Dear Members of the Discussion Group: Social Credit is opposed to the policies of central economic planning and state ownership of the means of production. Social credit asserts that the essential problems of production have been solved long ago and that the primary economic problem is inadequate and faulty distribution. Any problems of production that may exist are primarily an inability to adequately respond because of a faulty system of distribution. This defect is considered to derive from a faulty financial system which can easily be rectified from a technical standpoint. Such rectification faces, however, unrelenting political and legal opposition by those who seek to centralize power over mankind--whether for erroneous reasons of misguided idealism, or the naked (or concealed) desire for power.
Any system that utilizes real capital (i.e., "tools") to produce wealth is capitalist. The Soviet union instituted the most capital intensive "economy" in that it gave preference to real capital projects over the production of consumer goods. The communist fetish for "work" resulted in the most oppressive form of "wage slavery" with little return for effort (as I have been told, "We work--but nothing seems to happen.") and the slave labor camp or firing squad if you were deemed to be an "anti-social" who questioned your obligation to serve the State. The "capital vs socialist" debate obscures the real issues and sets one part of society against the other, just as the "Left vs right" blinds and divides the people. Social Credit asserts that the problem lies with faulty finance which fails properly to deliver to the consuming public the results that flow from the productive system. The soialists, those "knights in rusty armour" have never really appreciated the implications of the power age as it relates to the financial credit system (and more recently to the information revolution) which has provided a stupendous actual and potential physical abundance. Nor, due to financial ignorance) have the finance-capitalists, modern industrialists and political leaders (those of good will and without ulterior motives) understood how to deal with distribution of the abundance which their activities have created. Government has a legitimate role to play--primarily to provide a legal system and infrastructure in which maximum individual initiative is allowed to operate. The operative principle in Social Credit is balance. The degree of government involvement in the lives of the people should be optimal and that should mean minimal in a successfully functioning society--one that provides desired economic results and maximal freedom of thought, action, creativity, expression and association. The term optimal can have different meanings in that it can shift in the context of particular historic, economic or social circumstances--but from a Social Credit perspective, it should involve a progressive liberation of the individual from external control and economic insecurity. During a course on Comparative Economic Systems our class had a series of guest lectures on central planning from a former head of planning for the mining industry in communist Chekoslovakia. Over several days, the professor delivered an agonizing presentation of the sheer impossibility of anticipating the needs of production and consumption with input-output tables, with five-year plans becoming eight-year and beyond due to the hopeless complexity of the task. He then showed how resort was made to differential equations to solve the problem and on the final day of lectures, after writing equations from one wall to the other, suddenly turned to the class and pronounced, "You see, it is impossible!" I said to him, "Professor ..., does it not seem the ultimate arrogance [and I might have added "folly"] for a select group at the top of the mountain to presume to know the production and consumption preferences for a whole nation?" To which he replied, "Yes, when you think about it, it is." I was in the Soviet Union during the Breznev period (about 1980) and noticed that nearly every public official had another one staring over his or her back. Dour KGB agents were seated on airplanes with their ears stretched to the limit while they pretended to read. The nation did not even have refrigeration--only iceboxes! There was only one bookstore in Moscow--the communist bookstore which featured almost exclusively the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, et al. (although we noticed some McGraw-Hill textbooks stored in a back room) Going to a "supermarket" was an experience. Drab and dated produce was featured. Consumer goods were scarce and choice very limited--a wasteland for the consumer. One had to stand in line to get authorization to shop and then another line to obtain whatever little might be available--and then another to make payment. On the night of our arrival (where at the airport I was taken away from our tour group for some kind of "interogation" which mainly involved an army officer merely staring at me in an austere little room with a table, chair and sink) we were relieved of our passports and briefed in the lobby of the Cosmos (French built for the Moscow Olympics) Hotel. The subject of central planner Tikinov's latest five-year plan came up and at the prompting of my companion the guide (a twenty some years old girl who was our overall city-to-city guide and spoke typical North American English) repeatedly sought my "opinion" of the plan. Finally, I asked, "Do you REALLY want me to tell you what I think of the plan?" Answer: "Yes, we want to know what you think!" To which I replied, "Well, if I want to leave by that lobby door [we could never take our room keys, which were held by "key ladies", from the building] and I cannot go out the door until you go to the top of the mountain to get permission to give me permission to go out, when am I going to get out the door?" She looked at me for a moment and replied, "I see what you mean." Our young guide seemed to be "white-knuckled" during intercity flights on Aeroflot. The Cosmos restaurant had a magificent menu--with only a couple of items "available." If all this and, of course, much more, is the result of common ownership of production and central planning, then I am not impressed except most negatively. When it comes to an abundance of genuine human happiness and physical security and enjoyment, there is no substitute for freedom--and this touches the core of Social Credit philosophy regarding the nature and purpose of the individual in human society. Sincerely Wally --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
