----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 3:33 AM
Subject: Re: [socialcredit] ecology of
knowledge
Agreed, in general. Douglas defined genuine
democracy as the right to contract out of any association or activity if the
latter appears not to be delivering desired results. The right to
contract out confers the power to atrophy a function which is deemed
unsatifactory in terms of individual satisfaction. When Douglas averred
that political democracy without economic democracy was incapable of
delivering desirable results and even dangerous, he did not advocate the
elimination of political democracy but pointed out that without its essential
counterpart, i.e., economic democracy, it was incapable of fulfilling its
proper function. Nor was Douglas an anarchist. Indeed, he did not
recommend abolishing the rule of law, but rather ensuring that it conformed as
closely as possible to natural law, i.e., the "Canon." Law
should be grounded in realism rather that abstract idealism. He
envisioned, nevertheless, a benign social and
financial/economic order in which the requirement for formal law would be
minimized. The core basis of such an order was to be absolute economic
security for all citizens having a growing cultural awareness of
essential moral principles, particularly of (or compatible with) Christian
origin, and organically functioning within those principles.
Douglas said that we could not know what kind of
civilization might unfold under these conditions but that he firmly
believed that only under such conditions could that
new civilization emerge and flourish in desirable ways.
Social Credit would release citizens into a
condition of economic and personal independence wherein they might
freely engage in relationships and activities of their own free
choice. Privately, with increasing leisure, they could more readily
follow their own interests free from penalty of external
sanctions. Not only could they be exercising free choice as consumers in
giving commands to the producing economy reflecting their real choice
concerning goods and services. The independence of income conferred upon
citizens would release them from engaging in any association, relationship or
activity of which they disapproved for whatever reason. Thus, not only
in regard to consumption patterns but also in production policy the citizen
would be greatly empowered. Beholden to, and dependent upon no one, the
consumer citizen would become the final arbiter of production policy from the
standpoints of both production and consumption. How many people would be
induced, or coerced, to engage in that greatest of destructive evils
which we call war if refusing to do so involved no threat to their economic
security or political freedoms? Douglas put forward the goal of
"immanent sovereignty" as a desirable end for individual persons.
As to the proliferation of "knowledge",
surely a central mark of civilization is an insatiable and
honest curiosity about the natural and social environment. But in a
Social Credit dispensation, substantially relieved from expanding, superflous
and mischievous bureacratic intervention--imposed in a futile effort to solve
worsening and proliferating problems deriving largely from a defective
financial regime--citizens would be free to seek "real" knowledge to their
eternal satisfaction--and as a great and marvellous contribution to the
evermore enabling accumulated Cultural Heritage of mankind.
The sceptic, relativist and/or sophist might
scorn the notion of morality and ethics--but only with a refined awareness of
these factors can mankind beneficially realize the potential for good which is
inherent in increased knowledge and application of it. That is why
Social Credit emphasizes the importance of the metaphysical or philosophical
nature of society--from which policy derives.
Sincerely
Wally
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:28
AM
Subject: [socialcredit] ecology of
knowledge
I want to add my
strong second to Jim's statement about leisure and freedom.
I'm sorry
I do not have time to respond to Keith's call for papers, therefore I am not
able to give more than my impressions. My impression is Keith has it
backwards. Instead of thinking of the expansion of random information
(better word than "knowledge") being inevitable and the services sector
usefully expanding to interpret it for us, think of tthe expansion of
information and the services sector as symptomatic of the compulsive growth
and waste that are endemic to our financial system. Labor displacement
combined with consumer choice means that whole sectors of information and
service can be jettisoned as in fact useless spinning of wheels. If
explosion of information and services were not financed, it would not
be. And in an economy whose sole purpose was to serve individuals, it
would not be financed.
Michael
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