real anymore. Pound decides to symbolize this lack of production by claiming that usura keeps a stonecutter from his stone. His phrasing here suggests that usura has somehow ruined the destiny of the stonecutter, who was born to work with stone but doesn't because of usura.

Continuing with his theme of hating on usura, Pound here says that basically nothing gets done if everyone decides they just want to make money off of banks and stocks. For Pound, it makes no sense at all to live in a world where people just make money off of money. If everyone did that, then nothing would ever actually get done in the real world.

If Pound's starting to sound repetitive here, it's because he is. Again, he tries to drive home the point that nothing productive can happen if people just make money off of their own money.

Usura has a way of ruining pretty much everything it touches. But what bothers Pound the most is that usura ruins people's ability to create beautiful objects. So when he says that usura "rusteth the chisel," he's saying that beauty—the most important aspect of all human creation—is made impossible in a world with usura.

Sure, it's all well and good to weave gold into whatever you're making. But hey, gold is expensive and tough to weave. So why bother, right? Most customers aren't going to fully appreciate it. Well this is exactly the kind of thinking that usura causes, according to Pound. The main question we ask of what we make is, "How cheaply can I make this?" instead of "How beautifully can I make this?"