|
I agree with Michael. C. H. Douglas's A + B Theorem is a
macroeconomic statement or description of the overall price system. It
includes and compares the TOTAL flow of financial costs generated within a given
cycle of production with the TOTAL flow of financial incomes distributed within
the same cycle--finding an inceasing deficiency of effective purchasing power
(financal incomes capable of liquidating financial cost). The recommended
remedial measures are the payment, from outside the price-system without
incurring debt, of Consumer (National) Dividends and Price Compensation
payments at retail (final) level--at the point of sale, the final stage of a
production cycle where the total costs of production must be liquidated by
expenditure of consumer income. This would provide every citizen with a
beneficial share in the communal capital as a whole.
The Social Credit concept of the Cultural Heritage embraces the
accumulation of knowledge and technique--and of multiplying "unearned increments
of association"--accumulated from time immemorial, which becomes increasingly a
factor of production relative to current labor input and justifys the
payment of direct Consumer Dividends and Compensated Price discount payments at
retail level.
I don't believe, Michael, that you meant to
say Douglas thought the purpose of production was to produce. He said, indeed,
quite the opposite--that the purpose of production is consumption, not to create
work. Perhaps you meant to say that the responsibility of producers,
as such, is to concern themselves with producing consumer-desired
goods and services as efficiently as possible in the interests of consumer
satiety--the assumption being that, being provided with a growing income
independent from formal employment, citizens would opt for increasing
leisure. The problem of distribution wealth, aside from that of its
production, is not the concern of producers but is a social problem to be
solved in the area of social policy and administration relating especially to
financial policy.
There seems, indeed, to be little evidence that
Jeff has significant interest in actually learning much about Social Credit per
se--on this Social Credit discussion group. At Joe's suggestion I e-mailed
him some documentation on Douglas's summary recommendations concerning land
policy and received a brief "Thanks" without question or comment. My
impression from some his comments about the nature of "price" is that he carries
on his discussion entirely oblivious to Douglas's presentation on the nature of
real cost as differentiated from financial cost and how the financial system
presents a distorted representation of real cost--real cost being the ratio of
consumption to production over a given production cycle. I am quite
willing to provide Jeff (or others) with extensive authentic social credit
documentation spanning some eighty-five or so years. To date no request
from Jeff has been received. I have to ask what benefit is to be derived
from perpetuating a discussion which continuously circumvents, or ignores, the
central issues of the subject at hand, i.e., Social Credit as presented by Major
Douglas and his qualified associates or supporters.
Sincerely
Wally
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 8:34
AM
Subject: [socialcredit] special attention
jeff
"This Dividend INCLUDES the dividend that
would be owing due to land as a factor in production because it is based on
counting ALL the fruits derived from ALL factors of production. It isn't
just land alone in which we have by right a beneficiary interest. . . . What
about the rest of the Cultural Heritage?" (me, combining 3-15 and 3-17)
"Can you give an example of an aspect of cultural [heritage] not
showing up as a site value somewhere?" (Jeff)
Yes, a shovel. I
rent a piece of ground and curse the luck there's not a shovel on the
place. I buy one, work up the ground, and grow potatoes. The
shovel is a descendant of the first shovel and the product of millennia of
practice in metallurgy and the art of tool-making, thus a piece of the
Cultural Heritage. The question is, Are there costs that go into the
potatoes that are not included in the rent? Obviously there are.
It is true that the rent reflects the fact that the ground is near
civilization, where shovels are to be had. But I still had to buy the
shovel, not to speak of fertilizer, etc. The rent alone, distributed, is
not enough to buy the potatoes.
The Social Credit dividend is
simple. Here are the potatoes, here is the money - enough to cover all
the costs that went into the potatoes, including the rent. The rent
TODAY, on the other hand, constitutes cost of a FUTURE crop. You said,
'Rent is a natural phenomenon'; but there's nothing natural about saying the
cost of a future crop increases because today's crop was good.
Douglas
thought that the purpose of production was to produce. It does its job
when it produces as efficiently as possible. But to ask production to do
double-duty as our money-distributing machine is to hamstring it as far as its
real purpose goes. It cannot do both efficiently. For this reason
it is a mistake to make the Dividend, whose purpose is to distribute goods
already available, conditional on someone paying us rent-costs for future
production.
Michael
P.S. You didn't take me up on
my offer of a 20-page introductory piece on social credit. Is that
because you are not interested?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Some introductory materials to the discussion topic of this list are at
http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
You're subscribed to this list with the email wmklinck@shaw.ca
For more information, visit http://www.eListas.com/list/socialcredit
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free
Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.6/287 - Release Date:
3/21/2006
|
Re: [socialcredit]
Reply to this message
