On Wednesday 19 February 2003 22:17, Chick wrote:
Questions about South Africa
--------------------------------------------------
I want to thank you, Chick, for your full response, in this posting and in
your other one. There is a lot of food for thought and fruitful discussion
with my local contacts. I had previously forwarded your letter containing the
information about the Co-operatives to one of the political parties which is
strong in KwaZulu-Natal, and I will do the same with this one of yours. I
will send copies of this letter to some relevant e-mail destinations in South
Africa. Amazingly, we used to have quite a strong Co-operatives movement in
farming disciplines in South Africa but they were all phased out towards the
end of the previous government-regime, for what reason I cannot remember.
It all fits in very well with aspirations being voiced today in South Africa.
This, for instance, from a speech in Parliament made by the Minister of
Internal Affairs who is also the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party:-
"I am also concerned about the rising levels of poverty. I have no doubt that
there is much greater poverty today than there was in 1994. One of the
elements which is not sufficiently considered in the equation employed to
measure poverty is the rapid disintegration of the subsistence economy which
existed then. I see this problem throughout the rural areas of our country.
I come from a rural area and I pride myself on representing the unheard
voice of rural people, who are now becoming the poorest of the poor. Before
1994 people in our rural areas in South Africa were able to feed themselves
and their families every day because of the existence of a culture which
prompted them to produce their own food. Before 1994, many were keen to
promote subsistence agriculture and I, as the Chief Minister of the
erstwhile KwaZulu Government, ensured that my Government did its best to
allow every family to have enough food on the table everyday. We applaud the
decision of Government to extend the Child social grants to the age of 14
years. But as long as we are unable to feed ourselves this will be no more
than just palliatives."
And this from another forum:- NEWSLETTER 4 of 2003 Go to Hologram Website
South African Local Government Association Department of Provincial
& Local Government Local Governance Transformation Programme, The US Agency
for International Development :-
The Urban Renewal Programme
Dr Doug Hindson
[Extract]
"[The programme] is intended to generate greater synergy within existing
development programmes and to draw in a range of complementary programmes
from government and other sources. It has a focus on poor communities where
previous programmes have delivered physical development, but in which there
is a lack of integration of development, continuing high levels of income
poverty and economic marginalisation. It has a nodal focus, namely on
clusters of poor areas that exist at a spatial scale that is smaller than an
entire municipality.
A number of important themes emerge with respect to the new approach to urban
renewal.
Firstly, it places poverty alleviation at the centre of development. The URP
while focussing on poor communities, gives greater centrality to economic
development than the RDP, which focused effort mainly on housing, residential
infrastructure and services.
Secondly, it stresses the need for more decentralized decision-making and
hence participation at levels below that of municipal government.
Notwithstanding the intentions of the RDP, civil society organization and
activity declined rather than increased after 1994. Furthermore, the recent
centralization of local government poses further threats to community
involvement. The URP seeks to respond to this by bringing development
initiatives closer to communities within residential nodes. It calls for
development efforts at the area level that are much more responsive to local
demand."
------------------------------
State, Business, and Church (or Religion) are intimately connected, and they
all, in modern centralised party-democracy systems, completely bypass the
individual and his/her intimate local community. We cannot kill the giant,
but we can move in wherever there is mention of empowering small community
units. The above extracts suggest a step we can take.
Thanks again, Chick.
Jessop.
-----------------------------
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 22:17, Jessop wrote:
Questions about South Africa
--------
Chick's reply:-
The answer is yes but there are a number of things that can be done.
Even without Social Credit, whether it is a country, a province or state, a
community, an industry or whatever, there are things that can be done to
change things.
The community must come together to make the change. The country of Ghana
did just that and they asked the international Co-operative community,
predominantly Canada or rather the Canadian Co-operative Association for
assistance.
Now they could do what Ghana did or they can start with a village or an
industry.
Let's use agriculture as the example. All the farmers or producers come
together and create a "marketing co-operative/producer co-op." All produce
to be sold outside the community all comes to the co-op for sale and the
co-op pays the producers fairly for their crop. The co-op sells the
produce and eliminates the guys who are constantly ripping off the
producers as individuals. The producer should always have the freedom to
sell his/her own goods locally but in accordance with the co-op so that
they are not getting duped by someone with ulterior motives.
In some parts of the world it has been done a little differently in that
the helping agencies started "Fair Trade Co-ops" that guarantee coffee
producers a fair price for their produce and then sell the coffee to
business who agree with the principles of "Fair Trade."
Now the co-op can work two ways or two co-ops could be created. One co-op
for the purpose of selling the produce in exchange for cash that is then
returning it to the farmers with only the cost of doing the transaction
being removed. The co-op will require a manager or business person who has
only the interests of the producer/owners at heart. Buyers will buy from
the co-op when they know that no one will sell to them unless it is through
the co-op.
The second co-op, or the other half if there is only one co-op, will be for
the purposes of procuring all necessary seed, equipment, whatever, even
labour if necessary, and the co-op members will be able to buy from the
co-op at a reasonable price rather than paying the heavy prices of people
who know they can take advantage of individuals.
The people must make the commitment to stick together.
If they want to work as a group instead of individual farmers, they can
create an agricultural co-operative or more than one that will work
together. All co-ops, if there are more than one, must be established for
the purpose of: improving the lot of each and every member and developing
the local economy.
Expertise and assistance is available from the Canadian Co-operative
Association and I am sure other countries as well, as well as the
International Co-operative Association.
In Ghana, with the assistance of the Canadian Co-operative Association,
they established what everyone refers to as the Blue Banks. The Blue Banks
are a number of Co-operative Credit Unions, why they put the two names
together I do not know, across the country to make loans to individuals and
small businesses. Banks are not available for such services. These CUs
also make loans and help, together with the CCA, to create Co-operative
businesses which have greatly improved the economy and the individual
standard of living of the members as well as freeing them from the
excessive costs of those who monopolized the economy before.
A study of the Mondragon Co-operatives of Spain will give you some idea of
how co-ops can work with many positive results. Through out the world
there are something like one and a half billion people proving that
co-operation works.
During the revolution in China, Mao encouraged the people to establish
co-operatives to build the economy and to help the people, the members of
the co-op improve their personal economic situation because the country was
in such a desperate state. In 1949, when Communism took control of China,
most of the co-ops were doing so well that the members were considered to
wealthy to be given land in the land redistribution and most had assets
taken away. Co-operatives were still encouraged however and by 1957 there
were over 700,000 co-ops operating in China. The government realized that
this put them in a very awkward position, not only did these people have
democracy and were doing well the government did not have control over the
members nor the co-ops. The number of co-ops was reduced to 20,000 by the
government and the government took direct control of the operations of all
co-ops. The economy then went into a tail spin until the mid sixties when
Mao came to grips with the realization that they had done the wrong thing.
Any and every little corner of the world can help them selves if they
really want to but they have to want to. Aberhart used to say, "If you
have not suffered enough, then it is you god given right to suffer some
more."
There are situations when, in their desperate need for greed of power, to
control the masses, dictatorial governments put their citizens into a
situation that is even beyond hope at which time others must come in to
help out. But, usually, history has proven that people will, like an
alcoholic, come to the realization that they must do something and that
something is to work with others to help your self, for survival, and it is
only through co-operation that humanity really survives.
The implementation of a system like what is advocated by Social Credit
would of course eliminate the burden of the interest that the society must
suffer, not only in the running of their affairs but also in the taxation
that robes them of their operating capital.
Chick Hurst
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jessop Sutton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 10:25 AM
Subject: [SOCIAL CREDIT] Some questioning
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.
"But leave the Wise to wangle, and with me
The quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee."
I begin to sympathize with old Omar Khayyam. I shall leave the experts to
wrangle over the bookkeeping issues and just raise some issues that occupy
my
mind. I came in as a layperson, and I remain a layperson with a lot of
questions unanswered, the main one being "Will it, can it, work?"
Here are a few layman's points:-
1. Can it be that 'one size fits all?' The situation in South Africa (let
alone Zimbabwe) seems vastly different than America, Canada, England,
Australia. Can Social Credit be set out in a 'system' that satisfies all?
2. Steve pointed out that the whole world lies at the mercy of the
multi-national corporations. Can a system that suits them suit a rural clan
in a tribal area in KwaZulu-Natal where the adult literacy rate is probably
less than ten percent (latest statistic is that 80% of all South African
adults are functionally illiterate), and women-folk look after to the
'agriculture' while their menfolk are away working in towns and cities? Where
a whole family lives off an old-age pensioner's social pension equal to about
R20 per day (coffee at the Seattle Coffee Shop in the city costs R7 -- R10);
where grandmothers are left raising infants whose mothers have died of AIDS,
and who struggle to access the meager grants available to them (we do not
blame the government, they are doing their best in the face of small budgets
and lack of infrastructure. There are no banks anywhere near accessible to
the people who have to walk long distances to get to a remote trading store.)
3. Where does the Social Credit come from in a country like Zimbabwe where
there is a very definite negative growth in the National Asset? We can
blame the government, but the people are poor and still need to eat, they
still need access to money to buy grain products which are priced according
to International Dollar prices. Can there be an one International Social
Credit in our global village?
6. Someone has raised the question of the association with 'Christian'. I
think the mention of 'Christian' came about because I said I had come to
the list starting from the Christian perspective -- not the 'evangelizing
perspective', but from the idea that American Democracy, which is now the
model for the world, comes about because of a wrong practice in
Christianity suggesting that democracy is a party-based thing (the
Christian Church was never meant to be a mass of thirty-thousand
denominations). I say there is nothing democratic in the system because the
individual has no voice in the presence of powerful interests that back
parties and put their own people in office. The world's banking systems
evolved in that milieu to serve the interests of the large and powerful
traders.
I could go on, but many on this list are probably more up on the African
problems than I am, so I end by asking the same questions as at the
beginning: "Will it, can it, work?" "Can one size really fit all" -- or
does there have to be a separate solution for us in Africa?
In a separate e-mail, I would like to set out what would be my wish-list
for our own country.
Jessop.
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