JCT: A few years ago, I sent a mailer to socreds
and other
monetary reformers around the world proclaiming LETS as the optimal
monetary system. I received a letter from Donald Neale, Chairman of
the Social Credit Secretariat in Edinburg, Scotland. For those of you
who have not read my other analyses of Social Credit, the difference
between the solution advocated by the Social Credit Engineer Clifford
Douglas and the Social Credit Engineer Turmel is that Douglas worked
on the numerator of the money/prices imbalance while I worked on the
denominator. I have never said that Social Credit would not solve the
imbalance, only that LETS solves the imbalance in a more elegant and
optimal way.
This debate has some value even if it is only
thought of as two
camps both stating their model is better which contrasts political
camps like Liberals and the Conservatives who we hear pleading that
the other guy's model is worse. "Things would have been worse without
us" is a their epitaph. In a sea of losers saying "Sorry but the other
guy would have done worse," here we are two guys arguing about which
of us will do better.
So what you'll be reading here are the words
of a Learned Social
Crediter who I believe when he says he knows how they can compensate
for the imbalance between money and prices with his kind of Social
Credit. That he says my kind of Social Credit doesn't eliminate the
imbalance too is our disagreement.
There is also only one disagreement I have
with Douglas in that I
have identified interest as the only positive feedback which needs
to
be eliminated while Douglas also included some other components which
I claim are not relevant to the problem. Yet, his balancing would
still have solved the interest imbalance too.
I think many Socreds are disturbed that I'm
claiming that LETS
Greendollar and Time Dollar credits are also a form of social credits,
even a short-cut to Social Credit, which portends that they'll never
get to test out their also-correct Social Credit theories. It must
hurt to find out that Social Credit can be achieved in two ways and
that the new way is easier. Debugging one positive feedback loop in
the money's computer crooked program beats having to measure the
imbalance to determine compensatory measures.
>Cover Letter From: Donald Neale
>Chairman, Social Credit Secretariat
>18 December, 1995.
>To: Mr. John Turmel, B. Eng.,
> "I am responding to the package of material
you recently sent to
>the Secretariat which included an Abolitionist Party of Canada
>document addressed to "monetary reformers," the Affidavit and Ballad
>of the Banking Systems Engineer, and sundry other papers. It is the
>first-named of these I am principally concerned with since it seems
>to contain the gist of your arguments. There are several points in
it
>which call for comment.
> On page 1, par 1, you refer to "interest-free social
credits" and
>couple that with "interest-free banking." In par. 4, you claim that
>Douglas "stated that interest-free credit should be social service
>and called his theory 'social credit.'" It therefore seems clear (a)
>that you regard interest-free banking as an essential component of
>Social Credit, which it is not, and (b) that you equate LETS schemes
>using interest-free credits with Social Credit, which is wholly
>incorrect and unjustifiable.
JCT: Yes, I regard interest-free banking as
an essential
component of one kind of Social Credit. This is the one greatest tenet
of Social Credit as taught to me by my wise old Quebec-Learned Social
Crediter grandfather, Adelard Turmel, who pontificated two financial
axioms: "Money has no babies" and "Interest is theft." Adelard learned
his Social Credit from the most famous Quebec Social Crediter of all,
Louis Even, in the "Michael Fighting Journal" which is still printed
and distributed by the millions by the Pilgrims of St. Michael in
Rougemont Quebec today. They have never deviated from their main zero-
interest tenet that "money has no babies."
Bible-Bill Aberhart's Alberta Social Credit
Government did help
the poor battle their debts. The Social Credit Party of Canada had
a
zero interest rate policy until 1981 when Social Credit Party leader
Martin Hattersley changed to party's policy from an interest rate of
zero percent interest on credit to an anti-social six percent interest
on credit. Some of us earlier Socreds refuse to believe that 6% credit
is social enough. The Social Credit deal my grandfather worked for
over 50 years to achieve under the Quebec Social Credit banner
insisted on "money with no babies" thus conforming to the prohibitions
against interest in the Old Testament, New Testament and Koran. Quebec
Social Credit strove to provide social credit without offending these
great moral institutions.
And that's we Quebec Social Crediters have
been taught by the
Quebec branch of the Commonwealth's Social Credit tree. Now we point
at the success of LETS and are told not only that the fruit of our
branch is bad but that it doesn't even belong to the social credit
tree. I think the link showing the LETS program to be a product of
Quebec Social Credit philosophy should result in a logical pride as
interest-free Greendollar and Timedollar credits are hailed around
the
world as financial lifeboats while they vindicate the Quebec sociable
credit teachings of our learned elders. "No loansharking allowed
because money has no babies."
>Over the past seventy years or so, the term "Social Credit" has come
>to comprise the whole range of doctrines first enunciated by C.H.
>Douglas (as briefly summarised in the enclosed leaflet.) They have
>been the subject of study and controversy by economists, politicians
>and concerned individuals virtually world-wide during that time, and
>many books and pamphlets, (other than those by Douglas) have been
>devoted to it.
>To apply this term to LETS is to ignore all the essentials of his
>doctrines and to confuse just one monetary technique with the whole.
>I have therefore felt bound to dissociate the Social Credit
>Secretariat from your superficial and inaccurate use of the term and
>I have done so in the article in the enclosed "The Social Crediter"
>for January 1996. This is being circulated to subscribers world-wide.
JCT: I think that the news reports calling
LETS "financial life-
boats" should be a pleasure for Socreds to hear. When I show people
the LETS reports and mention that Green currencies are social credits,
they accord Social Credit a new respect. I don't think it's bad that
people might look at a LETS, hear people singing "Halleluiah," as they
work and confuse it with old Social Credit because old Social Credit
would have worked too though they would have centralised money
creation with a regulatory board. LETS is more like the casino cashier
who's duty it is to liquify collateral on demand. Someday other
Socreds, if not Mr. Neale, might enjoy being able to admit that Social
Credit was the precursor to the LETS movement.
Social Credit is going to linked in at the
roots of LETS by the
mere fact it's major financial backer was a former Social Credit
Engineer at a time when Canadian Social Credit was still advocating
zero interest social credits.
>I also enclose some further comments on particular points in your
>papers. I should add that I did so more in sorrow than in anger that
>Social Credit should have been so misrepresented, and I shall await
>any response you may care to make. Donald Neale
>
>The Social Crediter
>Jan/Feb 1996
>Volume 75 No 1
>by Donald Neale, Chairman, Social Credit Secretariat
>It's an embarrassment when someone gets
>The Wrong End of the Stick [5]
JCT: Not when both ends of the stick can get
the job done.
> Mr. John C. Turmel, B. Eng., Leader of the
Abolitionist Party of
>Canada, has circulated "monetary reformers" with "some information
on
>the LETS banking system growing in all major commonwealth nations
>which uses Greendollar interest-free social credits." [LETS = Local
>Employment Trading System] He seems to justify this use of the term
>"social credit" by citing the Time Dollars and Greendollars used in
>the accounting system of some LETS systems. He says "...all credit
>systems which bear no interest are social friendly credit systems."
JCT: Let's admit that interest-free credit
systems are sociable-
credit systems. At least, that's what the news reports say about
sociable Timedollar and Greendollar credits. It gets people trading
their employment in a very sociable way secure from outside financial
impediments.
> After acknowledging C.H.Douglas as "having
made these nations
>more receptive to the idea of interest-free banking," he offers his
>own "in-depth analysis" of the Douglas analysis. He disagrees with
>Douglas about "the cause of the price rise," claiming that "only
>interest is the problem" -- hence abolish interest and all will be
>well. He produces some mathematical formulae as a means of proving
>his point.
JCT: "Some mathematical formulae?" Quite a
lot of powerful
mathematical formulae using engineering analysis techniques not
available to Douglas. It's even got the circuitry of the LETSystem
software beside the circuitry of the present banking system software.
With this one comment, he dismissed all those mathematical formulae
explaining why LETS works so well.
>So no thought here of savings by individuals and companies, or of
>their reinvestment in production to generate fresh costs and prices
>but no fresh purchasing power to meet them. No mention either of
>depreciation costs charged into prices. All such factors other than
>interest, he claims, are "cancelled-out" by "what I call the
>splashing in the (economic) pool costs" as opposed to "pumphouse
>costs," i.e., interest on bank loans.
JCT: Take note that interest is the only one
of the imbalancing
costs mentioned by Douglas which originates in the pump house. All
the
other costs he claims add to the imbalance take place in the economic
pool.
>Remarkably for an engineer, he tries to explain this by the
>"velocity of circulation," quoting a New Zealand source. One $50 note
>changes hands several times in one day, thereby paying off a $50 debt
>at each turn! Douglas exploded this fundamental fallacy in "The New
>and the Old Economics," carefully discriminating between the face
>value of a monetary token and the actual chains of debt liabilities
>behind each of the debts concerned.
JCT: That's right. All costs incurred by transactions
in the pool
can be reversed by other transactions in the pool. The only cost that
can't is interest in the banking pump house. It's the ability to
cancel out transactions in the pool which has been used by economists
over the years to argue against Social Credit which Socreds could
never adequately respond to.
> In this, as in other aspects, Mr. Turmel cannot
be deemed a
>Social Crediter. Indeed, there is something preposterous in his
>assertion that he has "accomplished the monetary reform that Social
>Credit has always advocated."
JCT: Just because I disagree with some of
Douglas's imbalancing
inputs is no reason to conclude that I disagree with all of his work.
There are no working social credit systems in operation around the
world while there are thousands of LETS and Timedollar systems. So
the
fact my version of social credits has thousands of working models and
Douglas's version has no working models makes it quite less
preposterous. The failure of some Socreds to see that LETS delivers
on
social credit promises is the saddest part of it all.
>Equating LETS systems with Social Credit just because they
>facilitate barter by utilizing self-created credits and debits is
>ridiculous.
JCT: LETS does a lot more than facilitate
barter. It facilitates
exchange over time by providing a medium of exchange. Only something
as fantastic as people creating their own private medium of exchange
can be producing the startling results in a world starved of medium
of
exchange. Can the rave reviews from people lacking medium of exchange
be some sort of hype?
>It confuses a localised exchange technique with a whole philosophy
of
>economic and political reforms.
JCT: There would be little confusion if the
LETS were not
delivering locally what the whole Social Credit philosophy was
promising to deliver nationally. Confusion can only arise when you
don't want to see that they're both solving the same funds to prices
imbalance in different ways.
>Turmel's position is intellectually dishonest and the Social Credit
>Secretariat does not recognise any aspect of it as Social Credit.
JCT: Surely there must be some other way to
discuss the merits of
"Quebec versus Secretariat" Social Credit than disassociation. I keep
repeating that Social Credit would work while I repeat that LETS would
deliver social credits better. If we didn't have it in our power to
do
a global LETS where everyone gets an interest-free account overnight,
or even a local LETS, then I'd pick Social Credit as the next best
way
to do it.
Just because I say I've found a better way
doesn't mean I deny
Douglas had a valid way too. I have no dispute with Douglas' solution
even if there may be minor disputes over the cause of the problem.
I
simply say mine's easier. Admit it. What's easier, compensating for
an
improperly balanced system or getting rid of the imbalance from the
start?
>LETS systems will stand or all locally and communally depending on
>whether they provide sustainable services to satisfy their members.
>But they will not begin to meet the present failure of the employment
>system as a means of distributing incomes. They will not begin to
>distribute the unearned increment of association deriving from our
>common cultural heritage.
JCT: Of course it does. Simply stating that
he doesn't see how it
would is simply stating that he can't see it. Not that others can't.
>They certainly pose no threat to the illegitimate global monopoly of
>credit and it's debt-money system.
JCT: LETS is no threat? LETS is the only engineering
threat to
the global monopoly of credit by allowing people access to a tap of
financial liquidity of their own. It monetizes people's credit. It
is
a life-boat. It is helping now. It's not just a theory. If you don't
join one, you're in big trouble when the crunch comes.
And it can happen quickly. All it takes is
one large database
like Simpsons Sears or AOL to offer interest-free Greendollar credit
services for huge Greendollar and Time Dollar life-boats to spring
into existence.
I have no problem with debt money, chips issued
in exchange for a
promissory note at the cage. All 60,000,000 debtors to Simpsons-Sears
could effect exchanges by swapping debts through a checking mechanism.
Debt-based money would work perfectly well. It's not that the money
is
based on debt rather than asset that makes it anti-social, it's that
there's interest that renders both positive and negative credits anti-
social.
> Mr. Turmel, then, presents a travesty of Douglas.
Even the
>"monetary reformers" he addresses must be dismayed by such posturing.
>Having dismissed Douglas' economic analysis, he also ignores Douglas'
>principles of political democracy. Having "run in over 30 elections
>in the last 10 years as an Independent monetary reform candidate,"
>(but no results disclosed), he still appears to accept the concept
of
>party politics, however futile. Why play party politicians at their
>own dubious games when the potential power of LETS people to
demand
>desired results is a worthier investment?
JCT: Organizing people to make demands of
politicians supported
by an obstinate financial power is not as useful as organizing people
to become politicians and implement the system themselves. The
argument that we should leave power in the hands of the current
holders but make demands on them has proven to be a failure over 80
years while building LETS until politicians have to admit their
utility and then support them is working. The results will inevitably
succeed by political action from the top down.
>Reference is made above to "The New and the Old Economics." The
>Editor writes:
>"This pamphlet is mainly a rebuttal of criticisms of the Douglas
>analysis made by two professors of economics. In it, Douglas says:
>"At this point it may be desirable to deal with the common error
>that the circulation of money increases its purchasing power.
JCT: I would never say that velocity increases
purchasing power.
To me, purchasing power if fixed by what's in the cage backing up the
token. Velocity has no effect on the value of the chips from my cage.
>That if I pay $1 to the butcher for meat and the butcher pays $1 to
>the baker for bread... then two debts are liquidated.
JCT: The point of my use was actually noted
in Douglas' answer
when he notes that "two debts are liquidated" through velocity. That's
my whole point. The cashier has no interest in how many debts are
cancelled through velocity but he's there if anyone needs to buy in
for more credits ensuring enough to comfortably liquefy all the action
in the game. The perfect cashiering job is when people aren't carrying
around too many trays of chips but enough so they rarely have to
bother him at the cage.
>This is a complete and utter fallacy. The butcher incurred costs,
>perhaps from a farmer who in his turn possibly borrowed $1 from the
>bank."
JCT: Unfortunately, my example used only examples
of private
debts splashing around within the pool of debtors. In the above
example, the debt paid to the bank is not what I'd consider a debt
settlement with the pump-house, not within the pool. When you pay your
dollar to the bank, it is extinguished and can't be counted on for
velocity anymore.
>COMMENTS on Mr. J C Turmel's papers.
>Abolitionist Party of Canada document addressed to "monetary
>reformers."
>1. "Interest-free banking" is no part of Social Credit
>doctrine. Normal commercial banking with interest-bearing loans and
>deposits would continue unchanged under a Social Credit regime,
JCT: It's part of the Quebec Social Credit
doctrine which was
taught to generations of Socreds before me and banks would not be
allowed more than service charges to handle our financial accounts
even if Mr. Neale assures me he knows how to handle the usury with
compensatory measures. He might want to permit what Canadian Socreds
call "theft" though I'm sure we and many other Socreds do not.
>but banks would be deprived of their present capacity to create
>credit.
JCT: I see nothing wrong with banks creating
credit. Locally-
created credit by local LETSystem branches works fine and centrally
created credit would work no better. I see no reason banks couldn't
continue to create credit as long as it was sociable credit and they
were paid with a sociable service charge.
>The national money supply, based on national productivity of real
>wealth, would be regulated by a statutory authority immune from
>political manipulation.
JCT: The issuance of liquidity does not have
to regulated if
given a stable value-content at its source. You need regulatory boards
only if you choose to compensate rather than eliminate the imbalance.
>It would be free of debt at source and would finance the Compensated
>Price and the National Dividend, also government expenditure.
JCT: Balancing money to prices by government
simply spending
money from the cage into circulation with no debt attached would only
be necessary had the cashier not carefully matched the pledges with
the liquidity he issued. But if he properly matched currency with
collateral upon issuance, there would be no reason for any issuance
without debt to back it up. It would seem to be better accounting to
have the government simply operate its financial account in the same
way as others by borrowing from the Treasury when necessary and
recuperating those spendings in future taxes.
>Other than that, normal saving/borrowing would proceed as now, the
>banks depending on service charges to finance their expenditure.
JCT: But Canada's old brand of Social Credit
didn't want the
transfering of interest between account holders even if the bank takes
no interest itself. Canada's old brand of Social Credit said that
you'd pay no interest to start and you'd get no interest to finish
and
in that way everyone would end up with more since there would be less
taking from the poor to give to the rich.
>2."... the cause of the price rise..." Slipshod terminology. It is
>not a question of a "price rise" but of disparity between rates of
>flow of prices compared with that of incomes. This disparity persists
>even if the general level of prices falls. Other than interest,
>Douglas identified savings and their re-investment, and depreciation,
>as relevant factors.
JCT: Savings: He's saying that if many of
the winners put away a
large number of chips into their savings account boxes, somehow that
is going to affect the ability of people to cash out. Not if those
other people can buy in for new chips. I'm sure that if an inordinate
number of gamblers at the Taj Mahal chose to store their chips in
their safety deposit boxes rather than cash out, when the Taj sensed
that there weren't enough chips for comfortable velocity - usually
when people start complaining -- they'd simply go to the pump and
bring out some new liquidity ready to go. And with the credit based
upon a person's ability to do a day's work as well as collateral
assets, there's no one who can't put someone else to work. So I
consider the storage of liquidity as a non-problem once the pump is
fixed.
The question of depreciation costs causing
a disparity between
asset creation and price creation is one I have always challenged when
reading Douglas. To me, those are splashes in the pool. From the pump-
house point of view, the cage requires that any depreciation
registered in the value of the pledged asset be balanced by the return
of that many chips from the borrower's account. So depreciation is
easily handled by a competent casino cashier.
Depreciation included in a manufacturing cost
is similar. A
carpenter created a price tag for his product but some of the costs
went to the steel mill which paid off its debt at the cage and so
there are less chips in circulation to now buy some of those products.
When the buyers come into the bank, I monetize their credit based on
the product which they are now stewarding and have to satisfy the
depreciation. The fact that old chips were taken out of purchasing
circulation was of no consequence if that lack can be instantly
handled with new credit. It's simply replacing the steel-mill's marker
with the buyer's marker for the chips that need to be issued.
>And on page 2, for the same reason, consumers never "have P dollars
>available," but only P - X dollars.
JCT: In all my studies of Douglas' A+B Theorem,
I've never seen a
P-X factor mentioned before.
>3. "Velocity of circulation" argument is fallacious. This,
>and previous errors, invalidate the subsequent argument.
JCT: I never made the fallacious argument
that "velocity affects
purchasing power" which was so eloquently rebutted. I stated that
"velocity affects debt reduction:" (this is new):
I come onto your island and we're going to
play Poker. I tell you
that my chips are each worth a chicken back home and you tell me you
have 100 chickens so I let you buy in for your pledge of 100 chickens
for 100 chips. You buy in and after a night's play, we're even and
plan to play again tomorrow evening.
You meet a friend, Little Lenny who wants
to play so you lend him
the 100 chips and take Lenny's IOU. Little Lenny comes, plays all
evening and we break even. He goes home with the 100 chips intent on
trying again but meets Wily Willy who wants to play so Lenny lends
him
the 100 chips for Willy's marker for 100 chips.
Wily Willy comes, plays and breaks even. He
goes home with his
100 chips intent on trying again but meets someone else to whom he
lends the 100 chips. This goes on as 50 different people on the island
exchange their IOU to get the chips they need play Poker with me while
we keep keep breaking even. Finally, Big Bruno borrows the chips from
someone for his IOU. Big Bruno also breaks even. Actually, the only
unbelievable thing about this situation is that I keep breaking even.
You'd like to get back into the game but Little
Lenny's been
ducking you for a month. You run into Big Bruno who can't go play
tonight so you give Big Bruno your second IOU for his 100 chips.
After our night's play where we again break
even, I decide I'm
leaving the island so I take back my 100 chips, give you back your
original IOU for 100 chickens and we go our own ways.
You walk out the door and meet Big Bruno.
Big Bruno owes someone
100 chips and you owe him 100. It doesn't help you that Little Lenny
owes you 100 chips when you can't find him and Big Bruno wants his
100
chips right now. You don't have the chips so he beats you up and
insists you pay him tomorrow.
You run into Little Lenny and demand your
100 chips. He only has
an IOU from Wily Willy and can't pay so you beat him up and demand
he
pay you before Big Bruno comes looking for you.
Wily Willy goes to his debtor and beats him
up for the same
reason. Each creditor beats up his debtor except for the guy who is
owed by Big Bruno. He's in big trouble.
Notice that all these debts were built up
through velocity just
as they could all be paid down through velocity if I came back and
loaned Big Bruno 100 chips which he could then use to pay his creditor
who then pays his creditor... who then pays Wily Willy who then pays
Little Lenny who then pays you so you can pay Big Bruno who can then
cash out at my cage leaving the whole island once again debt-free.
Just I could come onto your island and entrap you all a sea of debts
built up through the velocity of only 100 chips leaving you no escape,
I have also shown you how simple it is to escape that debt trap
through velocity.
That's exactly how LETS currency can help
communities reduce
their debt loads. Once the islanders belong to LETS, you could borrow
100 Greendollar chips worth 100 chickens, pay Big Bruno, etc.
Of course, since I had not linked velocity
to purchasing power,
it does NOT "invalidate my subsequent argument." But I hope I've shown
how debts which have been built up with only 100 chips in the pool
can
easily be paid off with 100 chips and the velocity of chips.
Notice that had I charged interest at the
pump house, there would
no way for anyone to come up with the 110 chips I was demanding.
That's why debts for interest at the pumphouse bank are the only ones
that cannot be resolved by the velocity of money in the pool.
>4. "New Social Credit" is rejected as wholly invalid concept.
JCT: News reports prove that "New LETS Social
Credits" are not a
wholly invalid concept. I'd bet that not only is LETS Greendollars
and
Time dollar social credits a wholly valid concept but it will be the
money system of the next millennia, not Old Social Credit.
>5. The claim to "have accomplished the monetary reform that Social
>Credit has always advocated, is wholly spurious. It is based on the
>illusion that Social Credit is solely about monetary reform but even
>within that limited context, LETS systems do nothing to affect the
>worldwide system of bank-created debt money and universal
>indebtedness to banks.
JCT: I think the previous island example shows
that LETS
currencies can affect the worldwide indebtedness if not of bank-
created indebtedness by providing an interest-free debt as an
alternative to an interest-bearing one. The more of your economic
activity you can finance with your own interest-free debt and the less
that you use federal currency, the less debt service you pay. It's
elementary. Once you can trade your labor for all your physical needs
within your LETS circle, you would lose no money to debt service and
receive 100% value for your time. If the banks were legislated to
accept LETS currencies, enough could be borrowed to pay off all the
interest-bearing debts and replace them with interest-free debts which
would eventually be paid off as all payments would go against non-
increasing debts.
>Nor do they affect the separate issue of the employment system
>progressively failing to provide incomes because of technological
>advances, a major factor.
JCT: LETS does affect the employment system
which is
progressively failing to provide incomes because of technological
advances, (not a major factor,) because so much can be done locally
though national use on the largest databases for the largest selection
of goods and services is the achievable goal.
>6. To say Douglas "made mention of a Dividend" is like saying
>Einstein made mention of Relativity. The Dividend is the one
>essential key to ensuring individual economic security, i.e.,
>economic democracy.
JCT: I think the more important aspect of
security is getting the
credit when you need it, not getting a dividend of times where there
is some abundance to share. I don't need a freebie to make it. As a
minimum, all I need is an interest-free loan to get started. I do
still approve of the idea of a Dividend as a freebie based on the
technological heritage of soon-to-be robot production.
So the national dividend is not essential
to ensuring individual
economic security. LETS doesn't yet offer a dividend and yet users
report the sense of security not available by use of orthodox money.
Sure the national dividend is the best way to share the robot
paychecks but a properly working money system is the only requisite
for economic security. Yet, the National Dividend is nice and has been
included in the Abolitionist Party platform. See:
http://turmelpress.com/abprogs.htm
>From the Affidavit:
>To "have run in over 30 elections in the past 10 years as an
>Independent monetary reform candidate" indicates well-intentioned
but
>mis-directed effort. All political parties are or become more or less
>corrupt and dominated by the financial interests.
JCT: That all political parties must become
corrupt is a false
tenet if you know what you're going after and what you're going after
is good. It also implies that my wish to install an interest-free
money system can be corrupted by how I go about doing it. Not only
have I sought political power for this one reform which cannot be
corrupted by getting that political power but I've also sought to
enlist judicial power to abolish interest rates as well as financing
the LETS local interest-free currency alternative. Seeking political
power is only one tactic that I don't think should be frowned upon.
>Douglas advised that the better strategy was not to campaign on
>monetary reform or economic technicalities, but to mobilize
>democratic power to demand obviously feasible results from
>politicians regardless of their label, under the sanction of
>dismissal if the results were not forthcoming, i.e. political
>democracy.
JCT: I suggest that mobilizing democratic
power to fire them if
they don't do it right is what elections are all about: mobilizing
parliamentary power to fire the Government if they don't do it right.
No one else but representatives have that power. I think it is an
error to shy away from direct attempt to install enlightened
leadership for monetary reform in order to simply orate until the
masses have been swayed sufficiently to influence a contrary
leadership. I've seen some success with Social Credit politics. I've
seen no success with lobbying the entrenched power structure.
And as I've pointed out, leaving the power
in the hands of the
bad guys or the inept and lobbying them has proven to be a failure
over the 80 years Major Douglas has been propounding his solution.
And
once you've dismissed governments who haven't given you what you
wanted over and over again, it might have dawned on you that all they
have to do to neutralize you is give you another set of their men to
vote for when you dismiss the originals you are dissatisfied with.
All
they have to do is give you a new set of candidates to vote for and
you'll never go for the power to do it yourselves. I think your 80
years of failure is due primarily to the fact that you have never
sought to install Socreds and have instead relied on your belief in
dismissing party after party after not getting what you wanted. I'd
have switched tactics long ago.
>END OF SOCIAL CREDIT SECRETARIAT TEXT
JCT: Of course, with guys like the Social
Credit Secretariat
defending the theft of usury, it's no wonder they've gotten nowhere
over the years while giving Social Credit a bad name. There is no
anti-usury fire-brand rhetoric Canadian Socreds have been known for.
A lot changes when you're talking about eliminating
the imbalance
rather than compensating for it. They want to balance this and that
while I want to snip one feedback loop. These guys have spent so many
years learning about compensating with discounts and dividends that
snipping the cause of the imbalance, a short-cut, offends some of
them. Old Socreds objecting to LETS is like the vacuum tube makers
objecting to transistors just because tubes work too.
When I took on the Abolish Interest Rates
engineering mission 19
years ago, the snipping of the usury positive-feedback loop in our
money program, I didn't have LETSystems to point to as successful
prototypes whose numbers are now expanding geometrically. I faced
people who said it could never be done. Now I face people who say it
can't be done fast enough.
I find it sad that the bureaucrats in the
Social Credit
Secretariat can't see the Social Credits roots of the LETS banking
systems though I know there are many other Socreds who do. I hope
those who do see the connection not only take pride in having been
proven right in their theories but also take the time to set the
bureaucrats straight on the value of LETS social credits.
-------------------------------
>Date: Sun Nov 29 04:08:27 1998
>From: socred@gil.com.au (Victor Bridger)
>Subject: [JunkEconomics] (no subject)
JCT: Notice that they couldn't even reprint
the topic of the
stream, that the Social Credit Secretatiat pans LETS social credits.
I
wonder how many people are drawn to something called "no subject."
>To all those who have received an e-mail from Mr. J. Turmell we
>reiterate the statement from the Chairman of The Social Credit
>Secretariat in 1995. We are in no way connected with or desire to
be
>connected with anyone using the term Social Credit that has not been
>approved by The Secretariat. Many people have laid bogus claims to
>being a medical practitioner but that does not make them a doctor.
>Many people lay claim to being a Social Crediter and the same
>applies.
JCT: I joined the Social Credit Party of Canada
in 1979 until
1982 when I was ejected for advocating zero interest after party under
leader Martin Hattersley passed a resolution advocating allowing 6%
usury.
I was also the leader of the Social Credit
Party of Ontario from
1984 to 1986.
I find it the height of conceit for bureaucrats
in the Social
Credit Secretariat to assume that they and they alone are the arbiters
of who does and who does not understand Social Credit.
That they think they can dismiss the whole
school of Canadian
Social Credit seems the most conceited. Quebec probably has the most
powerful social credit movement anywhere in the world and these
bureaucrats think that it can be arbitrarily dismissed without any
reasons.
That they don't see the Social Credit aspect
of interest-free
Greendollars should eventually turn them into the jokes of the issue.
>For those who may wish to learn more about Social Credit you can
>commence by visiting our site at <www.scss.gil.com.au>. For those
who
>wish to follow what we are about you can subscribe to our journals
by
>replying to this e-mail. For those who want to learn more they can
>obtain some literature by replying to this e-mail. For those who want
>to learn more they can apply to do a study course by replying to this
>e-mail. For those who want the truth ask the Authority on Social
>Credit - The Social Credit Secretariat or The Social Credit School
of
>Studies Inc. Sincerely, Victor J. Bridger,
>Director of Lectures and Studies
JCT: And there may still be schools for those
who wish to study
vacuum tube technology despite transistor technology having taken the
lead.
I find it of interest that though there were
lots of criticisms
of my version of New Social Credit, all they can do is parrot their
old criticisms and courses while not being able to answer even one
of
my criticisms of Old Social Credit.
I think it's sad that Old Social Crediters
can't grasp the
advantages of New Social Credits and though they could be taking much
credit for the development of LETS, they'll end up being laughed at
for being the so-called "monetary reform experts" who not only
couldn't see the perfect social credits systems being built right
under their noses but also condemned them as not being social credits.