The farmers, workers and producers of this country - and their forefathers before them - have invested not only their money, but their very life, in the farms, businesses and enterprises of Canada.
Consider the farmer for a moment. What is his "investment"?
His land, his buildings and livestock;
His time, work and labours;
His knowledge, skills and initiative.
But the story doesn't end here. For years ago his grand-father came in and settled on the old homestead, cut down some logs and erected the first family cabin; and then began the long years of toil carving a home and a farm out of the wilderness.
And the next generation – perhaps his parents – toiled and sacrificed, improved the land and buildings, developed their herds of livestock, and then, in association with their neighbors, opened up roads and established schools. And all these fruits, the accumulation of generations of labour and "know-how", were handed down to us today. This heritage, this accumulation of skill and development, has been freely handed down to us of this generation from countless generations of forebears.
* * *
One of the reasons that this steady improvement and accumulating heritage was built up in the past was because our forefathers were free to take any surplus they could produce, after caring for their own needs, and put it back into improvements and developments, into their land and buildings. Taxes were almost unknown. What a man and his family produced, belonged to them. Society had been primitive, little banker's "money" or "credit" had been used, and thus debt and interest had not leeched on to producers and business.
But far from the farms, alien policies were being shaped. The 'gold' standard was replacing the 'goods' standard. Men and nations were being chained to a financial system controlled not by the producers and consumers, but by a group whose interest in money was not to facilitate production and distribution of goods and services, but rather to use as an instrument to gain control over the real wealth built up and produced by our people.
And at the same time, far from the farm, another alien injection was being administrated to our nation. Karl Marx's doctrine of STATISM was motivating not only socialist and communist circles, but was seeping into the thinking and programs of all political parties. More and more the state took on functions rightly belonging to the individual, the local community, or the church. Education, for example, was made practically a state monopoly in which Science took the place of God. The state more and more involved the entire population in costly foreign policies, and war and destruction seemed to become the only alternative politicians and orthodox economists could offer for depression and financial poverty.
All the while, so-called 'progressive' and 'liberal' influences were poisoning our political wells, centralizing power far from the electorate in central governments; rendering individuals, communities and provinces, helpless in matters affecting their own financial credit — at the same time instituting elaborate and costly plans of so-called social insurance and security. Until today, bleeding the producers and workers of this nation is a vast army and network of officials and bureaucrats, literally hundreds of thousands. They live upon the backs of the producers.
Thus does the producer today, in spite of his heritage and investment, at the end of the year hand over much of his hard-earned profits to the tax-collector.
This amounts to legal robbery. Taxation robs the individual of his inheritance and of the fruit of his work.
A new approach to both the financial and political problems is demanded. Social Credit is this new approach.
In a Social Credit economy, the development of a country would bring, not taxation, but dividends, to its citizens.