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Hi Joe,
Your message below prompts the following
comments:
I didn't mean to be pointing a critical finger at
the efforts of individual proponents of Social Credit or to their collective
decision to take a political party approach--even though retrospectively that
one did fail. I was instead pointing out and lamenting what seems to
me (and I will be pleased to be corrected on this) to be the absence of a major
effort by scholars in history and philosophy to expand on two Douglas themes in
particular:
1. That individuals can
and do successfully conspire behind the
scenes to orchestrate big events so that they move in a
desired direction;
2. That moral philosophy deteriorated, starting with Aquinas (is
that M.J. Adler I hear, turning over in his grave?) so that teachings of the
Christian church departed from New Testment norms and gradually took on an Old
Testament flavor, deteriorating especially at the hands of Calvin (and reaching
a nadir with the paramount influence today of Ayn Randism on social
policy).
Now those are big, heavy subjects and they compare
to the economic issue as tacking a 14-foot sailboat compares to turning an
oil tanker at sea. That first trench is huge, but
until it is crossed mere political campaigners will continue to fall on the
bayonets of its defenders. In other words, I think Bill Ryan is right in
pointing out that the economic arguments are ready to hand, but I fear he will
not get the appointment he deserves to a reputable university department of
economics until some heavy-hitting historians and philosophers have
dampened the powder of the trench defenders. Acceptance of
the Douglas economic policy prescriptions depends on a shift in popular
opinions--a cultural shift. And a direct approach is unlikely to pull it
off. That has been demonstrated by the political party. And
that is why I suggested several months ago on this list that people who want to
propagate the cultural shift would help their cause by avoiding the term
Social Credit--for exactly the same reason as Bill wishes we would not bring up
the anti-semitism word.
Economic history, or history from the economic
perspective, is a reputable subject, but I wonder how many people know that many
of its outstanding practitioners have been Marxian? (Cf. Hayek on
Capitalism and the Historians.) That is because Marx' own orientation
to economic analysis was that of processes (impersonal) operating through time.
A lot of historians seem to take that large-scale, process orientation to
interpreting human and social events. In that perspective, prominent
individuals are reduced in significance to something like automatons
moved by destiny. By contrast, some interpreters believe that history
is shaped by well-positioned individuals who are able to seize the levers of
power and manipulate people and events in their own interest. In the
conventional culture of academic historians (and journalists--hence most of the
rest of us), these persons are dismissed as "conspiracy
theorists". Douglas was one of those, and many of his admirers seem
to have trod the same path. And that is one reason why the anti-semitism
label sticks.
Before going further I want to emphasize that I can
see that intelligent, resourceful, honest and dedicated individuals
have made many persuasive expositions of Douglas" ideas over the past half
century--judging only by contributions recommended to me by participants on
this list. Most of them appear under the Social Credit label, however, and
for many readers that is taken as the equivalent of something like the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion. "Don't need to bother reading
that!" I have experienced something
like an epiphany on this subject over the past couple of
months, however.
Although once contemptuous of conspiracy
theorists, I have had to recognize that not all of them are self-deluded
liars. I don't want to repeat what I have already posted here over the past five
days, Joe, but suggest that you read them, including the attachment to "Reply to
Victor's latest clarification", if you want to get the flavor of my
epiphany. Preparing the ground for acceptance of Douglas policies will
take more efforts of the kind represented by Zarlenga's Lost Science of
Money and by Michael Lane's ongoing focus on the philosophic
superiority of some pre-modern thinking. That kind of work has to
become mainstream along with Ryan's expositions of the economic
arguments. Part of the former task will be to clean out the odious
stables of conspiracy theorists--an example of which appeared recently on the
ALOR site, promoting uncritically the slimy, misleading text of
The Naked Capitalist.
Rather than partisan arguments, maybe Social
Crediters should focus on getting some academic research focused on these first
trench questions--keeping quiet about the origins of the idea like the
economic historians were about their Marxian orientation. And try it
someplace far from Alberta or B.C., like St. F-X in the Maritimes or St.
Paul's in Ottawa, and in some RC bastion in Baltimore, e.g.
Keith
Hello Keith, There would be no one more happy than I if that 'first trench' didn't have to be taken. That someone with a far greater knowledge of economics than most of us will ever possess, Bill Ryan himself perhaps, could convince the powers-that-be that there was merit in the Social Credit economic ideas, and the philosophy behind them. And that they should be given an honest, objective, and thorough study, and even possibly a trial somewhere. But I think a study of the experience in Alberta and elsewhere indicates this isn't going to happen. Social Credit is highly unlikely to come to pass this way, largely for the same reasons it wasn't allowed to be tried there then. Douglas himself made a very rational case of persuasion in the 1920's and early '30's. No one, to my knowledge, could prove positively that his concepts wouldn't work, or wouldn't be beneficial to most people. But his opponents did try, and they're still occasionally trying. (Gary North's self-described 'scholarly study' Salvation Through Inflation was a recent attempt. Though 'pulp-fiction' would be a more apt description of that effort , in my opinion!). So we keep coming back to that 'first trench'. And in regards to the 'anti-semitism' allegation as the reason for failure, we are looking at that with a rather more enlightened viewpoint now than was prevalent generally in Douglas's time. When there was a widespread, officially sanctioned prejudice against Jews in many places. So I don't personally think that would have been much of a factor in those years prior to the war. As for the second part of your comments above, it is true that Social Crediters haven't made great headway. And there are a great many reasons for that, but I would say one of the primary ones in Canada was the attempt to compromise the basic Douglas concepts when it was thought the 'political party' route was the quickest way to success. Once that path was started down, it was increasingly difficult to avoid more and more 'compromise', until Social Credit in the Party form often bore scant resemblence to anything put forth by C H Douglas. This is still a problem, though it may become less so in the future. Joe --^^--------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --^^--------------------------------------------------------------- |
- [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first trench Keith Wilde
- Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first trench ThomsonHiyu
- Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first trench Keith Wilde
- Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first trench Chick Hurst
- [SOCIAL CREDIT] the first trench William B. Ryan
- Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] the first trench Victor Bridger
- [SOCIAL CREDIT] the first trench William B. Ryan
