Thus far, we have looked at the whats and the whys of the financial domination of liberal democracy. It is now time that we turn to a more detailed examination of the hows.
Let us begin with the general observation that, in a society operating under the Monopoly of Credit, organized political activity, like most other activities, is largely dependent – directly or indirectly – on Finance. Money, both in the form of producer credit and in the form of income, is maintained in a state of artificial scarcity, and Finance will naturally be inclined to ration it to those who do its will and to punish those who resist by denying them access to the life-giving credit. Credit, in turn, is a necessary means for obtaining most of the material and human resources required for political action.[1]In this way, Finance can condition political activity to the point of completely controlling it.
The first objective which Finance must secure in attempting to impose its own policy on political association is the capturing of the coercive power of the state by obtaining control of the governmental system. The general method applied in pursuit of this aim is to employ financial power to so shape the environment in which the standard mechanisms of conventional democracy must operate that the latter will serve – more or less automatically – to deliver the sort of control which is desired by High Finance.
The financial induction of the right sort of political environment is typically achieved through the use of a pincer movement consisting in the application of pressure (viaa system of rewards and punishments) to those groups and individuals who are formal components of the political system, such as governments, politicians, political parties, etc., and secondly, in an application of pressure (viavarious techniques of manipulation) on the voting public. The right sort of pressure from above combined with the right sort of pressure from below can, if adroitly managed, force a political association to deliver (de factoif not de jure) control of its governmental system to financial interests. In this way, increasing power over the governmental system eventually equates to control over the coercive power of the state.
Pressure from Above - Control of the Formal Components of Political Organization
The Control of Governments
Under the present financial regime, governments are dependent on Finance in order to bridge any gap which might occur between expenditures and tax revenues. Indeed, government contracted debt-money expended on public services, public works, wars, etc., is one of the chief ways by means of which the macroeconomic gap between consumer prices and consumer purchasing power can be filled and some semblance of economic equilibrium maintained. The provision of this service to an economy over many years means that governments at all levels are typically heavily indebted. In keeping with the axiom ‘the borrower is the servant of the lender’, the first thing that must be realized in dealing with the relationship existing between governments in conventional democracies and the money power is that governments operate from a position of profound weakness vis-à-visFinance and, without the full support of an awakened electorate, are not in a position to adopt policies which are authentically socially progressive in place of their anti-social alternatives:
“As no government can carry on for a month without money, it is not necessary to labour the point that the visible government of a country is obliged to take its orders and to shape its policy, and particularly its financial policy, in accordance with the dealers in this indispensable implement, so long as they hold a practical monopoly of it.”[2]
Political possibilities are narrowly limited by financial exigencies (both structural and political). Any government which decided to work against the financial powers would, unless a change in the financial system itself could be enforced, be rendered impotent by Finance’s power over the purse:
“Two or three great groups of banks and issuing houses controlled by men, in many cases alien, and even anti-British alien, by birth and tradition, international in their interests and quite definitely anti-public in their policy, not elected and not subject to dismissal, able to set at naught the plans of governments; producing nothing, and yet controlling all production.”[3]
The power of Finance to thwart independently-minded governmental action was demonstrated most clearly in the case of William Aberhart’s Social Credit government which had been elected in the Canadian province of Alberta and which, under Aberhart’s leadership, had held power from 1935-1943. Every attempt to introduce some aspect of the Social Credit reforms (even those which did not obviously fall afoul of the parameters of federal vs. provincial jurisdictions as laid out in the BNA act) was prevented by the Lieutenant-Governor of the province, and/or the Federal Government in Ottawa, and/or the privy Council, and/or the Supreme Court of Canada, and/or the Imperial Government in London.
The Control of Political Parties and Politicians
To make matters worse, it is also true that, in order to get elected in our modern, media-driven world, a political party or politician must have access directly to huge sums of money for the purposes of running their campaigns. Naturally, Finance uses the power of money, directly through the banks or indirectly through corporate donors, to ensure that political parties will (in exchange for financial support) pursue its interests. By backing all of the horses in the race, so-to-speak, Finance can guarantee that no matter which party is elected, financial interests will always come out ahead:
“Finance has, as usual, and by the simple method of supplying the campaign funds of all the political parties impartially, managed to make its own views prevail, ...”[4]
The same observation can be made mutatis mutandiswith respect to individual politicians. It is a common complaint amongst the populations of ‘democratic’ countries that politicians cannot be trusted because they are, for example, forever breaking their election promises. The pervasiveness and tenaciousness of this lament raises a set of interesting questions:
“Is there some essential reason which makes it impossible to conduct the affairs of any country honestly? By honestly, I mean with a continuous endeavour to take such action as will realise a plainly set-forth objective, such objective being one which the public would itself accept as desirable, if it thoroughly understood it. And if the answer is in the affirmative, as I think it is, is there any process operative to produce a particular type of statesmen willing to conduct the affairs of the nation dishonestly?”[5]
The answer to these queries is that, under the influence of Finance, the politicians who are electable (i.e., have sufficient money to run a campaign) are almost invariably career politicians who are essentially interested in furthering their own interests at the expense of the common good.[6]They have (quite literally) been bought and paid for and thus function as agents of the money power. This is the explanation for the general and perplexing tendency of politicians to abandon the interests of those with whom they might be expected to have some sort of natural solidarity (i.e., people of the same class, religion, race, and indeed even nationality) in favour of a solidarity based on financial interests. Persons of character and integrity who are genuinely concerned for the commonweal will not be backed by Finance and so are unlikely to achieve electoral success:
“There is nowadays no such thing as an independent ‘statesmen’. No politician can hope to attain high office except by permission of Finance; and the corruption and jobbery in high places, although only a symptom of a defective system, are almost becoming a disease fatal in itself.”[7]
By testing politicians over long periods of time with lesser positions, Finance can also carefully vet all prospective candidates where the most important offices of the land are concerned, such that, in line with what occurs amongst the main political parties, all or almost all of the choices which are made available to the electorate have already been pre-approved by the financial interests.
“... the financial system, as such, provides an effective sieve for the purpose of assuring that no individual comes into a position of considerable power, without having given, for a considerable portion of his lifetime, satisfactory evidence that he will behave in accordance with the principles which are paramount in the world to-day.”[8]
The most important of ‘the principles which are paramount in the world to-day’ is of course the political centralization of effective sovereignty in the hands of the financial oligarchy:
“… we are witnessing a gigantic attempt, directed from sources which have no geographical nationality, to dispossess a defective democracy, and to substitute a dictatorship of Finance for it. I do not think public men necessarily agree with this, but I don’t think they struggle very hard against it. They would not become public men if they did.”[9]
Sometimes this vetting of prospective holders of political offices of public offices can take more sinister forms: “It is, of course, well known that every effort is made to prevent the rise to political power of individuals who cannot be blackmailed in some form or other.”[10]
Combine all of these background realities with the standard governmental democratic mechanisms and it becomes clear that not only are those mechanisms ineffective for the purpose of operating a real or effective democracy, they are actually, in practice, the very tools by means of which Finance can impose its policy-objectives on political associations in the so-called ‘democratic world’:
“We are far too prone to imagine in Great Britain that it is only necessary to have a majority of opinion in favour of a certain line of action, and that when this is achieved we have ready to our hand a Parliamentary machine waiting to translate this opinion into effective operation.
It is more than doubtful if this is the case. We have far less freedom in the choice of our Parliamentary representative than we think we have; still less freedom as to the issues on which we elect them; and least of all have we the ability to ensure that when they get to Westminster their attention shall be devoted to dealing with those problems which we consider vital.”[11]
Pressure from Below
The second half of Finance’s tactics for controlling political activity is to make the common people willing co-operators in their own subjugation. Happy slaves (especially if they are not even aware of their slavery) are so much easier to manage in comparison with discontented ones. Indeed, it is astonishing how many “... of the injurious and tyrannical practices ... obtain support in Great Britain and America under the cloak of such words as Justice and Democracy, ...”[12]
If ‘happiness’, i.e., bread and circuses, is beyond the capacity of the financial oligarchy to deliver to the world’s population as a whole (due to the various artificial scarcities upon which their system of domination relies), or if such entertainments are ineffective for neutralizing a certain segment of the population, Finance may settle with the induction of a deep-seated apathy.[13]Getting the people living under conventional democracies to eagerly support – or at least acquiesce to – the sorts of policy-objectives that financially controlled governments wish to impose on the population boils down to controlling what the public thinks and believes about the nature of the world in which we live insofar as the particular ‘philosophy’ or conception of reality which the public may adopt has a bearing on matters of political importance. Alongside the public’s perception of policies and/or methods, it is often necessary to mould the public’s perception of politicians and political parties.[14]
In other words, inducing the right sort of pressure from below requires controlling and determining public opinion.[15]“... [T]he exploitation of a public opinion which ... is frequently manufactured for interested purposes, ...”[16] leaves the way open to the most clever form of dictatorship: policies can be imposed against the objective well-being of the population but with the public’s consent or at least acquiescence. If the people asked for, supported, or at least passively accepted such nefarious policies because their whole thinking had been conditioned without their knowing it, the illusion of free choice, of ‘democracy’, can be simultaneously preserved and the stability of the system assured. Should the public at large ever awaken to the reality of what is being done to them, no amount of financial manipulation of governments, political parties, or politicians, would ever be effective in maintaining Finance’s hegemony over the coercive power of the state. The manufacturing of public opinion is a necessary condition, therefore, for the retention of Finance’s power over government ... until that power has been made complete.
The suitable regulation of public opinion requires control over the information to which the public is exposed. Control of information requires, in turn, control of the means of communication.[17]The mass media, the entertainment industry, and the educational centres of a nation represent the chief sources of information on the basis of which the public might form a worldview. All of these are dependent in one way or another, for their continued operation, let alone their expansion and development, on the co-operation of the financial interests:
“It is claimed, and more particularly by those who utilise it, that ‘public opinion’ is the decisive power in public affairs. Assuming that in some sense this may be true, it becomes of interest to consider the nature of this public opinion and the basis from which it proceeds, and it will be agreed that the chief factors are education and propaganda.
Now, the bearing of economic power on education hardly requires emphasis. In England, the Public School tradition, with all its admirable features, is nevertheless an open and unashamed claim to special privilege based on purchasing power and nothing else; ...
But by far the most important instrument used in the moulding of public opinion is that of organised propaganda either through the Public Press, the orator, the picture, moving or otherwise, or the making of speeches; and in all these the mobilising capacity of economic power is without doubt immensely if not preponderatingly important.
When it is considered that the expression of opinion inimical to ‘vested interests’ has in the majority of cases to be done at the cost of financial loss and in the face of tremendous difficulty, while a platform can always be found or provided for advocates of an extension of economic privilege, the fundamental necessity of dealing firstwith the economic basis of society must surely be, and in fact now is, recognised, and this having been established in conformity with a considered policy the powers of education and propaganda will be free from the improper influences which operate to distort their immense capacity for good.”[18]
Naturally, Finance will favour those institutions and agencies which disseminate the sort of information which is useful in promoting finance’s own interests – political or otherwise – and will punish, through the withdrawal or refusal of funding, those institutions and agencies which disseminate information which is deemed a threat to those interests. To take just one prominent example, it is not possible for the corporate media to consistently and correctly reveal the true nature of economic difficulties in the modern world without ‘biting the hand which feeds it’:
“Unfortunately, the means of enlightening the general public as to the real cause of these [economic – OH] difficulties, by which I refer to the public Press, organised speechmaking, and broadcasting organisations and mass publicity in general, are all dependent for their existence on financial support. Consequently, to put it quite bluntly, they dare not indicate the cause of the trouble.”[19]
As a result of this sort of situation, the conventional means of social communication cannot serve the politically independent role which an authentic democracy demands from them:
“The control of publicity renders it easy to circumscribe the reputation of the unorthodox. Modern organised publicity in its various forms is a product of costly machinery and is controlled by financial mechanism, so that, in general, any information circulated through such agencies is orthodox, while any authority recognised and advertised is a witness for the defence of things as they are, or as those at present in control of finance would desire them to be. It is therefore perhaps not astonishing that public opinion is in much the stage of economic enlightenment that we should expect as the result of the suppression and distortion of the essential facts.” [20]
Let it be emphasized that the control of information achieved by the financial control of the means of communication does not simply result in the general public adopting one world-view in lieu of another (as if all world-views were of equal worth), but rather, given the fact that the overriding political policy-objective of finance is at odds with the objective nature of reality, it results in the public adopting a world-view which is composed of half-truths and outright lies. People must come to believe in a Weltanschauungthat is substantially false, i.e., distorted, if they are to give their support to a false and fatal political policy-objective. Hence we are bombarded daily with “... the distortion and suppression of facts by the Financial Hierarchy ...”[21]Douglas described the resulting political arrangement as “... a system of world organisation ... based on the deception of the general public, ...”[22]Under such a system it is inevitable that“...the primary object of politics, industry, trade, advertising, and journalism, is to sell delusion; ...”[23]
In other words, if by your domination of the means of communication, you can endlessly repeat over and over again one viewpoint as though it were self-evident, or continually present one frame of reference for debating a particular issue or set of issues as if it were the only one conceivable, you can control what people perceive as the ‘public opinion’, i.e., what everybody knows and believes to be true. Given the well-known psychological tendency of people to ‘go along with the group’, the mere perception that the public consensus consists, for example, in x, y, and z, very quickly turns that perception into a reality. Combine this with the standard ‘democratic’ mechanisms and you can either prevent any dissent from ever arising, squelch it as soon as it shows signs of becoming threatening, or else so contextualize debate that any dissent which does arise will only be channelled into profitless directions:
“A democracy of a thousand voters can be personally approached and convinced on any subject within a reasonable period of time, but if you enlarge the franchise to include everyone over twenty-one in a population of 45,000,000 you can be reasonably sure that any general conclusion at which it will arrive, it will arrive at twenty-five years after that conclusion ceases to be true. If you can super-impose upon that by means of a controlled Press, Broadcasting, and other devices of a similar nature, something that you call ‘public opinion’ (because it is the only opinion which is articulate) you have a perfect mechanism for a continuous dictatorship, and moreover, it is the form of dictatorship which is fundamentally desired by the collectivist mentality – a dictatorship which has power without responsibility.”[24]
In a similar vein, the tendency of the current governmental system to focus the attention of the electorate on purely technical methods when mingled with the power of Finance to fashion public opinion means that Finance is in a strong position to ensure that the technical means which are adopted by government are also those which will best serve its own anti-social policies:
“Most people of necessity, and especially in these days of mass propaganda, form their opinions at second hand, and a great deal of opinion formed in this way is purely passive. Little or no critical faculty is applied to it, but on occasion, it is regurgitated as though it had been formed as a result of personal experience. This is always true, but when the opinion refers to a complex or subtle problem, it is a mathematical certainty that what is registered is either a minority opinion popularised, or has no intrinsic value. Legislative action based on proposals submitted to a large electorate must, from the very nature of the case, place the population at the mercy of a trained bureaucracy, and if, as in the case of the British Civil Service, this is irremovable and, to the public irresponsible, the result is indistinguishable from a dictatorship of a most undesirable character.”[25]
There are two specific areas in which the control of information in order to mould public opinion is incredibly important as far as the maintenance of the present political and governmental systems are concerned.
The first has already been touched on. The financial system uses its influence to control the information which the public is exposed to regarding the true nature and operation of the economic system as a whole and of the financial system in particular:
“Particularly in regard to finance, which may be termed the nerve system of distribution, most people hold, with some persistence, ideas which are both incorrect and misleading, and are supported in their disinclination to change these views by sectional interests of great potency and ability in the attainment of their own objects, which superficially seem well served by the prevailing ignorance.”[26]
It must be more widely recognized, for example, that the bulk of economic and financial ‘experts’ are subject to a sort of conflict of interest. Their academic disciplines, insofar as they qualify as bona fideintellectual enterprises, require them to search for and faithfully represent the truth about economic and financial realities. The condition of their continued employment, however, often rests on their willingness to either suppress information which could threaten the interests of the financial classes or else to distort essential facts in order to attack anyone who wishes to shine a light on hidden realities:
“Finance, i.e., money, is the starting-point of every action which requires either the co-operation of the community or the use of its assets. If it be realised that control of its mechanism gives to a major extent, control of both personal and organised activity, it is easy to see that education, publicity, and organised Intelligence (in the sense in which the word ‘Intelligence’ is used in military circles) can be controlled, first to minimise the likelihood of criticism arising and should it arise, depriving it of all the normal facilities for effective action. ...
The results of this state of affairs can be seen somewhat sharply defined in the case of professional economists, necessarily in the direct or indirect employ of banks or insurance companies.
It would, of course, be improper and probably unfair to attribute anything but intellectual honesty to these gentlemen. Moreover, such an assumption would deny due appreciation to the ability of their patrons. Their failure to make any noticeable contribution to the solution of the problems within their special field can, I think, be explained by the incompatibility of any effective solution with the credit monopoly which is at once their employer and critic.”[27]
The power of Finance to either co-opt, or else manufacture, the financial and economic ‘experts’ is just one instance of a broader pattern. It is generally true that ‘experts’ in any field of human endeavour who might have something to say which could endanger financial interests can be co-opted or manufactured:
“... all the brains in the world which can be bought with money are at the disposal of the banking system.”[28]
In spite of the seemingly impregnable position which finance would appear to be in, it is remarkable that many people continue to resist swallowing the official position on economic realities (and on a whole host of other issues) hook, line, and sinker:
“A powerful minority of the community, determined to maintain its position relative to the majority, assures the world that there is no alternative between a pyramid of power based on toil and ever-increasing monotony, and some form of famine and disaster; while a growing and ever more dissatisfied majority strives to throw off the hypnotic influence of training and to grapple with the fallacy which it feels must exist somewhere.”[29]
This brings us to the second area in which control of public opinion happens to be extremely important: the maintenance and the intensification, if possible, of that belief, i.e., that faith, of the average individual in the reliability of his own political institutions. He must be persuaded that we do indeed live in authentically democratic countries and that any dissatisfaction which he experiences with the political process is inseparable from the human condition. He should, after all, be grateful that he is living under the best available system!
The best means to this particular end is to either popularize false ideas about democracy or to convince people that the true democracy is already embodied in their public institutions. It is as if referring to the system as ‘a democracy’, using the adjective ‘democratic’ to describe it, and then lauding its many magnificent advantages were somehow sufficient to make it a real and effective democracy:
“At the present time, we use words for political purposes which either have no meaning, or, if correctly defined, describe something which does not exist. We do this at our peril. Democracy is such a word.”[30]
In reality, the forms of political participation and representation which a conventional ‘democracy’ operating under the Monopoly of Credit is able to provide to the citizenry are unnecessarily limited and what is permitted is all too often co-opted in one way or another.
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[1]Cf.C.H. Douglas, The Monopolistic Idea(Vancouver: The Institute of Economic Democracy, 1979), 5:“The great monopoly which gives the power to monopolise other things is what we call the monopoly of credit.”
[2]C.H. Douglas, Social Credit, rev. ed. (New York: Gordon Press, 1973), 48.
[3]C.H. Douglas, The Control and Distribution of Production(London: Cecil Palmer, 1922), 125-126.
[4]C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 3rdEdition (London: Stanley Nott, 1935), 158.
[5]Ibid., 151. For all of these reasons,Douglas was as leery of organized politics as some people are of organized religion.
[6]As Douglas once put it: “We are in the hands of a gang of crooks utilising a pack of conceited careerists; and everyone knows it and is bored with the game.” C.H. Douglas, The Development of World Dominion(Sydney: Tidal Publications, 1969), 33. Even as early as 1923, Douglas was able to speak of the “... Parliamentary spokesmen, who, while voicing the aspirations of their constituents, were perhaps more concerned with politics as a career than with definite constructive action towards the practical improvement of society as a whole.” C.H. Douglas, Credit Power and Democracy(Melbourne: The Social Credit Press, 1933), 82.
[7]C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 3rded. (London: Stanley Nott, 1935), 103-104. This ‘selling-out’ explains, to a large extent, the corruption endemic to politics: “In the sphere of politics it is clear that all settled principle other than the consolidation of power, has been abandoned, and mere expediency has taken its place. The attitude of statesmen and officials to the people in whose interests they are supposed to hold office, is one of scarcely veiled antagonism, only tempered by the fear of unpleasant consequences. In the State services, the easy supremacy of patronage over merit, and vested interest over either, has kindled widespread resentment, levelled not less at the inevitable result, than at the personal injustice involved.” Cf. C.H. Douglas, Economic Democracy, 5thed. (Sudbury: Bloomfield Books, 1974), 35.
[8]C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 3rded. (London: Stanley Nott, 1935), 158-159.
[9]Ibid., 62.
[10]C.H. Douglas, The Big Idea(Bullsbrook, Australia: Veritas Publishing Company, 1983), 47.
[11]C.H. Douglas,Major C.H. Douglas Speaks (Sydney: Douglas Social Credit Association, 1933), 16. Cf. C.H. Douglas, Security Institutional and Personal (Liverpool: K.R.P. Publications Ltd., 1945), 8. “A great deal of our trouble in this country arises from the fact that, while we place great faith in the aristocratic ideal (if you prefer to call it the principle of leadership I shall not object), yet we have allowed all those influences which make the aristocratic ideal reasonable and workable to be sapped and wrecked by the exaltation of money as the sole certificate of greatness, and have allowed alien and cosmopolitan financiers to obtain a monopoly of money. We have retained the ideal and allowed the material of which it is constructed to become hopelessly degraded. In consequence, we are governed in the aristocratic tradition by a hypocritical and selfish oligarchy with one idea, and one fundamental idea only; the ascendancy of money, and the essential monopoly of it.”
[12]C.H. Douglas, Social Credit, rev. ed. (New York: Gordon Press, 1973), preface.
[13]There are, of course, instances in which discontent amongst the populace is unavoidable, but even in this case the discontent, if astutely managed, can be harnessedin various waysto serve the political interests of finance.
[14]A useful tool in the achievement of this objective is the use of slogans that simultaneously obscure reality and distort people’s perception of it. So many people would appear to be constitutionally incapable of thinking abstractly that their best attempt consists in parroting empty phrases such as ‘Change we can believe in.’ and ‘Yes, we can.’ Propagate the right sort of slogan and many people will jump on the band-wagon without even thinking for themselves. The common people must realize that you don’t change reality simply by changing the words you use to describe it. As Eric Butler once put it, strychnine when labelled ‘icing sugar’ is still lethal.
Cf. C.H. Douglas, “Whose Service is Perfect Freedom”(Bullsbrook, Western Australia: 1983), 1:
“Perhaps the most pathetic feature of the present world-wide crises is the facility with which large masses of people will accept, under a suitable title, a situation against which they will fight to the death if it is labelled something else. The effect of this is to destroy ‘a just relationship between the mind and things’. For instance, a considerable, though rapidly decreasing body of what is called the working population of this country is hypnotised into the idea that, in Russia, a highly centralised, tyrannous and corrupt government, because it is labelled ‘the dictatorship of the Proletariat’, is something which would be to the advantage of the under-privileged in this country. The Russian Proletariat do about as much dictating to the real Government of Russia as the English Proletariat do to the Bank of England. Yet the less corrupt, more ‘socialistic’, although tyrannous and centralised governments in Germany and Italy, because they have been successfully labelled with an entirely fanciful name, Fascism (which means, if it means anything, one thing in one part of the world and another thing in another part of the world), were supposed to be the unique enemy of the ‘worker’and the only force to be fought in this country. It is difficult to make the general public realise that ‘Communist v Fascist’is, in the main, only the old Party game in a new dress.”
Is it any wonder that after the Second World War many former Nazis in East Germany quite easily became Communists?
[15]Cf.C.H. Douglas, Programme for the Third World War (Liverpool: K.R.P. Publications Ltd., 1943), 58: “Opinion is consciously misdirected by the agents of interests which know exactly what they are doing. Precisely, they are straining every agency of misdirection to lead the common man into a trap from which there is no escape.”
[16]C.H. Douglas, Economic Democracy, 5thed. (Sudbury: Bloomfield Books, 1974), 30.
[17]Cf. C.H. Douglas, “Whose Service is Perfect Freedom”(Bullsbrook, Western Australia: 1983), 53:“Control of communications is a vital part of Jewish policy – so vital that it may almost be said to be the policy in itself...”
[18]C.H. Douglas, Economic Democracy, 5thed. (London: Stanley Nott, 1935), 141-142.
[19]C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 3rded. (London: Stanley Nott, 1931), 145-146. Cf. C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit, 4thed.(Sudbury, England: Bloomfield Books, 1979), 2-3: “No just appreciation of this situation is possible which does not take into consideration the peculiar and perhaps unique, position occupied by finance in the organisation of modern society in every country. Finance, i.e., money, is the starting-point of every action which requires either the co-operation of the community or the use of its assets. If it be realised that control of its mechanism gives to a major extent, control of both personal and organised activity, it is easy to see that education, publicity, and organised Intelligence (in the sense in which the word ‘Intelligence’is used in military circles) can be controlled, first to minimise the likelihood of criticism arising and should it arise, depriving it of all the normal facilities for effective action. Finance can and does control policy, and has been well said by an American writer, Charles Ferguson, ‘control of credit and control of the news are concentric’.”
[20]Ibid., 4-5.
[21]C.H. Douglas, Credit Power and Democracy(Melbourne: The Social Credit Press, 1933), 3.
[22]Cf. C.H. Douglas, Social Credit, rev. ed. (New York: Gordon Press, 1973), 67.
[23]C.H. Douglas, “Whose Service is Perfect Freedom”(Bullsbrook, Western Australia: 1983), 50.
[24]C.H. Douglas, Major C.H. Douglas Speaks (Sydney: Douglas Social Credit Association, 1933), 22.
[25]C.H. Douglas, The Brief for the Prosecution(Liverpool: K.R.P. Publications Ltd., 1945), 71. Cf. C.H. Douglas, The Nature of Democracy (Vancouver: The Institute of Economic Democracy, 1934), 5: “It is, however, quite certain that desire, emotion, or feeling, however you wish to phrase it, is plastic and possesses from its nature a strong desire to clothe itself in forms, so that if a mob shouts ‘We want food and shelter’ it is easy to get it to translate that into a cry ‘We want work’, which is, of course, not at all the same thing.”
[26]C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit, 4thed.(Sudbury, England: Bloomfield Books, 1979), 2.
[27]C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit, 4thed.(Sudbury, England: Bloomfield Books, 1979), 2-4. Cf. C.H. Douglas, The Brief for the Prosecution(Liverpool: K.R.P. Publications Ltd., 1945), 28: “... industry in the United States [and at the present time, in the world as a whole – OH] is preponderatingly financed by bank loans or overdrafts. In consequence the manufacturer and farmer are under the complete control of the banker, who can, and often does liquidate them almost without notice. The system constitutes the most comprehensive control of policy of which it is possible to conceive, extending to the ability to penalise opinion by economic ruin.”
[28]C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit, 4thed.(Sudbury, England: Bloomfield Books, 1979), 13. If the expert in question cannot be co-opted or manufactured, there are other ways which can be used to silence him.
[29]C.H. Douglas, Economic Democracy, 3rded. (London: Stanley Nott, 1931), 38. C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 3rded. (London: Stanley Nott, 1935), 116-117: “There probably never was a time at which such conscious effort was being made to endeavour to make people think alike. We have syndicated Press, selecting and adapting the news of the world to suit a unified policy. As a result there never was a time since the invention of printing when people paid less attention to the opinion of the newspapers. On the whole, so far from the modern newspaper impressing its views upon its readers, its influence wanes almost directly in proportion to its absence of evident bias, which is another way of saying that it varies as it represents the opinion of some individual, rather than the machine-made policy of some large interest. Similarly, there never was a time in which the mechanism of Education was so centrally controlled as at present, and there probably never was a time in which the revolt against orthodox, uniform, or machine-made teaching was so active and widespread.”
[30]C.H. Douglas, The Brief for the Prosecution(Liverpool: K.R.P. Publications Ltd., 1945), 67.
