The Social Dividend is one of three principles that comprise the Social Credit monetary reform which is the topic of the enclosed booklet. The Social Dividend is an income granted to each citizen from cradle to grave, without condition, regardless of employment status. It is not an egalitarian measure as those who are employed would continue to receive their salary plus receive the Dividend. Receiving a Social Dividend only makes sense in relation to two other principles of Economic Democracy:
1. New credit belongs to society, not to private companies (the chartered banks), and must be created by a body established by government, a National Credit Office. In fact, money draws its value from the country’s productive capacity, based on the existence of natural resources and the presence of workers who are willing to develop these resources. The Dividend would not be financed through taxes, but by society issuing new interest-free credits.
2. The other precept of Economic Democracy is called the “Compensated Discount”. This is a discount on consumer prices for which retailers would be compensated, thus preventing prices from increasing and thereby preventing inflation.
When we hear the term dividends it is usually in the context of the owner of company shares who receives a portion of annual profits in the form of a ‘dividend’. It can truly be said that each citizen of a country, i.e. each member of society, is a co-heir and co-capitalist and the owner of a tremendously real and productive capital: the natural resources of a nation and the inventions of past generations.
All human beings are, in an equal way, heirs to this huge capital that keeps increasing and each person has a right to a portion of its fruits. The employed have a right to their salary and to the Social Dividend. Others, who do not receive a salary, are entitled to a Dividend. We say the Dividend is ‘social’ since it is derived from a shared capital.
Louis Even wrote many articles on the Dividend over a 35-year period. Mrs. Lise Rodrigue-Fournier, a distinguished Pilgrim of Saint Michael, has summarized some of these articles and gathered them into the booklet that follows. You will find a Table of Contents below. Happy reading. v
Alain Pilote
(For the impact of the Social Dividend on the environment, see the article Social Credit Can Dramatically Reduce the Waste of Resources in our August-September, 2018 issue.)
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