PROPOSITION: Louis
Even would have approved of the design of LETS
as a Social Credit system.
PRIMER OF SOCIAL CREDIT
p8 Do we lack
anything but money? Yet, money is not real wealth.
p11 Those who
control the volume of money control our standard of
living.
p16 The banker
claims interest on the money he has created.
p17 Repayment
must be greater than the original loan. Therefore,
if I succeed, someone else must fail because
all together, we are not
both able to repay more money than has
been created.
p18 All money
comes into existence as a debt, through the banker,
who claims more than he put into circulation.
p19 Clamping
interest on money the moment it comes into existence
is unjust and absurd, harmful to society
and contrary to good
arithmetic. Even legalized, such a procedure
is both vicious and
insulting.
p21 There are
laws to ensure the money makers are repaid but none
to prevent a human from dying of misery.
p22 The pen of
the banker enslaves government and lays a burden
of hardship upon the people. The making
of money is an act of
sovereignty which should not be left in
the hands of banks.
p26 When you
have no food, it is not because the rich eat all the
grain. It is because your share is still
lying in the grain elevators.
You've been deprived of the means of getting
that grain.
p33 A commission
of theologians in 1939 unanimously declared that
in Social Credit had no tinge of Socialism
or Communism.
p35 Money born
from a banker's pen comes into the world as a debt
owed by man. Money at its birth, is master.
(Economists are its
lackeys.)
With Social Credit
finance, money comes forth as a servant of
man. Each child would have at its birth
a right to a dividend, a share
in past capital.
p37 If each had
enough to ward off want, we'd witness the birth
of economic security in a country which
materially lacks nothing.
p38 From this
security is born liberty.
p41 Under a regime
where money is nothing more than a means of
fair distribution, amassing it no long
confers the means of domination
over others.
p42 The result
would be a maximum of efficiency with a minimum of
effort.
p43 Financial
credit, money, would be issued at the rate of new
production and withdrawn at the rate of
consumption.
p46 Social Credit
requires the devoted efforts of numerous
apostles who are not afraid of ridicule
and sacrifice from the spirit
of the Pharisees which reigns among the
intellectual classes.
Credit is the
correct estimate of capacity to achieve.
IN THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE
p27 If a system
is detrimental to the masses, do we let them
suffer or change the system?
Since money has
been created to facilitate production and
distribution, should we limit production
and distribution to our money
or put money into sync with the production
and distribution?
Under the present
banking system, money rules the production and
distribution.
p32 Economics
has a goal: to satisfy the needs of men.
p39 Social Credit
philosophy is corporate philosophy unfettered
by financial restraints.
p44 The real
problem is not scarcity as decried by economists but
abundance as demonstrated by voluntary
destruction of production.
p45 Production
is a long way from trying to satisfy needs. It's a
production calculated to satisfy profit
motives. Greed.
p51 Under present
economic rules, personal participation in
production is necessary to obtain title
to that production. Wages. We
must disassociate title to production
from personal contribution.
p54 Engineers
have harnessed the forces of nature to replace the
forces of man. p55 No one doubts Canada's
ability to house, clothe and
feed everyone. Yet, how many are sure
to have a part sufficient to
care for them and their families? p56
Real demand arises from real
need. As long as there are hungry people,
there is a real demand for
food. Unsheltered? A real demand for housing.
Sick? Demand for doctors
and health care. This demand is only effective
when it has title to
production, money. Demand is a function
of the selling pressure. It
must jive with the prices of the seller,
not the needs of the
consumer. The humane solution is to render
the money where there is
need, not create need where there is money.
p57 Doesn't it
make sense that real demand is the proper
objective of production? And that first
and foremost, this real demand
should be satisfied? We must therefore
1) first produce enough for all
the needs of all, 2) institute an economic
system that assures
universal and automatic distribution to
all. Once this is achieved, we
can concentrate on the production and
winning of luxury goods. All
financial difficulties are of a secondary
nature. If the financial
system cannot deliver the required service,
it has failed and must be
replaced.
p63 Where did
the billions of dollars come from that the
government used to finance the second
world war with when, in the
previous ten years, there weren't enough
to finance simple ordinary
production? Where were the dollars during
the depression that financed
the country so well before the crash?
p64 Why did those
who created the money to finance the war not
create it to finance production?
p68 And how was
it that the youth who hit the streets for years
because there was no money could immediately
be called up, dressed,
housed, armed, and transported to take
part in the European butchery?
Why, because the banks created all the
credit necessary to finance the
war but they wouldn't finance the production
of wealth.
p69 After all,
money is easy for a banker to make. Yet, before
the war, the world was in hell because
no government ordered them to
start financing. Since government can't
print money and it can't pump
out of people more than was put in, (interest)
it is doomed to forever
being in debt because of the interest
on the credit created by the
banks.
p70 Since winners
need extra for interest payments, even with
sharing, there must be losers.
p71 We were are
the mercy of those who make and retire money.
Money is put into circulation by lending
it out and sticking interest
on it.
p72 Multiple
bankruptcies of companies, mortgages on mortgages,
and ever increasing public debt are the
natural effect of such a
system.
p76 We want a
system that puts money into circulation according
to our physical possibilities and needs.
The efficient banker's only
function is to put money into and out
of circulation according to the
number of ergs in the real game. Money
should come out of the
country's capacity to produce and with
respect to the demand for
possible goods. The Canadian war effort
was made possible by ignoring
the artificial obstacles, the financial
ones. Social Credit isn't
Communist because private industry remains
as does private property.
p99 There is abundance but it is kept
under lock and key because only
those with the privilege of contributing
to its production have the
right, via wages, to a part of it. The
others, nothing.
p101 The dividend
allows the poor to consume products that
otherwise would go to waste.
p109 Price is
a mathematical question.
p110 An article's
exact price is the sum of the energy expended
in its production.
p115 If a certain
product is not wanted, it won't be bought and
its production will cease. The Social
Credit banker keeps money in
linear relationship to energy. There will
be no inflation because
there will be no absence of products given
the demand of money.
p118 We must
therefore distinguish between real credit and
financial credit. Real credit grows at
the same rate as the productive
capacity of the country. Financial credit
should reflect the real
credit. This is not the case. In the 1930s,
Canada hadn't lost its
real credit, its capacity to do work,
yet it lost its capability of
access to financial credit where required.
Real credit is our useful
capacity. Financial credit is at the mercy
of the bankers whose
profits are more important than our well-being.
It is under
international influence and not representative
of our production or
our needs.
p121 Money, created
by banks to represent the real credit, has
one fundamental flaw. From some inconceivable
privilege, the banks
treat this credit as their own to be lent
out at interest to the
authors of the real credit. Also, the
real money credit is only
temporary because it must be retired on
a schedule even when the real
credit base continues to exist. The plant
increases the real credit of
the country and the money game should
reflect that fact. Present
banking doesn't. Social Credit banking
does.
p125 Money shouldn't
dictate production. It should register it.
So far, money dictates.
SOCIAL CREDIT MONETARY THEORY
1) National control
of money;
2) Accurate accounting
of the real credit;
3) Creation of
new money with new energy;
4) Accurate sharing
of automated production.
p135 Social Credit
is society as servant to all. We could
imprison those who break windows to get
at goods or imprison those who
cause the unbuyable production to accumulate.
p136 The banks
have monopolized money and credit and change the
nation's progress into debt.
p137 The economic
monopoly and the political monopoly seem to
have a gentlemen's agreement to protect
each other at the expense of
the nation.
p142 The national
dividend is the only measure of social security
that neither binds nor humiliates. It
also ensures maximum production
by delivering maximum demand. Because
there didn't exist the means to
purchase, haven't we before destroyed
wealth?
p145 Consumers
can properly effect demand when they have the
proper amount of money in hand. It loses
its power of dominance since
the financial means exist to get done
all that is physically possible.
The national dividend will increase as
wage earners are replaced by
more efficient machines.
p164 Isn't the
social organization that multiplies the production
possibilities also a common asset? Shouldn't
each citizen from the
cradle to the grave, being a capitalist,
co-proprietor of the common
capital, not draw a dividend on this common
capital when this capital
produces? We will draw the dividend on
the common capital.
p172 Social Credit
tames money. It is master and facilitates
production.
p173 The industrialist
registers the development of his plant and
the banker issues the new dollars.
p176 Without
a previous economic crisis, it would be hard to get
the happy working men to go an butcher
each other in a war.
p177 Under a
system of inadequate money, we can capture an
opponent's market with great calm. This
is impossible under Social
Credit. How many businessmen have
cheated and stolen because they
couldn't have otherwise survived?
p176 You will
kill in order to survive. Business is business. In
this way does the present system enslave
man.
P177 Under Social
Credit, money is born without debt in the hands
of the consumers.
p180 According
money the power to grow is unnatural, yet bankers
demand that the money reproduces under
penalty of confiscation of
property or of liberty.
p182 The national
dividend is perfectly justifiable if there is
plenty of production.
p184 Banks place
savings in the hands of profitable business
regardless of utility.
p196 It's irrational
to accept a system of rare money in the face
of so much real wealth.
p213 Who are
the non-wage earners? The young, the old, the weak,
the sick.
p217 Production
accounting is adequate but the distribution
accounting isn't. Social Credit is the
only scientific money system.
p227 If we could
freely serve up, with no financial restraints,
bombs for the Germans, why not freely
serve up food for Canadians?
Replace destructive devices by constructive
ones and keep them.
p231 The industry
pledges its acquired assets as collateral.
These guarantees are in the hands of the
bankers. He cannot lose. He
is the major beneficiary of progress that
he has no part in creating.
Around the sovereign banker or lender
are attached the powerful
monopolies that suffocate competition
and foul the economic air. The
present money representation of our progress
is an injustice. A theft.
IN THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE
Chapter 6
The abundance
of good, introduced into the world since man
discovered the means of transforming energy
and harnessing the forces
of nature to his service, ought to be
reflected in economic security
for all which means, at the very least,
modest material comfort in
every home and an era of good joyful and
peaceful social relations
among individuals and nations.
Unfortunately,
the pictures that catches the eyes in all the
civilized counties in the world is quite
different.
In front of an
abundance of goods that pile up, except when they
are destroyed in wartime, destitution
takes place.
Elevators and
warehouses are full to overflowing; shop windows,
newspapers, radio and TV announce everywhere
a wide range of products
while people in their homes have to do
without food, and use fags and
old furniture longer than ordinary.
"What percentage
of our population is merely existing rather than
enjoying the use of available and sufficient
wealth to live in
reasonable comfort? At least three-fourths
of our population" Rev.
Charles Coughlin, Money, page 26.
But quotations
are hardly necessary. Most readers have only to
examine their situation and that of their
neighbors. So who, today,
has his or her future assured?
No one doubts
that, tomorrow, Canada can continue to supply in
plenty what is needed in terms of food,
clothing and housing. But how
many7 are assured of having a sufficient
share for themselves and for
their families, tomorrow, the day after
tomorrow, next year?
The number of
unemployed and of laid-off workers should,
logically, show an overabundance of goods
and that consumption has
reached saturation point. But this number
expresses, above all,
sufferings and desperation.
The goods are
there in front of human needs. So shy do these
goods not fill these existing needs? What
does prevent the economy
from reaching its ends?
Why is it that
the consumers who have so many unsatisfied needs
cannot use these goods made for them?
The existence
of widespread poverty in front of so much
production and of a huge unused production
capacity is a terrible
accusation against the distributive organism.
Never has supply
been so great. In front of this supply, is there
actually no demand?
Demand exists.
But the title to supply, the right to have it, is
wanting; this title is money.
REAL DEMAND; EFFECTIVE
DEMAND
On should make
a distinction between real demand and effective
demand.
The real demand
ensues from real needs. As long as there are
people who are hungry, there is a real
demand for food. As long as
there are people without proper shelter,
there is a real demand for
housing. As long as there are sick people,
there is a real demand for
medicine and medical care.
But this real
demand becomes effective only if it presents money,
the title to production.
Effective demand
exists only where money is united to needs.
Under the present
economic system, one usually notices a lot of
real demands without the titles that would
make them effective. The
producers, forced to recover their expenses,
look for places where
there is still some money left, and then
do everything possible to
create a demand. This is to sell under
pressure, which no longer
answers the needs of the consumers, but
the needs of the producers.
THE CONSUMERS
ARE EXPLOITED
This is a reversal
of the economic order. The consumers become
exploited victims and no longer the master
to serve.
The humane solution
would be to put money where the needs are,
thus making the real demand effective;
and not to create artificial
needs where the real demand does not exist.
Major Douglas
points out that to reconciliate the real demand and
the capacity to pay, the will-to-power
will have to be defeated by the
will-to-freedom, and that this reconciliation
involves a modification
of the distributive system. (See Economic
Democracy, page 90.)
He adds with
a sound of conception of the end of economics:
"No if there
is any sanity left in the world at all, it should be
obvious that the real demand is the proper
objective of production and
that it must be met from the bottom upwards,
that is to day, there
must be first a production of necessaries
sufficient to meet universal
requirements; and secondly, an economic
system must be devised to
ensure their practically automatic and
universal distribution; this
having been achieved it may be followed
to whatever extent may prove
desirable by the manufacture of articles
having a more limited range
of usefulness. All financial questions
are quite beside the point; if
finance cannot meet this simple proposition,
then finance fails and
will be replaced."
Since production
exists to satisfy the needs of the consumers and
since according to regulations generally
accepted, the consumers must
present money to draw upon production,
the money in the hands of the
consumers must be in keeping with
tier needs, combined with the
country's productive capacity. If this
is not so, money works against
the consumers, therefore against man.
In this case, a change is
essential.
NO TO COMMUNISM
It is because
the present money system hinders the satisfaction
of the consumers' needs that certain people
propose the abolition of
money. According to them, the State would
then seize all of the
production that is not consumed by its
authors and would itself
distribute it to all the members of the
community.
This is the Communist
solution, which nobody wants in our
country.
Yet, one cannot
approve of the immobilization of goods and
production in front of urgent needs.
We do not even
consider the dictatorial solution, where it is no
longer the consumers who express their
needs: a superman dictates to
all what they should have and to production
what it should do. IN such
a system, guns may well be produced at
the expense of bread.
MONEY FOR ALL
There is another
solution, the solution which, in putting money
in all hands of the consumers, of ALL
consumers, gives them ALL the
right to choose products. Then the consumers
really orient production.
It is the Social Credit solution. It brought
a sociologist to write:
"And if you want
neither Socialism nor Communism, bring Social
Credit in array against them. It will
be in your hands a powerful
weapon with which to fight these enemies."
But you must
first study this money question, to understand
whence the shortcomings of the monetary
system, and how to make it
work and fulfill its role.;
Louis Even.
CHAPTER 9
The situation
comes down to this inconceivable thing: all the
money in circulation comes only from the
banks. Even coin or paper
comes into circulation only if it has
been released by the banks.
But the banks
put money into circulation only by lending it out
at interest. This means that all money
in circulation has come from
the banks and must some day return to
the banks, increased with the
interest.
The banks remain
the owners of the money. We are only the
borrowers. If some manage to hang on to
their money for a long period
of time, or even permanently, others are
necessarily incapable of
fulfilling their commitments.
A multiplicity
of personal and corporate bankruptcies, mortgages
upon mortgages, and ever-increasing public
debts, are the natural
fruits of such a system.
Charging interest
on money as it comes into existence is both
illegitimate and absurd, antisocial and
contrary to good arithmetic.
The monetary defect is therefore as much
a technical defect as a
social defect.
As our country
grows, in production as well as in population,
more money is a must. But it is impossible
to get new money without
contracting a debt which collectively
cannot be paid.
So we are left
with the alternatives of either stopping growth or
getting into debt; of either plunging
into mass unemployment or into
an unrepayable debt. And it is precisely
this dilemma that is being
debated in every country.
Aristotle and
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that money does not
breed more money. But the bankers bring
money into existence only
provided that it breeds more money. Since
neither governments nor
individuals create money, no one creates
the interest claimed by the
bankers. Even legalized, this form of
issue remains vicious and
insulting.
DECLINE AND DEGRADATION
This way of creating
our country's money, by forcing governments
and individuals into debt, establishes
a real dictatorship over
governments and individuals alike.
The sovereign
government has become a signatory of debts to a
small group of profiteers. A minister,
who represents 26 million men,
women and children, signs unrepayable
debts. The banker, who
represents a clique interested only in
profit and power, manufactures
our country's money.
This is one striking
aspect of the degeneration of power of which
the Pope spoke: governments have surrendered
their noble functions and
have become the servants of private interest.
John C. Turmel, B. Eng.