About two years ago the Communist leader Khrushchev confidently predicted that our grandchildren would live under Socialism. If the present centralization of Government and controls in the non-Communist world continues, Khrushchev may be proved right by events. One of the most disturbing features of our times is the fact that many individuals have lost the very appetite for freedom and personal responsibility. The progressive centralization of power in all spheres has robbed the individual of his most divine attribute, individual initiative.
We return to this subject at a time when the Communist leaders appear to be prepared to allow more visitors from the non-Communist world to visit Communist countries. There appears to be little doubt that the Communists have observed with keen anticipation the undermining of the sense of individual freedom in the Western world as the State becomes more powerful and exercises more and more influence over all aspects of the individual's life. People who have been taught to believe since birth that material activities and progress are synonymous terms, can be safely allowed to visit Communist countries to see enormous State-directed projects. They return to the non-Communist world telling all who will listen that, irrespective of what the West thinks of Communism as a political system, it cannot deny its "achievements".
One of the most penetrating observations we have seen on Mikoyan's visit to America, was that there was really nothing very surprising about the Communist leader getting on so well with the representatives of Big Finance and Big Industry; all were used to handling enormous power and basically thought in terms of power and large-scale planning. Irrespective of what terms are used to describe it, power centralized allows a small group of men to exercise control over all other men. And all power, no matter what instrument is used to exercise it, tends to corrupt. Corruption by power may not yet be as rampant or as obvious, in the non-Communist world as it is in the Communist world, but it is growing rapidly as the concentration of power develops. There is absolutely no hope of averting the complete destruction of freedom unless the peoples of the non-Communist countries can halt the policies of centralization and progressively compel the decentralization of power. (Italics ours - Ed.) The first necessity for the defeat of the Communist challenge, is the defeat of every policy of monopoly in the non-Communist countries.
The principal instrument being used in the non-Communist world to further centralization and monopoly, is the centralized financial system. Most policies of monopoly in the economic sphere can be traced directly and indirectly to the centralised control of the creation and issue of financial credit. The alleged efficiency of large centralised economic units is as bogus as the alleged efficiency of State projects in the Communist countries. The conclusion is inescapable that the controllers of international finance are, by their persistent support for economic centralism, deliberately pursuing a policy which must destroy genuine free competitive enterprise and private ownership.
The late C. H. Douglas observed that the real threat to Western Civilization was a combination of the scum of the underworld and the richest men in the world. All the available evidence proves that the richest men of the world have no real fear of the Communists, but welcome and encourage the activities of these gangsters in their drive for world power. Whether or not it is Mr. Khrushchev's socialism or some other-ism will not matter very much from the point of view of the individual. He will have lost control of his own life. Nothing is more important at this crucial time in history than to encourage individuals to realise that if they cannot, or will not defeat all policies of centralism, their grandchildren will most certainly be serfs.
The New Times - Editorial April 24, 1959
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