Inflation means that prices increase. Social Dividends are not included in establishing retail prices. Therefore prices should not increase.
If the amount of money was increased, without taking production into consideration, demand might surpass the production capacity. In this case, prices would tend to increase due to a lack of products. With a Social Dividend, prices would decrease since sales would be increased.
Social Credit offers a financial system that is simple but complete. It eliminates all causes of inflation by having money reflect reality precisely.
Dr. Bryan Monahan, Chairman of the Social Credit Secretariat, and a close associate of Douglas, claimed that the conflict between progress and the search for full employment was at the root of inflation.
This objection has been refuted time and time again. It does not hold up. Would anyone leave a job to settle for a Dividend when it only comprised a portion of their total income?
Laziness is a vice. Money was not designed as a weapon against vice.
It is not necessary to be actively employed to share with and to care for others.
We can answer by asking if the sun receives a paycheck to heat and light up the solar system. Does the moon draw a salary relative to the size of its crescent? Do rivers get paid according to the height of their waterfalls? Nothing for nothing? Does an infant in his crib have a right to nothing? Would we say the sick and elderly have a right to nothing?
On that count, Our Lord should never have multiplied the bread and fishes and committed the “crime” of distributing them free of charge. In the Lord’s Prayer, we would not recite the words: “Give us this day our daily bread”. Instead, the Lord would have told us to earn our daily bread.
Shareholders who receive their dividends show no less interest for their enterprises. When they work in the factory they own, do they become lazy if they receive a dividend on top of their wages?
It would be idiotic to think so. They know that only an increase in the volume or quality of their products will increase their dividends. They will therefore double their efforts at work.
Critics might argue: “This is welfare, it will make people lazy, people will not want to work anymore, etc.” But they exclude themselves as not counting among the lazy. It is the others they worry about; the population whom they scorn.
To the contrary, the Social Dividend would help put an end to corruption. By giving everyone access to basic goods, society would be at the service of all of its members, not only the favoured few.
They cry out because they own nothing and they are angry at those who own something. If they themselves were capitalists, they would act differently.
Should we get rid of critics? Of course not.
There is something better we can do and that is to make everyone a capitalist. We must recognize the fact that each individual is entitled to a share of the commonly-owned capital. If the commonly-owned capital were acknowledged and gave its owners an income, everyone would be a capitalist, including socialists!
Everyone would enjoy a good measure of freedom; the same measure enjoyed by folk who have money in their pocket which allows them to accept work that suits them and turn down work which is not suitable.
People who do not understand Social Credit cannot understand how a Social Dividend would be distributed without an increase in taxes.
Today, any money that comes from the government in the form of a child tax credit, old age security and social security comes from taxation.
Money is created, but not created soundly. Money is created by banks as debt and so taxation is inevitable. Under a Social Credit system we would still use figures as money but it would be free of debt. All new money would be based on the country’s productive capacity.
It is because Social Credit is not known and understood. Mankind has been hypnotized with a Jansenist economic philosophy maintained by financial powers and by those who wish to dominate others.
Social Credit is not likely to become a dangerous tool in the hands of an oppressive government. Social Credit will not replace the banking monopoly by a state-run monopoly. Government will not create money at will and for its own purposes.
Social Credit would model the workings of the monetary system to the workings of the judicial system.
The government appoints judges, but does not interfere in their rulings. Judges do not render verdicts based on profit; their incomes are independent of their rulings. They render judgements objectively, based on laws that they themselves have not written, and based on facts they neither forged nor created. Judgments are made based on testimonies that establish facts. Judges do not testify in their own courts.
The same would apply to a Social Credit monetary system. The government would name the members of the National Credit Office (NCO). The NCO would assure that the monetary system functioned according to the law.
Finance would precisely reflect the facts of production and consumption and subsequently guarantee that a periodic Dividend was distributed to all citizens. Once its function was clearly defined, the NCO would proceed without government interference.
The judicial system requires that justice is rendered openly and publicly. Likewise, the NCO would draft and publish periodic reports upon which its calculations were made. There would be no place for dictatorship with such a system.