[SOCIAL CREDIT] The first trench

[Keith Wilde]

It has been noted several times in this discussion, chiefly by Victor I believe, that in his later years Douglas recognized that monetary reform was only the second trench to be taken in establishing a system of Social Credit.  The first trench that had to be taken, he observed, was to bring widespread recognition that the distempers of the world were (are) being caused by the mutual self interests of a relatively small group who dominate financial relationships on a global scale.    Bill Ryan's arguments in his discussion with Joe Thomson suggest that that first trench can be ignored. He suggests that free will implies an openness to rational persuasion. A utopian sentiment if I ever heard one!  And I know very well that Bill has sufficient experience to understand that boneheads also have free will.   Unfortunately, that first trench is not only wide but also deep. And unless I have missed something very big, the remnants of Douglas followers have not taken up the torch in a reputably persuasive fashion.  By that I mean the contrast between the schools of economic history that were spawned by Marx and Engels and the rag-tag remnant of adacemic scribblers who have made a cult of conspiracy out of Douglas' observations.  (I suspect he was not the only one to be getting the picture at that time, but my knowledge is very limited.)  Where is the eminent historian who has written a major one-volume story of modernism based in the rise of finance capitalism and a Douglas-style understanding of the nature and role of money? It is the absence of that body of work that makes the issue of Douglas "anti-semitism" such a nuisance to people like Bill and Victor who would like to get beyond it to the positive program. But it won't go away without the assistance of a major effort by reputable historians and some brave publishers.  It may be that underground presses (like Internet) are the only medium.  But it that is so, let us hope for some better standards than appear on so many sites.   There is only one book I know of so far which has attempted the work I describe above. I have mentioned it before: The Lost Science of Money.  It traces the evoution of ideas about money from ancient times up to and through the high middle ages and renaissance which laid the groundwork for distorted notions that eventuilly permitted the systems of international finance and central banking since the 17th century.  Without so much as mentioning Douglas or Social Credit, the leads provided by the author brought me around to understanding what the issues are more effectively than any single text of explicitly Social Credit literature I have examined.  (It wouldn't have, of course, if I hadn't had those as well.)    Check it out at   http://www.monetary.org/lostscienceofmoney.htm     Keith --^^--------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --^^---------------------------------------------------------------