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This little exchange reinforces my conjecture of
longstanding that Douglas' analysis and recommendations will never be
implemented or even taken seriously in the lifetime of any who are participating
in this discussion so long as they are put forward in a way that enables them to
be tagged with the label of "Social Credit". There is just too much
baggage to overcome. It may be the perfect expression of what Douglas
means, but it cannot be used by people who are serious about effecting his
policies.
This past week-end I made a presentation to a small
group whose main objective is to get inexpensive financing for municipal
infrastructure. It is a burning issue for Canadian cities, and the
people I am talking to want subsidized loans through the Bank of Canada.
This, they say, would be quite possible since profits of the Bank go to its
owner, the federal government, and the government could borrow money from its
own bank instead of the private banks, to which it pays enormous interest on the
federal debt. One of their persistent difficulties is that whenever any
scheme remotely involves the central bank, critics cry "Social Credit" and
that is enough to deep six it.
I was using the occasion to test a little
hypothesis I have that the reason for non-acceptance of Social Credit is NOT
disagreement with Douglas' underlying philosophy, as both he said and his
faithful expositors repeat. After getting their affirmative reactions
to the postulates I had laid out and briefly justified, I revealed their
origin. At this point, one of those present, a retired professor of
urban design and planning, raised a warning finger and told of his experience as
a life-long resident of West Island--the western end of the island of
Montreal, where the main English language publisher of Social Credit
literature in the 1930s-40s was located. The man is a veteran of WW II, so
has been around long enough to have memory of significant events involving the
politics of Social Credit in this country. He talked about a radical
race hatred movement, which at some point in time became relocated to Rougemont
(east of Montreal), where Victor met with some of its remnants last year. They
may have reformed somewhat, but apparently have a lot to overcome since my
informant spoke of significant and high-profile shenanigans involving goon
squads, racial slurs and banker bashing in very recent times. No
amount of remonstrating that this is not true Social Credit will make that
popular image go away. Add that to the Alberta crazies recounted by Chick,
and you have a bow wave that is just too much to push.
Furthermore, you cannot isolate Douglas from
complicity in those abuses. He clearly did give in to those thoughts,
quite probably out of some frustration with the cool reception of his political
economic ideas. And given that he was also trying to reinvent
Christianity, an identification with the unsavory aspect of some disciples is
absolutely unavoidable. Persons who truly want to promote the use of Douglas'
financial and economic analysis and prescriptions will not mention where they
came from.
Keith Wilde
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [socialcredit] Jim, You and
I need to talk
(Chick
wrote:-) > As for the comment that the SC Party of Canada did not
accomplish anything
> is totally untrue. The Social Credit
Party of Canada accomplished a great
> deal. During the
election of 1935 the Liberal Party declared they would
> introduce
everything that Social Credit was proposing. They didn't but the
> Liberal government brought in the family allowance program and
there was
> money during the war years and even some up to 1974 that
was actually
> created by the federal government.
(Jim replies) It does not matter
where the money comes from Chick. Social Credit is based on Douglas'
A+B theorem, and his philosophy. Social Credit is based on a price
rebate, and a national dividend. Those are actual Social Credit policy
proposals.
>
(Joe comments:-) What the federal
Liberals preached in the 1935 election might have 'sounded' like 'social
credit', but their version of ''controlling the money power'' actually
only meant that the Dominion government was to acquire all the shares
in the newly formed Bank of Canada. Which they subsequently did after
assuming office, by buying out the minority private shareholders.
This most certainly did not give them ''control'' over the ''money power'',
any more than the British government's acquistion of the Bank of England
gave it similar 'control' when that august ancient institution was
'nationalized' some years later.
What Paul Hellyer's Canadian Action Party has
proposed is the antithesis of 'social credit', since it involves a highly
centralized financial regime with all decisions and power gravitating
towards Ottawa. Former BC Social Credit League Premier WAC Bennett once
observed that it would be all but impossible for any federal political
party, 'Social Credit' or otherwise, to achieve National electoral success
without a strong country wide Provincial-level base of support.
History, so far, seems to have proven him correct.
Chick may not remember, but the Social Credit Party of
Canada once held the third largest block of seats in the
Diefenbaker-minority Dominion Parliament of the early
1960's. And many of us held high hopes that
finally we would be in a position to influence
debate on 'monetary issues'. What a false hope that turned out to
be. The other three supposed 'adversaries', the Progressive
Consevatives, the Liberals and the socialist New Democrats not only acted
together to prevent that from happening, they successfully exploited
regional differences to divide the Socred group into two separate
parties. Leading fairly quickly to the demise of both of
them.
Joe
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