----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 9:32
AM
Subject: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first
trench
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
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 3:44
PM
Subject: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] The first
trench
In a message
dated 9/1/03 2:12:32 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
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.
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
