If Interest Sprang from Some Feature of Human Choice, Then It Sprang from a Fundamental Value Inequality

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk’s great achievement was to formulate the problem of interest theory as a value problem. He sought to explain interest as resulting from human choice and exchange, rather than as being caused by some factor outside of human action. The crucial point was that, if interest sprang from some feature of human choice, then it sprang from a fundamental value inequality, because choice involved the preference in action of a more valuable alternative over a less valuable one. Accordingly, observable interest rates manifested an inequality between the value of products and the total value of the corresponding means of production, including “waiting” or the “use” of capital.

--Jörg Guido Hülsmann, “A Theory of Interest,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 5, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 78.