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Social
Credit is, above all, a conviction
by Louis Even Principles Question
— Is Social Credit only a monetary system? Social Credit is, above all, a conviction
based on facts, and supported by principles. It is a philosophy of
economic life. Social Credit reasons in terms of realities, not in terms
of money. On the one hand, there are normal needs, which are a reality,
and on the other hand, the possibility to produce and deliver the goods
that answer these needs. Another fact: life in society allows much
more production than what could be achieved by the addition of all the
activities of individuals living in isolation, without any relation with
each other. The difference is an enrichment due to the fact of
association, an increment that must benefit all the members of society. Hence the conviction expressed by Social
Credit, namely, because of the present abundance of production, a
well-organized society can and must supply all of its members with the
means to satisfy their economic needs, in the order of their urgency. In
other words, there must be a certain level of economic security
guaranteed to each person, with no condition but the very existence of
this possibility. The financial proposals set up by the
Scottish engineer Clifford Hugh Douglas, and the modifications they
imply in the present monetary system, are only means to achieve this
end. By establishing what end must be achieved, and subjecting the means
to this end, Social Credit agrees with the concept of a truly humane
social organism that Pope Pius XI had in mind, when he wrote in his
encyclical letter Quadragesimo
Anno, in 1931: “For
then only will the economic and social organism be soundly established
and attain its end, when it secures for all and each those goods which
the wealth and resources of nature, technical achievement, and the
social organization of economic affairs can give. These goods must be
sufficient to supply all needs and an honest livelihood, and to uplift
men to that higher level of prosperity and culture which, provided it be
used with prudence, is not only no hindrance but is of singular help to
virtue.” The expression “all and each” was also taken up by Pope Pius XII in his Pentecost radio address on June 1, 1941: “Every
man indeed, as a reasonable gifted being, has, from nature, the
fundamental right to make
use of the material goods of the earth... Such an individual right
cannot, by any means, be suppressed.” These are principles which existed long
before the above-mentioned Popes expressed them. They also existed long
before Douglas conceived the Social Credit philosophy in 1917. Coheirs Douglas, however, added another factor to
the right of every man to make use of the material goods of the earth.
Pius XII said man has this right because he is a reasonable gifted
being; this was true since the creation of the first human being.
Douglas added another consideration: man of today's generation has this
right because he has inherited all the discoveries, inventions,
applications of science, new sources of energy, progress in the process
of production, and all that has been passed on from past generations to
ours. This inheritance, which has not been
“earned” by anyone of the present generation, is a community good
that equally belongs to all. It is also the largest factor in today's
production, without which neither the efforts of workers nor the
financial figures of capitalists would be able to supply but a small
percentage of today's huge production. It is a common inheritance, a
real common capital, and therefore all the coheirs are entitled to a
share of the fruits of this productive capital. The income issued from a capital is called
a dividend. The income issued from a social capital, of which all are
coheirs, is called a social dividend. This is what is meant by the
periodical dividend to all and each, one of the basic points of the
social organism advocated by Social Credit. When Pius XII stressed the fundamental
right of every man to make use of the material goods of the earth, he
added: “It
is reserved to human will and the juridical forms of the peoples to
regulate, with more detail, the practical realization of that right.” Will not, in today's world, the application
of a periodical dividend to each individual realize this right in a
concrete and efficacious way? Certainly in a much better way than the
complexity of all the social security measures that imply a barbaric tax
system, repeated inquiries and means tests, and an army of civil
servants. Is not the fact of giving each citizen,
from the cradle to the grave, a statute of capitalist, entitling him or
her to a periodical dividend on the economic and social plane, the best
weapon to set against the socialist and communist propaganda? Such an income, reaching individuals in the
form of a dividend, will respect their dignity. Contrary to wages and
salaries, it is not linked to bondage. It does not have the humiliating
character of any aid or allowance which requires that one proves his
poverty. It is the recognition of a birth right, inherent to the
individual, the right to a share of the goods issued from the natural
resources created by God, and the patrimony passed on by past
generations.
This notion of patrimony from past
generation, called by Douglas “cultural inheritance”, was also
understood and expressed by another great mind — not an economist nor
a sociologist by trade — but one of the most distinguished
philosophers of the twentieth century, Jacques Maritain, who wrote in
1936 in his book
Integral Humanism: “We
think that, in a system where a (more social) conception of property
would be in force, this axiom ('nothing for nothing') would not be able
to survive. Quite to the contrary, the law of usus
communis would lead us to establish that, at least and foremost,
what regards the basic material and spiritual needs of the human person,
it is proper for people to get, for nothing, as many things as
possible... The human person being served in his basic necessities is
only, after all, the first condition of an economy which does not
deserve to be called barbarous. “The
principles of such an economy would lead to a better understanding of
the profound meaning and the essentially human roots of the idea of
inheritance, in such a way that... all men, upon entering into the
world, could effectively enjoy, in some way, the condition of being a
heir of the preceding generations.” Jacques Maritain also took up this idea several times in his book Principles of a Humanistic Economy, in 1944: “Finally, it is this condition of coheirs of
the efforts of all that makes it feasible that all must get, for
nothing, as far as possible, a share in the elementary, material, and
spiritual goods of human existence.” Louis Even This
article was published in the March-April, 2003 issue of “Michael”. |
