1. The term ‘social credit’ refers, in the first place, to the power of human beings, working in association, to achieve intended results. It is a power that is operative in all human societies. When capitalized, ‘Social Credit’ may refer either to the study of this social power (i.e., an investigation of its general nature, including how it may be maximized, what weakens it, and what its limits are, etc.) or else to any individual action or organized movement which aims to safeguard and increase the social credit of a given society as a fixed policy.
2. Since it is centred, above all, on how the general society functions in view of the fundamental purposes of human association, Social Credit is chiefly concerned with the nature and functionality of association for the sake of economic ends and with the nature and functionality of association for the sake of political ends. Such a study presupposes specific philosophical views regarding the general characteristics of reality, of knowledge, of scientific methodology, and of human nature, as well as a particular type of social philosophy. It also gives rise to a distinctive manner of understanding history and of interpreting historical events.
3. Although the basic philosophy and policy of Social Credit were not predetermined to satisfy the tenets of Christian belief, that philosophy and policy turned out, retrospectively, to be an organic expression of the Christian worldview. Christianity, correctly understood and practised, is the primary metaphysical inspiration supporting Social Credit.
4. As far as its underlying social philosophy is concerned, Social Credit holds that associations, of whatever kind, exist for the purpose of making it as easy as possible for human beings to achieve the fundamental purposes of the respective associations in an effective and equitable manner. That is, the group exists for the sake of the well-being of each and every individual and not as an end in itself, nor as a means of advancing the anti-social interests of any oligarchic elite who may have gained control of the group and its activities. Each common member of a particular association is best served when the intended results of the association in question can be properly actualized with the least amount of trouble to everyone.
5. With regard to economic association, the economic system which governs a society should allow for the fulfillment of the true purpose of economic association, i.e., the delivery of goods and service as, when, and where required with the least amount of trouble to anyone, to be achieved to the extent that this is physically or realistically possible.
6. Social Credit notes that it is chiefly on account of the nature of the present financial system that economic associations fail to deliver the intended results. It is also chiefly on account of the financial system that economic associations typically yield a number of undesired outcomes, some of which go beyond the realm of economics proper. In sober truth, there is, in the modern, industrialized world, no good reason for poverty, or for a policy of full employment (with its consequent lack of leisure), or for inflation, or for alternating cycles of boom and bust, or for economic waste and sabotage, or for inhuman financial pressures, or for personal indebtedness, or for chronic public debts, or for high levels and/or unjustifiable forms of taxation, or for social turmoil, or for cultural decay, or for the forced (economically induced) migration of persons from their native lands, or for environmental degradation, or for international economic and political conflict culminating in that form of collective insanity otherwise known as war, etc.
7. The faulty nature of the financial system has two fundamental and complementary aspects. On the one hand, the financial system, as it presently operates, generates an ever-increasing gap between the rate at which the prices of ultimate goods and services are produced and the consumer incomes that are simultaneously liberated in the course of their production. This is primarily, though not exclusively, due to the way in which real capital (machines and equipment) are financed and their costs accounted for under existing financial and industrial cost accountancy conventions and the concomitant displacement of human labour. On the other hand, a particular monopoly, i.e. the monopoly of credit-creation currently exercised by banking institutions, makes use of this artificial scarcity of consumer credit to enforce a self-serving policy on the members of economic associations. They relieve the lack of consumer credit (chiefly by issuing loans) but only on asymmetrical terms that transfer purchasing power, property, and control over the economic policy of governments, businesses, and individuals to themselves.
8.The solution to these problems is to create and issue a sufficient volume of debt-free money in the form of the compensated price and the National Dividend to equate the rate of flow of final prices with the rate of flow of consumer purchasing power. This would restore balance or financial equilibrium to the circular flow while simultaneously ensuring that all prices are fully liquidated as they come on to the consumer market. A sufficiency in the rate at which consumer credit is injected into the economy would also provide adequate support for the issuance of additional producer credit up to the physical capacity of the economy or the psychological satiety of the consumer. The rate of flow of producer credit would be released so as to finally correspond isomorphically to the real demand of consumers. Whatever production is physically possible and desired by the population could be made financially possible.
9. In its purely economic dimension, Social Credit may therefore be described as a radical type of monetary reform that is specifically designed to subordinate the activities of the group to the well-being of each individual member of economic association (thus liberating the individual from the domination of the group – and from the domination of the elite who control the group – that currently characterizes economic life). The delivery of goods and services as, when, and where required to the extent that this is physically possible, and this with the least amount of trouble to everyone, may be expected as the natural consequence of such a reform.
10. With regard to political association, the political system that governs a society should allow for the fulfillment of the true purpose of political association, i.e., the maximization of each individual’s effective sovereignty over his own affairs with the least amount of trouble to everyone, to be achieved to the extent that this is physically or realistically possible.
11. The conventional financial system and the result economic order have profound political implications. On the one hand, the existing system generates a great deal of economic conflict which often translates into political and even military conflict between nations and within nations. To take just one example, it is impossible for all nations to have ‘favourable balances of trade’ and yet each of them strives very hard to achieve such a result in order to compensate for their internal lack of consumer purchasing power (or at least seek to minimize their unfavourable trade balances). The transformation of this clash of objectives into economic and even military warfare is only a matter of time and opportunity. On the other hand, the same system concentrates a great deal of financial wealth, privilege, and power at the apex of the socio-economic pyramid. This centralization of financial and economic clout puts the chief beneficiaries of the disordered financial system in such an advantageous position that they are capable, by various means, of obliging or at least heavily pressuring (under various guises) political associations to adopt those policies that are most congenial to this elite: i.e., the policies that will transform their credit monopoly into a total social monopoly: economic, political, and cultural. Social Credit notes that the failure of political associations to achieve their intended results in modern ‘democratic’ countries is chiefly due to a poorly designed political system which is harnessed, by the power of money, to serve an end which is alien to the true purpose of political association.
12. In the first place, conventional ‘democracy’ does not allow individual citizens to establish a political association which would permit and support the maximum decentralization of effective sovereignty to each individual over his own affairs simply because it does not even aim at this objective and, in consequence, is not designed to achieve it. According to liberal democratic theory, the true objective of government is to adjudicate or strike a balance between competing group interests in the state who have incompatible ends: ‘politics is the art of compromise’. On the basis of this conception it is inconceivable that there should be a unanimous general or common will in favour of an overriding general objective such as the maximization of effective, individual sovereignty over one’s own affairs to the extent that this is objectively possible and with the least amount of trouble to everyone. The possibility of there being a truly common policy is discounted from the very beginning. As a result, such ‘democracies’ do not even aim at fulfilling the true purpose of political association even though many ordinary citizens take for granted that in a democracy the policies of the government should reflect the general will of the common people. In the second place, and as a consequence of this first point, the mechanisms of conventional democracy (its voting systems and its multi-party systems) do not deliver to individuals real, i.e., effective, control over their governments.
13. To further complicate matters, the monopolistic financial system, especially at the levels of ‘High Finance’ and ‘International Finance’ in conjunction with ‘Big Business’ make use of the flaws in the conventional democratic system to impose their own self-serving policy on individuals: the increasing centralization of political power in their own hands. Control of the creation and issuance of money is the power to reward and punish; it is the power to control or at least exert pressure on state institutions, governments, political parties, and individual politicians. It is also the power to control or at least heavily influence public opinion by funding news media, education, and entertainment industries. High finance is thus in a position to push society from above and pull it from below to embrace those intermediate policies which will further centralize political control in the hands of those who are interested in monopolizing power. The logical endpoint of a policy of political centralization, the greatest degree of centralization possible, would be the establishment by International Finance of a one-world totalitarian dictatorship: ‘The New World Order’.
14. The solution to these failures of conventional democracy is to rehabilitate democracy by introducing a political system which is explicitly aimed at the true purpose of political association and is then judged and regulated by the individual citizens themselves in terms of its capacity to decentralize effective sovereignty of the individual over his own affairs.
15. Such a system would need to have a tripartite structure. Effective democracy does not mean the right of the people to dispose over other people’s affairs or over the objective functional necessities of political association (which are grounded in natural law and can only be disregarded at a very high price); it means the right and the real power of individuals to ensure that all activities of a public nature will deliver the maximum benefit to the individuals who comprise the public. In order to achieve this end, there must be an effective constitutional framework, in the care of a Guardian Chamber or Upper House, which limits the power of the state and governments in order to protect as sacrosanct those legitimate individual rights that are God-given and are thus prior to the state. There must also be a series of civil service administrative hierarchies that are fully and personally responsible to the citizens for carrying out (not determining) policy-decisions. Finally, there must be a set of mechanisms put in place by means of which individual citizens either directly or via their parliamentary representatives can initiate policies and sanction the administrative hierarchies in terms of results. Such mechanisms may include voting for independent as opposed to partisan candidates (the end of the political party system), the right to recall MP’s, citizen’s initiatives and referenda, the responsible vote (the end of the secret ballot), and most importantly, the widest possible latitude to contract out or opt out of government services/programmes.
16. The Social Credit philosophy and policy regarding the nature and proper orientation of economic, political, and cultural associations constitutes an Archimedean point against which the history of civilization can be analyzed and evaluated and by means of which the future of civilization can be re-oriented towards the common good and the general satisfaction.
17. In the first place, it must be recognized that much of what has occurred in the history of civilization was caused or at least conditioned by the specific policies that were adopted by various human associations. History is correctly described, therefore, as crystallized politics rather than as a series of disconnected episodes.
18. In the second place, it must be recognized that the history of policy is a history of conflict between two diametrically opposed social policies: the policy of domination which animates despotic associations (and which most often is, in practice, an oligarchic policy) and the policy of freedom which lies at the foundation of the authentically democratic association. In the case of the despotic associations, the history of civilization is also the chronicle of an internecine war between ideologically similar if not identical individuals and groups who are competing with each other for the power to administer the policy of domination and to enjoy its ill-gotten fruits.
19. It would seem that the first conflict of history, the struggle between oligarchy and the mass of common individuals, is reaching its culmination point in the contemporary world. The almost exclusive vehicle by means of which the policy of domination and hence of despotic association is presently being imposed on the world is that of finance and finance, improperly regulated, is the most powerful instrument the mind of man has ever conceived for imposing policy on his fellows.
20. Accordingly, it is important for people to be aware that the way in which history is conceived by the general population has powerful political implications and that those who would wish to usurp the unearned increment of an association have a compelling incentive to ensure that the telling of history in the public forum is conducive to the maintenance and augmentation of their societal hegemony. The representation of history can, like the practice of empirical science, be easily politicized, i.e., employed to promote beliefs which, although they are at odds with objective reality, are nevertheless useful in the attainment of certain political ends. As George Orwell noted in his novel 1984: “Who controls the past ... controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”[1]
[1] George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Plume, 1983), 30. This principle was actually one of the slogans of the totalitarian Party which was in almost total control of the fictional super-state of Oceania.
