Churchill looks at the problem

Winston Churchill, in his Romanes Lecture at Oxford University in 1930, laid a logical foundation for approaching these problems (our financial and economic problems ED.) with a view to their ultimate solution. We quote the following extracts from that notable address:

"Direct taxation has risen to heights never dreamed of by the old economists and statesmen, and at these heights has set up many far-reaching reactions of an infrugal and even vicious character. We are in the presence of new forces not existing when the text-books were written...

"Beyond our immediate difficulty lies the root problem of modern world economics; namely, the strange discordance between the consuming and producing power...

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"If the doctrines of the old economists no longer serve for the purposes of our society, they must be replaced by a new body of doctrine equally well-related in itself, and equally wellfitting into a general plan...

"Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has so far failed.

"Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times.

"Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated."

As quoted in It's Time They Knew

by C. Barclay-Smith.

Churchil recognized the problem. Major Douglas revealed the solution Social Credit!

Credit and the economy

"There is no doubt whatever that the first step towards dealing with the problem is the recognition of the fact that what is commonly called credit by the banker is administered by him primarily for the purpose of private profit, whereas it is most definitely communal property.

"In its essence it is the estimated value of the only real capital - it is the estimate of the potential capacity under a given set of conditions, including plant, etc., of a society to do work.

"The banking system has been allowed to become the administrator of this credit and its financial derivatives with the result that the creative energy of mankind has been subjected to fetters which have no relation whatever to the real demands of existence. But it cannot be too clearly emphasized that real credit is a measure of the reserve of energy belonging to a community and in consequence drafts on this reserve should be accounted for by a financial system that reflects that fact."

Major DOUGLAS,

Economic Democracy, pp. 120-121

Ballot-box Democracy

"One of the most vicious fallacies of the period is that numerical majorities have rights, simply because they are majorities. It originally had validity in the pragmatic fact that a sufficiently large majority could militarily overwhelm a minority. The opinions of the majority were never more unreliable and unrelated to reality than they are at present when they are misled by the Press and the B.B.C. and have no appreciable military power. Only individuals have rights, and these are being systematically infringed by the manipulation of majorities, real and bogus."

C. H. Douglas, September, 1941

The essential mechanism of genuine democracy is decentralized control of the real credit of the community.

B. W. Monahan

From Douglas

The set of ideas which became the movement known as Social Credit, began with an examination of the problem of the relationship of the individual to the group, and the financial proposals which emerged were consciously, and in all their developments, designed to free the individual from group dominion. It is evident that the essential nature of the problem, not merely has not changed, but has become more sharply defined.

It was, early in the elaboration of the ideas, recognized that the group is essentially atavistic; it is something from which the individual has emerged, and his return to it is in the nature of spiritual death. Without, in this place, elaborating the connection between the anti-religious aspect of Communism, the soullessness of mass production, and the incompatability of cartelism and Trades Unionism with peace, it may be emphasized that there is a connection between all of them, and it is epitomized in that amazing reply: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." Caesar is, of course, functionalism, and if functionalism can be made paramount, if the Will can be paralyzed by the Arm, if the Good which I will, I do not, can be made uniform by the omnipotence of the atavistic Group over the emergent individual, then indeed the Devil is triumphant.

Major DOUGLAS, November, 1, 1947

Statism, a Frankenstein

I cannot share the simple faith of the Socialist that the State is a wise, just and benevolent institution into whose hands we can entrust our lives, liberties and industries, with perfect confidence as to the outcome.

The history of State activities over the last quarter of a century - in fact, all governments the world over shows clearly that they have been pursuing a policy that has made a steady and insidious encroachment upon the liberty and security of the individual.

A brief study of taxation over these years shows that every Government in the world has increased its demands tenfold and more.

Every so-called sovereign state has used its sanctions of power to exact an increasing tax tribute from the people...

The steady increase in taxation which the mass of the people pay for in increased living costs has been the major feature of all government policies over the last quarter of a century.

Armed with the sanctions of power, governments have extracted taxation to the point of confiscation and done it in the sacred name of the people!

It is as though the whole people had created a Frankenstein and glorified it with the name of the State. All the time it pursues a policy totally alien to their interests of financial policy and acts as though it were under duress of some hidden power greater than itself.

It is daily becoming clearer that the issue about to be resolved... is whether Power is to reside in the Individual or the State. The issue is one of Power. Is power to be used socially or anti-socially? For good or for ill?

That is the greatest human issue taking shape on the horizon. The outcome will transcend anything which is now being resolved by the force of arms. The Socialist backs the State: Economic Democracy (Social Credit) puts its money on the individual. From now onward we are destined to witness an epic struggle the growing assertion of Man, the Individual, against all the forces hell-bent upon his subjection and enslavement...

C. BARCLAY-SMITH in

The Answer To Socialism, pp. 122-3-4

Since the printer was closed for vacations during part of August, the August issue has been combined with that of September.