Social Credit
Christopher M. Quigley
B.Sc., M.M.I.I. Grad., M.A.
"Banking and credit are too important a business
for citizens and politicians to be ignorant of. Upon its fair and
equitable administration rests the very existence and future of our society".
Every society has its orthodoxy. But there comes a time when the "accepted view" no longer functions. When this occurs it is time for change. The movement of stars told Galileo that the earth centred Universe was wrong. The relative inner stability of two moving trains told Einstein that Newton and Euclid were wrong. The current Sub-Prime credit crisis is an indication that the orthodox concept of banking and credit is wrong.
This is not the first time that the failings of the accepted "credit concept" were identified as being erroneous in an increasingly technologically efficient world. The great depression of 1929 also gave the same signal. However instead of dealing with the cause only the symptoms were addressed. Accordingly, another world war ensued and through "sticking plaster" policy modifications we bungled on for another 80 years. Now, once again, the dormant "error" has become virulent and threatens the whole. The disease within the economic body was diagnosed successfully in the early 1900's and a solution was prescribed but ignored. The same remedy will work today but its successful application requires a "Copernican" change in economic conceptional modalities. The world was not ready then. Is it ready now? The cure is called: "Social Credit".
Due to developments in technology and technique the age old problems of production and scarcity have been all but solved, the issue now is one of distribution. Money creates effective demand and orthodox banking and accounting rules makes money scarce. This state of affairs if allowed to continue will result in:
1. Surplus production due to efficiencies
2. Consequent unemployment and under-employment resulting in effective demand destruction
3. Poverty due to lack of purchasing power
4. Redundant industrial machinery
5. Consequent cut-throat competition
6. Disappearance of industrial profits
7. Consequent business bankruptcy and depression
8. Aggressive competition for foreign markets
9. Consequent international friction and war
In order to prevent the above constantly recurring, as in 1929 and now with the sub-prime crisis, it is necessary to change our orthodox view of economics. WE MUST MOVE FROM AN OUT-DATED MINDSET. This does not require a revolution in society it simply requires a revolution in our consciousness. However the elite who control the ownership of the "orthodox" credit myth will not allow acceptance of this alternative knowledge because to do so will weaken their system of management and domination. However truth is an amazing thing. Slowly but surely, like a seed whose hibernation is over, the practicality and human goodness of the concept of Social Credit is germinating. But it needs aware and dedicated followers to nurture this growth. MONEY MUST NOT BE REGARDED AS A COMMODITY. IT IS IN ESSENCE A MEANS OF DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY. AS A RAILWAY TICKET IS TO A TRAIN NETWORK THE DOLLAR BILL IS TO THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM. THE OBJECTIVE IS NOT TO OWN ALL THE TICKETS BUT TO HAVE A RAILWAY SYSTEM THAT SERVES THE FUNCTION OF MOVING PEOPLE AND GOODS. Through our ignorance of banking and credit, politicians have allowed an elite professional group corner the market for "railway tickets" and thus control the "transport network".
For the current economic crisis to be finally resolved the realisation must sink in that BANKING IS NOT SIMPLY AN AVERAGE BUSINESS LIKE ANY OTHER. On the contrary, upon its fair and equitable administration rests the very existence and future of our society. Banking and credit are too important a "business" for citizens and politicians to be ignorant of. To deal with this matter we must, to use the words of President Obama: "up our game" or perish.
The word credit comes from the Latin word "CREDERE", meaning "TO BELIEVE". The essential quality of money, therefore, is the belief that one can get what one wants when one possesses it; THUS MONEY IS A SOCIAL CONTRACT BASED ON TRUST AND MUTUAL BENEFIT. Since credit is a function of money it follows, axiomatically, that CREDIT IS A SOCIAL CONTRACT ALSO. A society cannot allow a particular grouping to have a monopoly on the functioning of this social contract because ultimately this group could end up monopolising all contracts. If you own the contracts you will end up owning society.
The central problem which Social Credit addresses is the negative consequences resulting from the increasing use of capital in manufacture and distribution. This drive towards capital intensification brings efficiency but it decreases the requirement for labour. With the loss, or through the down-grading, of "jobs", the trend is for higher unemployment and/or under-employment. With under-employment there is less purchasing power in the economy thus the true potential capacity of modernity cannot be attained because there is no effective demand, since desire without money is meaningless in our system.
Social Credit strives to solve this spiral of lower employment, lower wages, recession and depression by increasing effective demand in the system by generating societal purchasing power. Purchasing capability is increased through a social dividend and the adjustment of prices. It also proposes that the ownership of credit reside with the society rather than with a monopoly group. Thus excess reserves owned by credit institutions, over a certain minimum to allow their sustained and stable operation, are systematically issued to society. Social Credit believes in banking but does not accept monopoly ownership of credit and legal tender. The objective of such policies are as follows:
1. Money is no longer a commodity controlled by banks
2. Credit is no longer a social contract controlled by banks
3. Boom and bust credit cycles are negated
4. Increased stable purchasing power allows for effective distribution of goods and services.
This stability allows better long term decisions to be made by entrepreneurs about the economy.
5. Increased demand for goods and services boosts an economy centred on smaller community based businesses.
6. Corporatism diminishes
7. Unemployment and under-employment are seen as opportunities for freedom to develop since citizens are able to function in the economic system through receipt of social dividends. Due to a change in the "zeitgeist" time is no longer equated to work in order to obtain legal tender.
8. Speculation diminishes due to the non availability of "commodity" credit and a real economy, rather than a gambling economy, flourishes.
9. Government down-sizes due to the diminished availability of monetised debt.
Many folk have attacked these objectives as idealist or socialist. They are wrong. In fairness these objectives are based more on community than the commune. But that is the point. Social Credit strives to reaffirm the supremacy of human association rather than abstract institutionalism. Capitalism, under our current banking arrangements, and communism /socialism are all "Cesarist" theories of society; they end in monopoly ownership of everything. This monopoly results in the "state" or "core political group" being master of the individual. As a result community dies and corporatism thrives. The philosophy of Social Credit is the exact opposite. It believes in the individual and it aspires to provide the individual with as much freedom as possible. It acknowledges that the STATE SHOULD EXIST TO SERVE THE INDIVIDUAL ; NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND. Social Credit therefore rejects the dialectic materialism of capitalism/communism/socialism; and accepts grace.
As this sub-prime crises festers and invades the social, economic and political body I hope that more and more like minded people will become focused, educated and aware. There is no more important goal in life than actively participating in the growth and development of one's spirit, one's family, one's community and one's nation. "Banking and credit are too important a business for citizens and politicians to be ignorant of. To deal with this matter we must, to repeat, up our game or perish".
References:
"Economic Democracy"
Major C. H. Douglas
Bloomfield books
"Aladdin's Lamp: The Wealth of the American People"
Gorham Munson
Creative Age Press: New York
New Zealand Government's
Monetary Committee
Notes of Evidence and Correspondence
Wellington, 24th. February 1934
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Hegelian Materialism and Transcendence
Christopher M. Quigley
B.SC., M.I.I.I. Grad., M.A.
James Joyce often stated that history was a nightmare from which he sought to escape. Hegel was the first philosopher to fully incorporate time (history) into his system and thereby he produced the mental framework for advancing socialism and ultimately communism. Under his system of thought the only "time" is human time and its ultimate end product is a closed society where individuality is lost and "time" stops. Thus a nightmare of the "ever bureaucratic present" is replacing the nightmare of "history" around the globe.
Hegel in his masterwork "Phenomenology of Spirit" propounded that the only time that matters is human time, all else (i.e. nature) is space. This human time develops through a "dialectic" process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For Hegel reality was all about a struggle for recognition and the story of history is the story of this struggle. Hegelian conflict produces masters and slaves. Masters order society; slaves build society. History is the story of this human action. While Hegel accepted the existence of spirit he rejected the existence of any God, he was a total materialist. Alexander Kojeve explains it as follows:
"Hegel knew that this knowledge cost him dearly. He speaks of a period of total depression that he lived through between the twenty-fifth and thirtieth years of his life. A "hypochondria" that was so severe as to paralyse all his powers, and that came precisely from the fact that he could not accept the necessary abandonment of individuality- that is, actually, of humanity- which the idea of absolute knowledge demanded. But, finally, he surmounted this "hypochondria" and becoming a wise man by that final acceptance of death. He published a few years later the first part of the "System of Science" entitled "Science of the Phenomenology of the Spirit", in which he definitely reconciled himself with all that is and has been, by declaring that THERE WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING NEW ON THE EARTH........ Thus the phenomenology ends with a radical denial of all transcendence."
The end result of this philosophy was a rejection of the divine and a replacement of the role of God by the State. This became the philosophical bedrock for the rise of Socialism and Communism. This mentality accepted that Man was alone and must rely on his own devices to survive and prosper. To quote Hegel:
"Man is negating action, which transforms given being and, by transforming it, transforms itself. Man IS what he IS only to the extent that he BECOMES what he is; HIS TRUE BEING IS BECOMING, TIME, HISTORY; and he becomes, he is history only in and by action that negates the given, THE ACTION OF FIGHTING AND OF WORK........."
"........For dialectical understanding is nothing other than the historical or temporal understanding of the real. Dialectic reveals the trinitary structure of being. In other words, in and by its dialectic the real reveals itself...as a present situated between the past and the future, THAT IS, AS A CREATIVE MOMENT, OR ELSE, AGAIN AS A RESULT WHICH IS A PROJECT AND A PROJECT WHICH IS A RESULT-
A RESULT WHICH IS BORN OF A PROJECT AND A PROJECT ENGENDERED BY A RESULT, IN A WORD, THE REAL REVEALS ITSELF IN ITS DIALECTICAL TRUTH AS A SYNTHESIS......."
"........Only the present thus determined by the future and past is a human or historical present......."
Thus in summary, for Hegel, the "dialectical process" or the "concept" of reality is man in the present, focused on future action, determined by his experience of past events. THUS THE FORMULA IS: PRESENT-FUTURE-PAST.
We know this to be the correct interpretation because further on Hegel says;
"THEREFORE BY REALIZING ITSELF, THE TIME IN WHICH THE FUTURE TAKES PRIMACY ENGENDERS HISTORY."
For my part one can only truly understand the modern march toward global socialism and communism when one understands Hegel. In almost every society today we see five and ten year "economic & social plans". Human beings have become subservient to a FUTURE rather than the PRESENT. In other words the world lives in a suspended state of future orientation. "Nobody is here everybody is there". When one understands the nature of the Hegelian system one can readily comprehend why its teachings were so influential on Marx, Engels and Lenin. Anybody can be made to do anything in the expectation of the future "Utopia". Unfortunately what Marx and Lenin knew, which they did not inform their followers, was that Hegelianism is a closed philosophy, which produces a static society, which has no allowance for individuality. Static societies eventually stop "time" and opportunity is limited due to "statism". This is exactly what is happening all over the world today. Material future orientation is making the whole world "the same" and "time" ( i.e. human time) appears to be the same also. (E. G. the New Year, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all blend into one similar event throughout the globe and nothing is "special" anymore because the local human "magic", the mystery and romance have gone and nobody really understands why).
To prevent a monolithic world sameness overtaking every society and destroying individuality folks need to understand the underlying Hegelian materialism surrounding modern culture. You cannot overcome what you do not understand.
Human culture is more than "a plan". The present does matter. Individuality is paramount. Freedom is essential to true peace and happiness. Creativity and individuality, fundamental benchmarks of western culture, need to become heroic ideals again. The socialist Emperor must be seen to have no clothes. TIME HAS NOT STOPPED BECAUSE "GOD IS DEAD"; as Hegel proposed. "God" is alive and is a human knowledge of truth, which accepts that there is transcendence. Human beings
evolved from nature. Therefore Hegel is wrong when he asserts that nature is "space" because the development of human consciousness enabled human beings to move beyond " nature" and transform it, therefore human consciousness is "transcendence" made manifest. This "transcendence" means that the future is not certain as socialists and communists assert, but is free and open and subject to potentials and possibilities as yet unknown. Consciousness proves Hegel false because we now know the following: THAT WHICH WAS NEED NOT NECESSARILY BE, THERE IS FREE WILL.
Thus in essence the spiritual crisis in World events is a crisis in human philosophy. The sophists are alive and kicking and are running the show. Social progressive materialists, of the Hegelian type, are communists in humanist clothing. Freedom and individuality and transcendent creativity need to be championed against statisim, totalitarianism and bureaucratic control. Many would say that this is overstatement but Hegelianism is definitely active and influential. For example, Alexander Kojeve one of the greatest pupils of Hegelian philosopy, was invited to give up lecturing and become one of the architects of the greatest experiments in World socialism, he graciously accepted. He went to Brussels and joined the economic board planning the European Economic Union (now the European Union). Need we say more?
If such socialist "planning" is allowed to flourish unchallenged eventually Europe, America, Asia and India will be crushed under Global institutionalism. The role of individual freedom will be replaced with political opportunism. Western culture needs a reawakening of the essence of the human spirit, which were its hallmark. This spirit once died in the dark ages but miraculously it experienced a rebirth. Do we have the courage, the insight and the philosophical awareness to nurture a new renaissance?
Reference:
Introduction To The Reading Of Hegel
Lectures On The Phenomenology Of Spirit
Assembled By Raymond Queneau
Cornell University Press
B.SC., M.I.I.I. Grad., M.A.
James Joyce often stated that history was a nightmare from which he sought to escape. Hegel was the first philosopher to fully incorporate time (history) into his system and thereby he produced the mental framework for advancing socialism and ultimately communism. Under his system of thought the only "time" is human time and its ultimate end product is a closed society where individuality is lost and "time" stops. Thus a nightmare of the "ever bureaucratic present" is replacing the nightmare of "history" around the globe.
Hegel in his masterwork "Phenomenology of Spirit" propounded that the only time that matters is human time, all else (i.e. nature) is space. This human time develops through a "dialectic" process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For Hegel reality was all about a struggle for recognition and the story of history is the story of this struggle. Hegelian conflict produces masters and slaves. Masters order society; slaves build society. History is the story of this human action. While Hegel accepted the existence of spirit he rejected the existence of any God, he was a total materialist. Alexander Kojeve explains it as follows:
"Hegel knew that this knowledge cost him dearly. He speaks of a period of total depression that he lived through between the twenty-fifth and thirtieth years of his life. A "hypochondria" that was so severe as to paralyse all his powers, and that came precisely from the fact that he could not accept the necessary abandonment of individuality- that is, actually, of humanity- which the idea of absolute knowledge demanded. But, finally, he surmounted this "hypochondria" and becoming a wise man by that final acceptance of death. He published a few years later the first part of the "System of Science" entitled "Science of the Phenomenology of the Spirit", in which he definitely reconciled himself with all that is and has been, by declaring that THERE WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING NEW ON THE EARTH........ Thus the phenomenology ends with a radical denial of all transcendence."
The end result of this philosophy was a rejection of the divine and a replacement of the role of God by the State. This became the philosophical bedrock for the rise of Socialism and Communism. This mentality accepted that Man was alone and must rely on his own devices to survive and prosper. To quote Hegel:
"Man is negating action, which transforms given being and, by transforming it, transforms itself. Man IS what he IS only to the extent that he BECOMES what he is; HIS TRUE BEING IS BECOMING, TIME, HISTORY; and he becomes, he is history only in and by action that negates the given, THE ACTION OF FIGHTING AND OF WORK........."
"........For dialectical understanding is nothing other than the historical or temporal understanding of the real. Dialectic reveals the trinitary structure of being. In other words, in and by its dialectic the real reveals itself...as a present situated between the past and the future, THAT IS, AS A CREATIVE MOMENT, OR ELSE, AGAIN AS A RESULT WHICH IS A PROJECT AND A PROJECT WHICH IS A RESULT-
A RESULT WHICH IS BORN OF A PROJECT AND A PROJECT ENGENDERED BY A RESULT, IN A WORD, THE REAL REVEALS ITSELF IN ITS DIALECTICAL TRUTH AS A SYNTHESIS......."
"........Only the present thus determined by the future and past is a human or historical present......."
Thus in summary, for Hegel, the "dialectical process" or the "concept" of reality is man in the present, focused on future action, determined by his experience of past events. THUS THE FORMULA IS: PRESENT-FUTURE-PAST.
We know this to be the correct interpretation because further on Hegel says;
"THEREFORE BY REALIZING ITSELF, THE TIME IN WHICH THE FUTURE TAKES PRIMACY ENGENDERS HISTORY."
For my part one can only truly understand the modern march toward global socialism and communism when one understands Hegel. In almost every society today we see five and ten year "economic & social plans". Human beings have become subservient to a FUTURE rather than the PRESENT. In other words the world lives in a suspended state of future orientation. "Nobody is here everybody is there". When one understands the nature of the Hegelian system one can readily comprehend why its teachings were so influential on Marx, Engels and Lenin. Anybody can be made to do anything in the expectation of the future "Utopia". Unfortunately what Marx and Lenin knew, which they did not inform their followers, was that Hegelianism is a closed philosophy, which produces a static society, which has no allowance for individuality. Static societies eventually stop "time" and opportunity is limited due to "statism". This is exactly what is happening all over the world today. Material future orientation is making the whole world "the same" and "time" ( i.e. human time) appears to be the same also. (E. G. the New Year, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all blend into one similar event throughout the globe and nothing is "special" anymore because the local human "magic", the mystery and romance have gone and nobody really understands why).
To prevent a monolithic world sameness overtaking every society and destroying individuality folks need to understand the underlying Hegelian materialism surrounding modern culture. You cannot overcome what you do not understand.
Human culture is more than "a plan". The present does matter. Individuality is paramount. Freedom is essential to true peace and happiness. Creativity and individuality, fundamental benchmarks of western culture, need to become heroic ideals again. The socialist Emperor must be seen to have no clothes. TIME HAS NOT STOPPED BECAUSE "GOD IS DEAD"; as Hegel proposed. "God" is alive and is a human knowledge of truth, which accepts that there is transcendence. Human beings
evolved from nature. Therefore Hegel is wrong when he asserts that nature is "space" because the development of human consciousness enabled human beings to move beyond " nature" and transform it, therefore human consciousness is "transcendence" made manifest. This "transcendence" means that the future is not certain as socialists and communists assert, but is free and open and subject to potentials and possibilities as yet unknown. Consciousness proves Hegel false because we now know the following: THAT WHICH WAS NEED NOT NECESSARILY BE, THERE IS FREE WILL.
Thus in essence the spiritual crisis in World events is a crisis in human philosophy. The sophists are alive and kicking and are running the show. Social progressive materialists, of the Hegelian type, are communists in humanist clothing. Freedom and individuality and transcendent creativity need to be championed against statisim, totalitarianism and bureaucratic control. Many would say that this is overstatement but Hegelianism is definitely active and influential. For example, Alexander Kojeve one of the greatest pupils of Hegelian philosopy, was invited to give up lecturing and become one of the architects of the greatest experiments in World socialism, he graciously accepted. He went to Brussels and joined the economic board planning the European Economic Union (now the European Union). Need we say more?
If such socialist "planning" is allowed to flourish unchallenged eventually Europe, America, Asia and India will be crushed under Global institutionalism. The role of individual freedom will be replaced with political opportunism. Western culture needs a reawakening of the essence of the human spirit, which were its hallmark. This spirit once died in the dark ages but miraculously it experienced a rebirth. Do we have the courage, the insight and the philosophical awareness to nurture a new renaissance?
Reference:
Introduction To The Reading Of Hegel
Lectures On The Phenomenology Of Spirit
Assembled By Raymond Queneau
Cornell University Press
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