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My comments to Michael were
prompted more by surprise and puzzlement than objection. The Douglas
text supplied by Wally is the kind of definition I would have expected. As
may be inferred from my initial comments, I would be quite content to equate
capital to Cultural Inheritance, for that would embrace expansions of
the concept such as financial, human (intellectual) and social
capital--all of which imply a residue of human action and interaction with raw
nature. I do resist the extension to nature, however, as
inconsistent with the Cultural Inheritance concept of capital. My
objection to "natural capital" is current, as I see it used, promoted and
defended by agencies of government (resources and environment protection)
and by members of my social circle here in Ottawa. Part of their excuse
(rationale) for the practice is that it is used by World Bank. That
is consistent with my impression that the term was introduced by Herman Daly and
John Cobb in their 1989 book, For the Comon Good. I paid little
or no attention to it at the time, and my objection when the term was introduced
very recently by an relentlessly rigorous engineer-ecologist to our
local discussion was doubtless sharpened by my introduction to Social
Credit themes in the past few years. I remain unpersuaded by the
promoters (although I do understand the appeal of the concept to those who view
human behavior toward Nature as analogous to dissipating a
financial
inheritance).
The congeniality of Social Credit to my habitual
ways of thinking was probably conditioned by my lengthy acquaintance with an
engineer-turned-philosopher of science who devoted most of his professional
career to explaining the human predicament as a consequence of the
growth of knowledge. The exponentially increasing complexity of human
relationships and existence impels a desire for some core simplification and a
consequent means of addressing the compound of problems. The quest (and
lust) for power (over nature and over other humans) seems to be widely
recognized as principal source of the problems. Monetary and financial
systems are the paramount expressions of this relentless quest. Governments,
especially democratic ones, are an attempt to constrain the impacts of
financial power, but they are ultimately subservient to it. That is the
trajectory or thought process which brings me to focus my last years of
vitality on the institutions of money and finance as key to the welter of
challenges to a humane future.
So far, in the discussions of Social Credit that
have caught my eye, there has been acknowledgement of resource and environment
issues, as Michael says, with affirmations that Douglas' general approach would
solve them. But I have not seen explicit and persuasive consideration of
the mechanisms by which this would be achieved. I would like to get some
discussion of Social Credit analysis going among my social club of rigorous
gloomsayers, by the back door. That is, by avoiding the knee-jerk
reactions of inflation and Jewish conspiracy theory that are invited
by mentioning the term. To do so, I need some help. A good
way to provide it would be a response by Douglas enthusiasts to a recent
call for papers that I relayed to my Ottawa colleagues. In particular, how
does ecology of knowledge impact Cultural Inheritance?
[A re-edited version of my mailing to local
colleagues:]
Quite a few of the Dissenters are acquainted with
Prof. Jerzy Wojciechowski and have heard him make presentations invoking his
theory that humankind is in an ecological relationship with knowledge.
The editor of The Trumpeter Journal of
Ecosophy has invited papers to address the "ecology of knowledge" concept
from the perspective of deep ecology. A descriptive exposition of
Wojciechowski’s thesis [by Wilde and Caley] was published in the journal some
months ago. It may be viewed at http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v20.1/ .
After several years of effort to present his main
ideas in compact form, Wojchiechowski devised a series of pictographs in chart
form, which he would present visually while talking about concepts. We obtained
hand-drawn copies of the charts and engaged a sympathetic assistant with the
appropriate software to make them easy on the eyes. Each chart is accompanied by
a brief explanatory text. There are eleven of them in all, and they comprise the
latter part of the article—more than half of the space. Which is to say that it
is not a long article even if there seem to be quite a few pages.
[The latter half of the paper, the pictographs, is
my own contribution to the paper, in which I was assisted by my son for
the technical part. My commentary emphasizes the problem aspect of
knowledge, and that is the theme to which I particularly solicit applications of
Cultural Inheritance.]
Information about the call for papers came to me
last week from my co-author, who is also on the editorial board. He didn’t tell
me where to have papers sent, but that info will doubtless be available before
you can get your paper written!
Keith Wilde
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 2:26 AM
Subject: Re: [socialcredit] capital
Major Douglas in The Monopoly of
Credit, Fourth Edition, 1979:
Chapter IX, "Dividends for All"
"In a physical sense then we should be living in
a world in which economic processes were carried out by two agencies, one, as
heretofore, the agency of individual effort and from an economic point of view
of decreasing importance, and the other, as the result of the plant,
organisation, and knowledge which are the cumulative result of the effort not
only of the present generation, but of the pioneers and inventors of the
past. This second agency can, of course, be collectively described as
real (as distinct from financial) capital....
"Production is far more dependent upon real
capital than it is upon labour, although without labour there is no
production. More and more the position of labour, using, of course, this
word in its widest possible sense, tends to become the catalyst in an
operation impossible without its presence, but carried on with a decreasing
direct contribution from labour itself...."
Appendix I, Argument, Section I
"..the ostensible objective of industry is the
production for use of goods and services to an extent rendered possible by the
progress of the industrial arts. The physical factors in the attainment
of this objective consist of what are commonly called raw materials, which may
reasonably defined as materials in the state in which they are found in
nature, the application to these raw materials of a process involving, in the
broad sense, tools, and thirdly, the expenditure of energy. The
distinguishing characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is the
rapid advance of process together with the rendering available of large amout
of energy, which may be considered as derived for the sun.... for a given
process the rate of production is proporionate to the rate of the use of
energy.... The physical effect of these factors has therefore been to
increase the rate of production of a given article per human unit of
labour."
Comment:
It has been observed that Douglas added to the
classic factors of production, i.e., "land, labour and capital," the concept
of the "Cultural Heritage." Real capital derives from the interaction of
labour and raw materials . The Cultural Heritage increases the
efficiency of the productive process, which involves the interaction between
labour and real capital. Typically and historically this effect has been
exponential.
Sincerely
Wally
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 12:26
PM
Subject: [socialcredit] capital
Keith objects to my
including "raw materials" as "capital." For one thing, I didn't say
HOW raw. Steel is a raw material, but it is not "just there." Ruskin's
example is bulbs and tulips. A bulb is a more natural form than steel,
but I for one would never dare say a bulb was "just there." I'm not
sure where one can draw a line, or really what is the need to draw a
line.
"Economics is finally being applied to conserving nature
as contrasted to merely consuming and exploiting it." Social credit
anticipated environmentalism (Douglas complaining of polution and the
destruction of beautiful rural landscapes by mining and chemical
industries). The only difference is that Douglas regarded this as a
higher form of EFFICIENCY, a careful stewardship of the natural world given
us by God. The conservation of nature can always be referred back to
ultimate benefit to human beings of this or future
generations.
Michael
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