----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 10:52
PM
Subject: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT]
population
" I rather doubt that Douglas maintained that a
better financial system would permit consumers (I'm looking ahead to
Victor's comments here) to take charge of production and design a perfect
engine."
Vic B - A better way of putting this would be that if
the flawed financial accounting system was corrected to reflect reality and
thus provide consumers with an effective demand in the market place, the very
existence of the effective demand would enable consumers to choose or refuse.
In other words they would have the ability to make an effective demand for the
goods they choose to purchase or refuse to purchase. In this way they would be
dictating to producers what they wanted. They would not take charge of
production as in being control of the factory but in control of what
production was required.
There is no question of wanting to "design a perfect
engine".
Vic B
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 3:59
PM
Subject: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT]
population
Michael, would there be a population problem if the
"industrial system" were fully efficient and population were 20 times as
great? This is a pertinent question because the clear weight of
opinion among scientists in relevant specialties is that global (natural)
systems are already strained beyond the point of
sustainability.
Your repetition of this argument (I didn't notice it
before answering under "coal") reinforces the importance of getting clear
what Gantt meant by efficiency. The context suggests he was thinking
of heat engines, and I believe you identified him earlier as an
engineer. Since Douglas was also an engineer, I find it difficult to
believe that he would agree with the inference you have drawn here. A
Franklin stove was an improvement over an open fire in a teepee,
and gas furnaces are remarkably more efficient today than they were a
couple of decades ago, but I have always understood that 100% efficiency is
a pipe dream, an impossibility according to accepted principles of
physics. I rather doubt that Douglas maintained that a better
financial system would permit consumers (I'm looking ahead to
Victor's comments here) to take charge of production and design a perfect
engine. I believe it is important to get this question of what
you mean by efficiency cleared up, lest funny money fade to insignificance
beside funny physics!
Keith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 5:20
AM
Subject: [SOCIAL CREDIT]
population
Dear Friends,
I thank Gerhard for his
comments and questions. He calls attention to increasing population
and says, "Natural systems can no longer keep up the levels of supply . .
. nor cope with the streams of waste."
I would suggest that the
solution to this is already contained in the observations on coal and
Sabotage of production to which it was a reply. If the industrial
system is 5% efficient, then at full efficiency it could support a
population twenty times as great. The "streams of waste" that
natural systems cannot cope with are the product of our gross
inefficiency. In other words, there is no population
problem.
Michael Lane
Triumph of the
Past
