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Hi Jim, Wally, and all,
I have several concerns about how
some things might change under Social Credit, but one of the
things I have no concern about whatsoever is whether the majority of
people would still work if they received a Dividend. Even a far larger
Dividend than I think we would initially, or for some time subsequently,
ever receive.
They would still work. The majority of them,
in any case. Even the mundane jobs would still be
done. The "sin of sloth" would be visited upon very few, and, in all
likelihood, only those who are already slothful. And already a
complete impediment to efficiency in any workplace.
Far better for all they be removed from the
'aristocracy of production' and consigned to the 'democracy of consumption' as
soon as possible, without further adieu.
For there is nothing more counter-productive
than trying to get work out of somebody who has no work in
him. And, unfortunately, there are some people who are so
afflicted. Not the majority, thank God, but some.
One of the greatest beauties of Social Credit, in
my opinion, is that it allows a manager to weed out the
indolent without having any guilty feelings that he's depriving some poor
soul, useless though he may be, of his "economic security".
I would venture to say without hesitation
that the level of efficiency in most productive ventures could be, and would be,
greatly enhanced just by getting rid of the "dead wood". We all know it
exists. If this were ever possible to do
without pangs of conscience on the part of an employer that he's
doing some harm to his fellow man by depriving him of his daily bread, what a
boost to genuine efficiency and workplace happiness this would
be!
Also, it would spell the demise of that
alternative kind of manager, the one who tries to 'slave-drive' and rule
the workplace through 'fear' and 'meaness'. For under Social Credit, he,
too, might be expected to also pass from the scene. And his
passing will be as unmourned as the dismissal of the slothful.
We need the slothful as
'consumers', but we could dispense with them right now as 'producers', since
that's NOT what they are anyways. And the 'slave-driver', long term,
is as big an impediment to productivity and a harmonious workplace as they
are. I think we would find under Social Credit that there soon might be
more of a competition amongst employees TO WORK and get the job done in the most
efficient manner possible, rather than as now, to see who can
AVOID doing it completely, or stretch it out endlessly. Those are my
feelings on it anyways, based not only on my personal opinions, but also some 40
years now on the management side of the fence, and a few before that on the
other side.
Cheers,
Joe
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 6:15
PM
Subject: Re: [Cap_contacts] Fwd: Banking
and the Canadian Government - revised
Hi Wally, and everyone:
I can't disagree with what you're saying in
terms of ultimate goals of Social Credit, but I think the key to my statements
were how the dividend was to be introduced initially, and I have
some reservations about the size of the dividend, as did Douglas - initially.
In your email, you state : "(Having said all of this, one can recognize that Douglas did
provide, perhaps prudently, for a short-term limited period with some
conditions attached to the introduction of the Social Credit measures. But
this is a matter of strategy and not fundamental enduring principle or
policy.) "
And I absolutely agree with your statements.
In terms of long term policy, Social Credit should be based on absolute
economic security. My statements were made in terms of strategic
implementation of Social Credit and the size of the dividend.
I agree that Social Credit would cause a
significant withdrawal from the service of Mammon, but we have to realize that
this service has been increasing over the last century since Douglas first
wrote. That being the case, wouldn't it be advisable to be even more prudent
than Douglas given what has transpired since his time? We have all been
indoctrinated with materialist philosophy for the past century.
Bryan Monahan said in his pamphlet "Why I'm a
Social Crediter":
"The world we live in is, however,
quite definitely increasingly anti-Christian. The political economy of the
so-called Welfare State is collectivist - exactly the antithesis of a
Christian political economy. The psychology induced by this visibly inhibits
the full flowering of unique personalities, while it encourages the sins of
envy, greed and sloth."
If we have been exposed to the welfare state
for the last six or seven decades, and if two generations of people have grown
up in this world, and we know that this world encourages the sin of sloth, is
it prudent to give a substantial dividend initially? Wouldn't it be prudent to
attempt to change the philosophical structure of society through reforms
before a large dividend is paid to all?
I agree that the dividend is a right, but
don't rights also entail responsibilities? Sure the upper limit of the size of
the dividend is dependent on certain factors, but if the majority of people
immediately cease to work, and the dividend then ceases to be paid, would this
not be considered a failure? And if it did fail in this manner, would Social
Credit ever be seriously considered again? I don't mean this with any
disrespect, but I think the generations of people who have come after you tend
to see the world as rights without responsibilities, and I will give you a
concrete example.
Given the nature of the economy in Alberta,
and the job market that has ensued, "economic security" is pretty much a given
in this province right now. If you were to lose your job, you'd be able to
find one in pretty short order. This is especially true for labour jobs. Two
nights ago, 50 people failed to show up for work on the pick shift in the
warehouse. That's half the shift! Why? Because they didn't feel like working,
and there's nothing anyone can do about it, because these people can get
another job tomorrow, so there's no use firing them, because we desperately
need them. Businesses cannot operate in that manner. These last few
generations do not know the meaning of the word responsibility. This is the
result of materialistic philosophy, and the abandonment of the concept of
"free will". "I'm not responsible for the murder, because I have a mental
illness, and the chemicals in my brain forced me to murder someone". This is
the defense for someone who recently attacked a lady with a butcher knife in
Edmonton (his defense is "mental illness"), as if the "illness" caused him to
murder someone. This is the psychology of excuses.
In my essay entitled, "The Metaphysics of
Social Credit", I said, " If I do not have free will, what is the purpose of
liberty, and what is the meaning of responsibility?"
I do not believe that "idle hands are the devil's
workshop". I believe , "Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is
rather the only true good." Soren
Kierkegaard
I agree with you that ultimately we want to move
away from service to Mammon, but we are so far entrenched in his service, and
have raised generations of people who want rights without responsibilities,
that I feel it would be very imprudent to introduce a large dividend to the
people initially.
Take care,
Jim Schroeder
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:56
AM
Subject: Re: [Cap_contacts] Fwd:
Banking and the Canadian Government - revised
Hello All,
I think that the situation is
fairly clear. Douglas would have the Compensated Price (i.e.,
"consumer discount") implemented at a level sufficient to ensure
willing acceptance and participation by business. The objective of
Social Credit, he said, was to create a new civilization based upon
absolute economic security and the combination
of the Compensated Price and National Dividend should be formulated best to
achieve this end. Douglas strongly criticized the theory of "Rewards
and Punishments" as a manifestation of Puritanism being incompatible with
the Christian Ethic. Lower prices, alone, are of no avail to a person
who has no income whatsoever to spend. It is expected and desired that
there will be a move away from "work", activity done under the threat of
economic privation and directed by external will. Indeed, it is highly
desirable that there be a significant withdrawal from the
service of Mammon. The pursuit of waste and war in the drive for
financial survival and consequent empire-building in a quest for power,
based upon compulsion, is what C. H. Douglas called "the tragedy of
human effort." If we can afford a constant, indeed, escalating,
program of destruction merely to provide more "work"--then surely we have
untold latitude and potential for the introduction of increasing leisure.
In accordance with Social Credit policy, advances in technological
efficiency and productivity would no longer be subject to restriction and
sabotage as has been true under the present financial-economic regime
dominated by vested financial and commercial interests functioning in the
context of accelerating inflation of prices and unrepayable financial debt.
History has demonstrated and recorded that those citizens of
independent means have been at the forefront in making creative
contributions to the culture and technology of society.
In a Social Credit dispensation, where the obsession with "work" as as
a "moral" imperative has been eliminated, obviously a huge widespread
incentive would be released to automate economic functions--not the least of
these being menial and unpleasant tasks. More people would be
liberated to find technological processes freed increasingly of the need for
human input--and they would no doubt be intensely interested in, and
motivated to discover and apply their creative imaginations to discovery and
development of such processes. Wealthy people having received large
incomes from invested money, i.e., industrial dividends and interest, have
often been among the most truly creative and busy--although not always
in a benign manner when dedicated to large schemes for humanity.
Indeed, a case can be made in some cases that the wealthy who have
been devoted more to leisure have been a less damaging influence than the
"busy" rich. Drones, the vast "employed" are not frequently known for
creative mental genius. I have not heard any news about the citizens
of Alaska becoming indolent under their immensely popular Alaskan
Dividend program which has disbursed some fairly substantial Citizens'
Dividends. The Social Credit Consumer Dividend is not a "right" to be
granted or withdrawn by the political elite (viz., the "State") but rather
an constitutionally guaranteed inalienable inheritance, inherent in natural
law, which is intrinsic to the very nature of reality. (Having said
all of this, one can recognize that Douglas did provide, perhaps prudently,
for a short-term limited period with some conditions attached to the
introduction of the Social Credit measures. But this is a matter of
strategy and not fundamental enduring principle or policy.) Actually, it has
been anticipated that the introduction of consumer credits in support of
lower prices and increased effective consumer buying power might lead to
expanded economic activity shifting toward emphasis upon production
for genuine consumer satisfaction--with productive resources being allocated
increasingly toward this end. This is the prerogative of consumers in
a consumber-motivated economy--in the context of genuine economic democracy
as envisioned by Social Credit.
Finally, this discussion can be concluded, if not exhaustively, with
the confident assurance that a general and disastrous withdrawal from the
labour force is most unlikely, although creative energy will soon become
redirected to more benign activity. If there were a substantial
withdrawal from participation in production causing the rate of consumption
to rise relative to that of production, the Compensated Price and the
National Dividend would be reduced accordingly giving a rapid signal that
more production and or efficiency were required to meet the freely expressed
desires of the population. Social Credit contains within it,
therefore, an intrinsic self-correcting mechanism or dynamic which
would transmit the information required to signal the requirements for a
proper balance between need or desire and adequate production. That
there is still some need for the application of human effort to production
is granted--but the salient fact is that its relative necessity is
progressively being lifted from the backs of mankind and the financial
system must be correctly altered to reflect the essential nature of this
transition. Any wholesale withdrawal from creative participation in
the productive system which preceded the advances in technology required to
make such withdrawal possible, would provide a very rapid object
lesson. The desire of most "normal" people is for expanded
horizons of exploration and for a more stimulating and comfortable life and
they will not be satisfied with less. It is the inherent nature of
healthy-minded humans to be active, enquiring and creative--and Social
Credit would provide an environment in which the creativity of the
individual would be liberated and not stifled by fear and compulsion as so
often occurs under the present oppressive system which has elevated external
power over mankind instead of enhancing immanent sovereignty.
Sincerely
Wally
Hello Joe/Vic and others:
The price
discount is based upon the scientific fact that the true cost of
production is consumption over an equivalent period of time. The discount
would require accurate statistics regarding consumption and production
habits of the people who live in the community about to implement Social
Credit, and this would require a body to calculate these
statistics(whether it's called a "National Credit Authority", "Statistics
Canada", "The Bank of Canada" etc.....).
In my opinion, once the
"authority" in charge of calculating these statistics is operational, the
price rebate can be implemented based upon those statistics, and I do not
see any need to "gradually" introduce the price rebate mechanism, since
it's based upon scientific principles of the true cost of production and
accurate statistics.
The dividend is another matter, and I do
believe that some degree of "gradualism" is necessary to introduce this
mechanism: firstly, because I have yet to see where Douglas gave a
scientific methodology to determine the exact size of the dividend, and
secondly, because people have been so indoctrinated with socialist
ideology that when given the dividend, they will tend to see it as a right
without responsibility. I think we can agree that rights entail certain
responsibilities. My fear would be that there would be a mass exodus of
people from the productive system, because they would no longer feel the
"need" to work, and the system would fail in a short period of time. I
think we can all agree that we are still at a stage in technological
development where a certain amount of work is still necessary.
Take
care,
Jim Schroeder
http://social-credit.blogspot.com/
-----
Original Message ----- From: "Joe Thomson"
<thomsonhiyu@shaw.ca>
To: "vic bridger"
<socialcredit@ecn.net.au>
Cc: <william_b_ryan@yahoo.com>;
<socialcredit@elistas.com>; "Wallace Klinck"
<wmklinck@shaw.ca>; "Constance Fogal" <conniefogal@telus.net>;
"Wendy Forrest" <forrwen@gmail.com>; "Diane Boucher"
<cresoc@ccapcable.com>; "Don Martin"
<Donald.Martin@fsbdial.co.uk>; "Jim Schroeder"
<jschroeder@shaw.ca>; "Michael Stephen Lane"
<outoftheashes@prodigy.net>; "Robert E. Klinck"
<robert.klinck@gmail.com>; "Bill Daly" <b.daly@woosh.co.nz>;
"Frances Hutchinson" <f.g.hutchinson@btinternet.com>; "Martin
Hattersley" <jmartinh@shaw.ca>; "Therese Tardif"
<thtardif@hotmail.com>; "Don Auchterlonie"
<jimjamdon@hotmail.com>; "Henry Raynel"
<henry.raynel@actrix.co.nz>; "Anne Goss"
<ag.socred@btinternet.com>; "Richard Cook"
<rickycook21@hotmail.com>; "Betty Luks"
<betty@alor.org>
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 11:21
PM
Subject: Re: [Cap_contacts] Fwd: Banking and the Canadian Government
- revised
No, I don't think it's "jumping the gun" at all,
Vic. Not in the context in
which it's being discussed here. Which
concerns what Bill has suggested ~
ONE possible way the Dividend and Discount might
be introduced. Through
'gradualism'.
And just where in Douglas does he say there
should even be a National
Credit "Authority"?
Though I've no desire to quibble over semantics,
I don't recall ever seeing
him use that word. Which to
me, in this country anyway, seems to
connotate some all -powerful, centralised body
charged with rigidly
following some pre-determined
"Plan".
From the link provided in Bill's previous reply,
that seems to have been the
underlying failing of Communism.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I was under the
impression Social Credit was for
'inducement' rather than 'compulsion'.
That people, including retail
merchants affected directly by it, would
embrace it because they AGREE with
its being advantageous to them.
Now in light of what Bill has suggested just
recently re:-"gradualism", and
what he has written previously about the
statistical mechanisms inherent in
a National Credit Office already being largely
in place (in the Federal
Reserve, in the USA), I certainly don't believe
there is any "jumping the
gun" in soliciting his opinion on the questions
I've asked him.
No Social Crediter, certainly not myself, nor
would I suspect Bill either,
is losing sight of the "first trench to be
taken". But it certainly does no
harm, in my opinion anyways, to have some idea
just what we're going to do
that's actually prudent and practical if we ever
succeed in taking it.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "vic bridger"
<socialcredit@ecn.net.au>
To: "Joe Thomson"
<thomsonhiyu@shaw.ca>
Cc: <william_b_ryan@yahoo.com>;
<socialcredit@elistas.com>; "Wallace Klinck"
<wmklinck@shaw.ca>; "Constance Fogal"
<conniefogal@telus.net>; "Wendy
Forrest" <forrwen@gmail.com>; "Diane
Boucher" <cresoc@ccapcable.com>; "Don
Martin" <Donald.Martin@fsbdial.co.uk>;
"Jim Schroeder" <jschroeder@shaw.ca>;
"Michael Stephen Lane"
<outoftheashes@prodigy.net>; "Robert E. Klinck"
<robert.klinck@gmail.com>; "Bill Daly"
<b.daly@woosh.co.nz>; "Frances
Hutchinson"
<f.g.hutchinson@btinternet.com>; "Martin
Hattersley"
<jmartinh@shaw.ca>; "Therese Tardif"
<thtardif@hotmail.com>; "Don
Auchterlonie" <jimjamdon@hotmail.com>;
"Henry Raynel"
<henry.raynel@actrix.co.nz>; "Anne Goss"
<ag.socred@btinternet.com>;
"Richard Cook" <rickycook21@hotmail.com>;
"Betty Luks" <betty@alor.org>
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 11:27
PM
Subject: Re: [Cap_contacts] Fwd: Banking and the
Canadian Government -
revised
Isn't this just jumping the gun? Surely
details can be debated AFTER
the hurdles have been breached. Next
thing there will be mounting
discussion on whether the National dividend
should be 5% or 10% or
some other unknown or whether the discount
should be 5% ,10% or 25 %
or nothing. I would have thought that one
would build the house before
starting to furnish it. When a national Credit
Authority is
established and when that body has produced a
proper and correct set
of financial accounts on the economy and when
the Balance Sheet has
been achieved and when that information is
available to whatever
Authority is charged with the responsibility
to distribute a dividend
or discount perhaps then it may be possible to
entertain thoughts on
what % may apply. Much will depend upon a host
of other factors
applicable at the
time.
Vic Bridger
On 11/01/2008, at 1:19 PM, Joe Thomson
wrote:
>
>
> (Bill Ryan wrote:-) "The more
prudent course of action is based on
> the
> principle of gradualism, where the
Dividend and Discount are
> introduced in
> relatively small amounts at first, and
gradually increased over
> time, so we
> might deal appropriately with unforeseen
consequences that will
> inevitably
> occur."
>
> (Joe replies:-) Douglas, in his
1930's "Draft Plan for Scotland",
> recommended that the initial amount of
the Discount, (at that time),
> shouldn't be less than 25%. And the
"Goldsborough Bill" from that
> same era
> proposed an initial amount of 15%.
Both of these amounts are
> signifigant
> discounts. Though both were
proposed in a time of prolonged
> Depression, and
> the latter is not far from what we
are currently charged, in this
> country,
> in Sales Taxes.
>
> Do you think either amount
would be appropriate as an initial
> Discount
> today? Would the same reasons
Douglas gave for making it 25% to
> start with
> still be relevant, (to ensure broad based
participation amongst
> merchants)?
> Or, if we followed the principle of
gradualism you mentioned, would we
> likely begin with some smaller amount,
and hope for broad merchant
> acceptance?
>
>
>
>
>
>
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