One remembers having read in the Old Testament how Joseph, sold by his brothers, then taken prisoner in Egypt, was able to explain to Pharaoh the dream of the seven fat cattle and the seven starved cattle, and the dream of the seven plump ears of corn and the seven blighted ones.
After that, Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of all of the land of Egypt.
Once he became the regent of Egypt, Joseph had huge granaries built to store away the surplus crops of seven years of abundance. Joseph did not have to pay the producers much for the corn, since there was plenty of corn, and the producers did not know what to do with their surpluses.
Then seven years of scarcity came, and that was quite another story! People were hungry, but all the corn was stored in Pharaoh's granaries. The Egyptians were forced to buy back the corn they had sold to Joseph. Joseph sold them corn, but at a very high price, so much so that all of Egypt's money came to Joseph, who handed it over to Pharaoh. This is what is called today inflation.
The following year, the drought in Egypt was even worse, and so was the distress of the Egyptians: they had to buy wheat again from Joseph. Storehouses were filled with wheat, but the Egyptians had no money. This is called today poverty amidst plenty.
"So, when they had nothing left to buy with, all came to Joseph asking to have bread given them for nothing; 'Will you watch us starve', they asked, 'now that we have no more money left?'. 'If you cannot pay, 'he answered, 'bring your cattle here, and you shall have food in return for these'." (Gen. 47:15-16)
Thus, after having emptied the wallets of the Egyptians through inflation, Joseph took all of their cattle — their means of production, horses and sheep and cattle and asses — for Pharaoh.
All of this to get something to eat, not even to get something to sow.
By the next year, the situation was even worse for the Egyptians, since they had no horses, no asses, no seed: how could they harvest anything?
So they came to Joseph, and said: "My lord, we have come to the end of our cattle, as well as our money; you can see for yourself that nothing is left us except our lives and our lands. Do not watch us starve; you shall have the disposal of our lands and of ourselves, making both of these the king's property."
So this was done. Faced with famine, the Egyptians sacrificed their freedom. "So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them: and the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof." (Gen. 47:20-21.)
This is what is called today the proletariat, selective service, the mobilization of manpower: the workers must choose between starving to death, or go where the bureaucracy of governments or big companies give them jobs. The daily bread is tied to full employment.
However, Joseph gave the Egyptians seed-corn. The Egyptians could sow, but on fields that no longer belonged to them. Moreover, from now on, on top of having been robbed of all of their money, cattle, and lands, the Egyptians had to give up one-fifth (20 percent) of their crops to Pharaoh, every year, and forever. This is what would be called today a 20% income tax, to pay interest on a perpetual debt.
All of this was done by exploiting, on the one hand, the work, and on the other hand, the ignorance of the Egyptians, because all of the corn in the storehouses had been produced by the Egyptians themselves, and not a bit by Joseph or Pharaoh. Joseph was getting money, cattle and fields, and paid for them with corn produced by the very ones he robbed.
This is called today a financial trick. The more a country is developed by making more products, the deeper in debt it is. The increase in national production is represented by a national debt. Today, the method is simply more sophisticated: the regent is no longer Joseph, but the International Bankers.
It was important to make sure the Egyptians did not notice the injustice of which they were the victims. They had to consider the exploiter as a benefactor, a savior. Pharaoh and Joseph saw to it.
In those days, there was in Egypt only one class of educated people: the priests. Not today's Catholic priests, but the priests of the idols of Egypt. Pharaoh represented the power, and the priests, the intellectuality. One had to make sure they sided with Pharaoh.
So the lands of the priests were not confiscated. They kept their lands, without even having to cultivate them, because they received a fixed, allowance from Pharaoh, and lived on it. The people paid with sweat, taxes and corn; the priests received the grants: thus Pharaoh had influential defenders.
This method was so successful that not only did the Egyptians not rebel against Joseph's decisions, but they even bowed down with respect and gratitude, saying: "You have saved our lives: let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants."
The Egyptians, now being degraded after having been starved, had come to consider their bondage as a favor. There were no Social Crediters to bring them back to reality, and say to them: "You owe your lives to your corn, and not to he who robbed you of all that you had." No, they were guided by people who received grants from the Pharaoh, and covered with prestige because of their office, to make sure that minds bow down lower than bodies.
Thus we saw, more than thirty-eight centuries ago, the takeover of the means of production by the State, the birth of State socialism and bureaucracy, where the human person is just a number.
You can read this story of seizure and enslavement in Chapter 14 of the Book of Genesis, verses 13 to 26. However, you won't find there the comparisons with what is taking place today, but they are obvious.
The overall technique has not changed. First, they create an economic situation in which as many people as possible are starving and forced to accept anything to get something to live. Then, tyranny is installed, and individuals are depersonalized, under the pretext that present circumstances demand it. They use the term "full powers because of an unusual situation", which becomes perpetual, on purpose.
It is all the more easier to do it today since there are no longer needs for natural lean cows: artificial ones are sufficient. Modern famines of food, shelter, or other necessities of life, are actually organized on purpose, at least in industrialized countries with an almost unlimited production capacity. Drought is neither in the sky nor in the fields, but in the wallets. "
This drought of purchasing power is all that is needed to thank God for the welfare State, the State that owns everything, taxes everything, distributes everything, etc. And what about the human person? He is a mere number in a file.
The further the State from the human person, the further the file from the individual, the colder the bureaucracy, the more human beings become the playthings of anonymous bureaucrats.
There were 46,106 federal bureaucrats (civil servants) in Canada in 1939, and 242,958 in 1992. We are heading for Pharaonism, or State socialism, or more exactly, Communism. (And in 1999, we are heading for a dictatorial and satanic one. world government.)