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Unemployment, a condemnation of the financial system

Written by Louis Even on Saturday, 01 March 1952. Posted in Social Credit

More products than purchasing power

What we are talking about here is forced unemployment, an unemployment that brings bitterness to a man's face who sees his salary or wage disappear.

If the worker is not completely destitute; if for a while he receives unemployment benefits; if he receives family allowances, he's far from receiving enough revenues to meet his obligations. And he does not know when his plight will come to an end. Moral depression follows, and very often, it follows the depression of the revenue.

Why the unemployment? Because the products are not being sold.

We therefore have this absurd situation: workers falling into misery because their work has supplied too many products, more products than the consumers can purchase.

We have this situation which all men of responsibility in the country should be ashamed of: citizens condemned to deprive themselves in front of accumulated products.

When men from the textile industries become unemployed, it is because the factories where they were working to the sweat of their brows are now bringing out more products than the families can afford to buy, but who nevertheless are in need of them.

The unemployed textile workers will themselves purchase less, and other products will not be sold. Other producers in other sectors will suffer from the unemployment in the textile industries. Hence, a new accumulation of unsold products, and the spreading of unemployment. There is no hope of alleviation of the situation other than war contracts, to manufacture weapons to kill human beings.

The great culprit in this state of affairs is the financial flaw in the distribution process; the stubborn determination at tying money to work, rather than tying money to products.

Money is only a “ticket”, a claim on products. In a logical system, in which money would be the financial expression of realities, the “tickets” entitling one to the products would be in direct proportion to the products available, and not in proportion to the work necessary to create the products.

Money is a claim on products – just like a “railroad ticket” entitles one to a seat on the train – just like a “theatre ticket” entitles one to a seat in a theatre.

The amount of railroad tickets is regulated by the amount of seats available. What corporation is stupid enough to have only 100 tickets available when it has 200 seats on the train? What theatre-owner would limit its availability of tickets to 500 when there are 1,000 seats in the theatre?

One must tackle the financial system in order to find the nonsensical reign of “poverty in the midst of plenty.” This is where the nonsense breeds more evil, because this is where the nonsense deprives mankind of the goods essential to life.

Finance in opposition to realities

When 5,000 workers become unemployed in the textile industry, this eliminates 5,000 salaries and wages, and reduces salaries and wages for others who are working a shorter week. This can mean 2.5 million dollars less, each week, in the hands of families who still have the same needs as the night before.

Each week, these families will purchase $2.5 million less of other products offered in the country.

Did these other products suddenly disappear when the unemployed workers in the textile industry stopped getting salaries and wages? Not at all! The products offered are still there. If the products are still there, and as plentiful, why aren't the “tickets” for the products (money) not in front of the products, and as plentiful as the products?

We always get the same answer: because the monetary system is flawed, deceitful, in disagreement with facts (production). Because the purchasing power goes according to employment rather than according to production. Rather than having an accountancy of service, the monetary system is a weapon of domination, a means to rule between the hands of those who control its issues in order to dictate our lives.

What is most unforgivable, it is that governments, who consider themselves sovereigns, who consider themselves autonomous, who proclaim themselves “the powers that be”, leave this disorder to perpetuate itself. They leave unjustifiably people in suffering who do not deserve it at all. They sleep soundly, after having praised the nation's prosperity, under their smart administration!

If the money system was in conformity with facts, there would be a greater distribution of purchasing power when the mountain of products gets larger. Since the products are accumulating, it is $2.5 million more that should be put into circulation, rather than $2.5 million less.

Unemployment without revenue is a flagrant condemnation of a system operating topsy-turvy.

When a woman goes to the store, she goes there to buy products, not to buy work or sweat. If, thanks to the machine, the product presented required only one hour of work rather than six, like before, the product is as good as when it required six hours of labour.

If there are four times more products with four times less labour, does one need four times less purchasing power, or four times more purchasing power?

In a sound financial system, there would be four times more purchasing power, four times more “tickets” in front of the products, because there are four times more products.

But in an unhealthy financial system, there will be four times less purchasing power, because there will be four times less work or jobs.

Approval of distinguished people

Yet, there are plenty of distinguished people who tell us that it is good that things are that way, because money without jobs is immoral.

For these distinguished people, it is undoubtedly immoral to breath the air, to enjoy the sun, when one has not worked to earn the air nor the sun.

For these distinguished people, the machine that replaces man and his sweat is a diabolical invention. It is immoral for man to make use of his brain. There is only morality when man's working muscles are glittering under the hot sun, with his back well arched under the weight of his labour, when man is well tethered to material production.

For these distinguished people, the ideal society would be a society of planned manhood, numbered, employed, rationed, conditioned like the beasts in the field that are earning the services of the barn.

These distinguished people should have at least the decency of keeping their mouths shut, and not to shout out anymore: “Work harder and consume less”, when there are more than 2 million people in Canada who would rather work, but who must remain unemployed because the consumers are not buying enough products.

Social Credit: the only solution

The solution to unemployment is not in the competition for war contracts. Unemployment has a financial cause. Its solution is in the order of finance.

The solution to unemployment is in a sound financial system, in conformity with realities. The solution to unemployment is in Social Credit.

The solution to unemployment is in the Social Credit dividend in order for people to purchase what the salaries and wages are insufficient to pay for. The dividend would allow the people to receive the fruits of the machine, like the people have the salaries and wages for the fruits of their labours.

In a Social Credit economy, there would still be work and jobs, inasmuch as it would be needed to supply the flow of products, though never as a condition to live when the products are already made.

In a Social Credit system, one could begin entertaining the thought of leisure, free activities, with men rich in a purchasing power coming to them in a different way than through employment. There would no more be a question of forced unemployment, escorted with deprivations and worry.

What are governments doing about it?

We have a Finance Minister in the Government, so what is he doing to correct the financial defect?

What are provincial governments doing about issuing and distributing the “tickets” for the people to be able to purchase the offered products in the province, when it is the “tickets” that are lacking in front of the products? Would not the rights to the products, issued by a responsible powers that be, not be as valid as the rights coming out of the bankers' pen or from the treasury of the exploiters of men?

Would not the credits, created in the ledgers of the Treasury, to the credits of the citizenry, begetting purchasing power, be as acceptable as the figures created in the bankers' ledgers, to the credit of the borrowers, in creating debts?

Would these credit transfers, from one account to another, in Treasury branches, be more complicated than the credit transfers, from one account to another, in the branches of the banks?

Would money, subdued to the service of mankind, be less desirable than mankind being subdued to the service of money?

You do not want Social Credit, you distinguished people and politicians? What do you have to offer in its place to settle the problem of unemployment and thousands of other problems, of which Finance is at the origin? Nothing? Only a continuation of the same tight-fisted satanic system that kills human beings?

Take a good look at your venerated system, gentlemen. What are its fruits? Take a good look at this worker being punished for having produced too much. Take a good look at these families deprived in front of accumulated products. Take a good look at the standard of living of men dictated by money, rather than being determined in accordance with the products' availability. Take a good look at all of their crudeness, at the undeserved sufferings, imposed only by financial conditions.

And you, the country's legislators, take a good look at yourselves as well. You who have the responsibility of the temporal common good, you do not even have the courage to speak out, to denounce the monetary dictatorship over the lives of men that you represent. We must demand the immediate cessation of this dictatorship. We must want free men, rather then men in chains; a serving money system rather than a tyrannical money system. You are cowards, heartless. Rather than strutting about your incompetence, with satisfied looks upon your faces and your bribed audiences or idiots to applaud you, you should all cover your faces in shame, while passing in front of the victims of the system of which you are all accomplices by your silence and your laissez-faire policies and attitudes.

 

Free activities to develop our talents

It is important to understand that when the “Michael” Journal talks about a dividend to everyone, this does not mean that we are against work, or promoting laziness. As Mr. Even said, people would still work in a Social Credit system, but in activities that are useful, of their own choosing, to develop their God-given talents.

It is precisely in his leisure time that man can really develop his personality, develop the talents that God gave him, and use them advisedly. Moreover, it is during their leisure time that parents can take care of their religious, social, and family duties: raising their family, practicing their Faith (to know, love, and serve God), and help their brethren. Raising children is the most important job in the world. Yet because the mother, who stays at home to raise her children, receives no salary, many will say that she does nothing, that she does not work!

To be freed from the necessity of working to produce the necessities of life does not presume becoming idle. It simply means that the individual would be placed in the position where he could participate in the type of activity which appeals to him. In a Social Credit system, there would be a flowering of creative activity. For example, the greatest inventions, the best works of art, have been made during leisure time. As Douglas said:

“Most people prefer to be employed, but on things they like rather than on the things they don't like to be employed upon. The proposals of Social Credit are in no sense intended to produce a nation of idlers... Social Credit would allow people to allocate themselves to those jobs to which they are suited. A job you do well is a job you like, and a job you like is a job you do well.”

A. Pilote

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