Perversion

Whether we look at the structure of this world from a religious or scientific point of view, we cannot help being impressed by the incredibly grand scale of the reserves behind this universe. For millions of years the Sun has been pouring its life-giving energy upon this planet; from this lavish supply we obtain not only the food upon which all life depends, but also our petrol, coal and hydro-electric power. According to the estimates made by scientists the supply of energy from the Sun is likely to last for millions of years.

Sir Albert Howard, who studied plant disease most of his life, found that nature never tackles a job unless it has abundant reserves in hand. Abundance seems to be an essential feature of the organization of men. Men have usually found means of producing much more than they can use and one of the chief problems of modern governments is how to get rid of the surpluses. In the face of the continually increasing flow of wealth from automatic machines driven by solar energy, rationing of goods by means of our money system is causing a great deal of strife among producers and retailers.

Rationing abundance is an impossible task, and it is turning industry and commerce into a nightmare of perversions. The official policy of Full Employment in an age of automatic processes is something so diabolically stupid that it makes co-operation from intelligent men impossible and the consequent struggle to get rid of surpluses by export and dumping is developing into a dangerous trade war.

The ridiculous basis of our production system is such that it can only be made to function by some kind of totalitarian regime, and the rapid take-over by monopolies. The demand for a centrally planned economy is a measure of the recognition that co-operation is no longer on a voluntary basis.

The people will only submit to unnecessary rationing and the humiliations of the centrally planned state through fear and panics produced by crises. The art of producing crises is now an essential part of government.

The only alternative to a free society is a regimented society - a society ruled by brute force imposed from the top by a small elite. In Russia the overwhelming power of brute force is no longer questioned; in other states it is very thinly disguised.

It might be said that it is very easy to talk about a free society but another thing to define it. C. H. Douglas defined the essentials of a free society when he defined liberty as the "freedom to choose or refuse one thing at a time". This does not mean that we can dispense with the restrictions and disciplines of an organization, but it does mean that an individual can choose his own disciplines, which incidentally may be more severe than those imposed upon him by society. He can choose which organisations he shall patronise, and for how long; in other words, he is a volunteer, and not a conscript; he is a willing worker, not a serf.

To say we have freedom of choice does not mean we can defy the laws of nature, and to say that because we have to conform to these laws there is a limitation in our power of choice is merely to talk about things that have no practical meaning.

As has been pointed out by several writers, the fixity and uniformity of the laws of nature are not really limitations; they are essential preliminaries for any kind of arrangement. If these laws were to change from day to day we could not arrange to catch a train, meet a friend, or repeat with the same result, any common process. Running throughout the large variety of observed phenomena in the inorganic world are the same physical laws; and because every part of the microscopic and macroscopic world conforms to these laws we have order, permanency and predictability over thousands of years.

We all know where we stand. Writ large across the physical universe for all to see is the word 'Integrity'. Into this physical framework men are born to make a heaven or a hell for themselves.

As in the organic world, so in the world of human affairs, to arrange anything at all you must know where you stand with other people. It is a very great convenience to deal with men of integrity because not only do we have a sense of security, but events are predictable years ahead. This supplies a valuable and very essential labour-saving device; it supplies a grand simplification which produces that secure and leisurely background which is so necessary for growth of a society which is something more than an antheap. Out of this environment we can see things grow as inevitably as plants grow out of fertile soil.

Where there is integrity there is no such thing as chaos; chaos for any length of time is neither natural, reasonable, accidental, human or divine. Writ large across the organisation of our chaotic society is the word 'perversion'. Chaos, to be maintained for any length of time among men or animals or plants has to be organized.

James Guthrie

in The Social Crediter of April 29, 1961