The Power of Finance

I suppose that we are all familiar with such phrases as “The Power of Money” and others to the same effect, but the Government by Money to which I want to draw your attention is something much more concrete than that.

Our thoughts of governments usually range over subjects as Houses of Parliament, laws, and at the other end of the scale, policemen. But you will at once agree, I think, that this sort of government is largely negative, and is almost entirely concerned with telling you what you must not do.

Even in these law-ridden days, after the long-suffering citizen has taken out about eighteen licences of various sorts to permit him to move about, to stay still, to listen-in, and so forth, he does not come very much in contact with the law.

But from the moment that he arises in the morning to the moment that he goes to bed at night, or, more comprehensively, from the moment that he draws breath to the moment of his death, and after, his activities are governed and limited by the money system.

His clothes, his food, his house, his education, either in the more literal sense or in the broader sense of ability to travel and see the world, his avocation in life, and the rapidity with which he progresses in it, are largely matters of money, and very often nothing but money.

Major C. H. DOUGLAS (Warning Democracy, p. 93)