| Show alberta tries the blew wew economies economics DEAL ME INI WL BE Z ta bu SOON aa I 1 CAN 1 cach MY DIVIDEN social cred IS A L vii FRIEND ED tato ap p i 0 0 A WC otlea I 1 CREDIT PROPOSES PROPOSE 5 TO TURN TORN unemployment INTO BY THE distribution OF TIVE THE NATIONAL DIVIDEND by WILLIAM C UTLEY with pen pan sketches by the author a dividend of 25 a P PROMISED month for every citizen of the province alberta the political wild mare of canadian provinces has elected as its premier wllliam william aberhart calgary high school principal radio mogul and evangelist premier aberhard Aber harf harr with the advisory aid of maj clifford hugh douglas scotch economist who has championed the cause of his own social ocial credit scheme since early d days ays of the W world orld war will attempt to set in operation in alberta the first practical experiment with a government in the new economics new only in actual practice social credit Is based upon the economy of plenty rather than our more familiar economy of scarcity its premise Is that there is plenty for all AH these days in the world or more specifically in a nation like the united states OT fyr like canada we are capable of pr producing odle every everything thin that everybody in the country needs the reason that some or of us are in want Is that the purchasing power money Is not distributed properly social credit claims to have a means of distributing purchasing power without expropriation of any kind hind without taking anything away from him who already possesses it IL social credit abhors as evil I 1 the private control control not ownership OW ner ship of money 1 2 the basing 0 of money on a commodity gold 3 the automatic shortage of purchasing 0 power resulting from present econom economic ic practices 4 the theory that income should only become by honestly through 7 wages and salaries for work done what do instead acor frt these abuses social credit would substitute 1 control of money by the nation not the bankers 2 money based upon the national wealth that Is the real wealth or tile ability of the nation to produce goods and services where and when and as required 3 creation of purchasing power which will buy everything we want as fast as we produce it 4 the means to look upon r release el ease from unnecessary work as a b messing lessin rather than a calamity as it is now I 1 quote from the ABO ABC of social credit by E S II lI olter social credit proposes to turn unemployment into leisure by the distribution of the national dividend 11 this national dividend which Is explained as an expression in cash of our common cultural inheritance the cultural benefits handed down to us by the inventions and ideas of our ancestors and therefore necessarily equal to rich and poor allice alike is the idea which premier aberhart used to capture the imagination and the sympathy of alberta voters the cultural Cornmon commonweal weal albertas common cultural inheritance Is worth in round it umbers numbers say about 25 a month according to mr Aber harts platform so within about 38 months everybody in alberta 0 of o botin voting age of course is going to get a in monthly 0 th dividend book worth 23 25 in any bank or barrel house in the inspired province that mr aberhart Ah erhart apparently Is going about raising the dough for so handsome a stake in a manner neither exactly in line with major Doll douglas Jas social credit even economics nor even resembling sem bling it like a first cousin anil and that t mr I 1 r aberhart and the major had quite a little falling out a short time ago probably over that very fact are matters of little consequence to al beitans ber tans most of them do not know what social credit is all of them know what 23 25 Is schoolmaster aberhart got the job in alberta as mr aberhart has stated the dividend will he be merely a split of the governments take from a general sales tax that Is not the way true social credit would create such a dividend there Is much more to the social credit scheme that merely the distribution of the dividend but since an explanation of this dividend necessitates art an outline of practically all the new economics let us attempt an explanation it would be difficult to explain the part of the banks in creating a shortage of purchasing power more concisely than mr bin bolter does in his book money aloney flows in a definite course the source Is the banking system which starts the current by making loans to the producer who through throng I 1 the process of industry distributes it directly or indirectly to the consumer the consumer buys with it the product of industry over the retail counter at this point the money Is started on its homeward mevard ho journey for after it has passed through the producers hands it Is returned to the bank in repayment of the original loan under this system it Is obvious that if a part of the money which enters into the producing channel falls fails to reach the consumer or if any of the money which does reach the consumer Is not actually spent a shortage of purchasing power will result shortage of purchasing power the idea Is that under the present system the amount of purchasing power of a community at any given moment Is never sufficient lelent to buy back the total production of industry if any charges char es are made in respect of capital production now producers today if they are going to stay in business very long must get back all of the costs which go into an article in prices social creditors divide these costs into two classes A all payments that a producer makes to individuals wages salaries and dividends and 1 13 I payments to other organizations for raw materials machinery maintenance bank charges and other external charges the only money distributed directly to consumers comes under the A heading yet when the finished article appears on the market the consumer must pay a price equal to at least A plus B so the amount of purchasing power which the community Is short Is tile amount represented by Indu D B costs certainly much of the B costs eventually appear in the form of purchasing power for bankers and wholesalers have to e eat at and clothe themselves the point social credit makes is that this purchasing power appears too late or too early because indu B payments may be completed at a time irrelevant to the cycle of production for which they were issued money n ey which a factory paid for raw materials would be I 1 largely spent by the time the finished article appeared being spent it returns to the banks there is a fresh supply of goods to be bought but much of tile the money which shot should ald have gone one to buy them Is canceled out of circulation only further bank loans to industry new inventions which founded new in n destries dus tries wholesale sabotage like tile tho plowing under of wheat and the killing of pigs when some of the populace was hungry have kept the system going as long as it has been say the social creditors and it cannot keep up that way forever As a rei remedy nedy social cre credit dit proposes to take tile the control of money and the monopoly of its creation as economists admit that it exists today despite the constitutions provision that only congress shall have sti supervision pervis on over the coinage col of tinge money from t lie banks tile the banks w would u ld still ile be indispensable in the of nr cr credit elit and as clearing houses bouses but with a nation national al credit authority would rest tile the power of the creation of all money such money would vo uld be based not ul upon on a commodity such as gold but upon the count rys real wealth which as has been said Is 18 the ability to produce goods and services when and where and as required under this scheme factories and their potential capacity for production land roads bridges buildings media of transportation water schemes minerals semi manufactured materials and the like would belcome capital assets and money would be issued against them it would be the duty of title the national credit account to appraise these things every three months As social credit interprets it the money in the country should never exceed the amount rf at the ability to consume and would be regulated to keep apace with it to create purchasing power where it is lacking today the national credit authority would do away with the necessity of the consumers having to pay Indu costs both A and D B in the price of retail articles the consumer would be given a discount on all re tall articles equal to the estimated B cost of producing them this discount would be repaid to the retailer by the national credit authority upon his presentation of the sales slip showing the discount allowed the discount thus allowed would enable the consumer to pay the just price of any article and would raise his purchasing pow power e r the national credit authority would control the prices of articles at retail by furnishing periodic estimates of the current ratio of production to consumption and inducing retailers to sign pledges to hold the just price at a level leve I 1 with the fluctuations of the pro consumption ratio if at any time in the film dim distant future consumption should ever catch up with production the retail discount could be removed for it would no longer be necessary another duty of the national credit authority would be that of distributing the national dividend tills this Is because part of mans cultural inheritance from past ages has been an evil one the very machines which mans mastery of science has developed to relieve him of work have also relieved him all too AN WOULD NOT BE BY NOW ECONOMIC circumstances INTO BECOMING A bm CW often of the salary he used to receive for doing such work in compensation for this every unemployed person would be given a monthly check which would be paid out of the national credit account just like the retail discount none of us then would have to do distasteful work an artist for instance would not be forced by economic circumstances into becoming a bank clerk from the social credit viewpoint it unemployment Is a very decided symptom of Ile health alth writes mr air 1101 ll olter ter if our nation is capable of producing in abundance all those thos e things W which we need and desire through gh its industrial equipment with less and less effort on the pirt part of nian man we are cle clearly arly 0 getting etting g nearer the lay day of increased freedom freadom from manual work present unemployment Is a lap on the way and is in itself apart from its u uly ugly ly it associations ti oils far from being an evil evil tile the only difference between leisure and unemployment Is that one Is paid and the other Is not source of the dividend that the national dividend will be paid with new money and that the re tall discount will he paid with new money wit will cause absolutely no inflation according to tile the ideas of social creditors social credit hangs to the theory that since the new money Is issued only after prices have been lowered th through rough the retail discount it could not be accompanied liy ily the only real evil of lunation inflation which would be a simultaneous rise in the level of prices every penny issued Is sued on behalf of the national discount would be debited l a against ainest tile the sum still standing to to fit the national credit it in the national credit account says the doctrine of social credit 0 western newspaper union |
