Where Will Dividends Come From ?

You, Social Creditors, advocate dividends to all?

Yes. A periodic, say monthly, dividend to every man, woman and child, from the cradle to the grave.

But a Dividend, that means money?

If you want to call it so. It is essentially a title to goods, purchasing power.

This will mean an awful lot of taxes, and have we not already more than we can bear?

Taxes? Why, no. Dividends and taxes would be fire and water. The dividends-to-all way is the anti-tax way. A dividend to some might mean taxing the others. But dividends to ALL cannot mean taxation. What sense would there be in taking one dollar from your left pocket to put one dollar into your right pocket, while undoubtedly retaining some cents to pay the bureaucrat in charge of the transfer from one pocket to another?

But then where will dividends come from? Money must surely come from some place; there surely must be some transfer some place!

Oh! You're laboring under the idea that there is such a fixed amount of money in existence and if Paul gets one dollar more, some Peter must find himself with a dollar less!

It seems so to me.

When you take one pair of shoes from the shoe store, or one pound of butter from the grocery, do you ever think that someone else will be deprived of one pair of shoes or of one pound of butter? If you decide to feed your children one more quart of milk per week, does it mean that some other parent will have to feed one quarter less of milk to his?

No, to be sure.

And did you ask the question: "Where is the pair of shoes to come from for me if nobody else need go with one pair less?".

You're mocking! This would be a silly question.

No more silly than the question: “Where will dividends come from?"

But there is a difference. Obviously the shoes, the butter, the milk, all the goods offered on the market come from the producing system; and we need not be anxious: the prodacers can supply more as fast as we take them. Producers and merchants are after people, pressing them to buy more shoes, more butter, more milk, more of everything.

Exactly so, my friend... Well, let the financial system be what it pretends to be but is not: let finance be a true reflection of the facts of production, as it would be under a Social Credit system of finance. Then, the financial system would supply purchasing power as fast as the producing system can deliver the goods. If the question “Where will the goods come from" is never asked, and if the other question "Where will money come from” is heard every day, it simply means that there is no agreement between the producing system and the financial system: the first one is serving well, the second one is inflicting punishment. Social Credit would make both agree. Paul gets a new car, and this does not in the least bar Peter from getting a new car; if both Paul and Peter, and other people as well, get new cars, the car manufacturer will only be glad to increase his production. There is not just a fixed number of cars, of which if Paul takes one, Peter will have to go without, while the car manufacturer would stand idle. This would be stupid rationing. Why ration money more than goods? A dividend going to Paul means not take money away from anybody, because the dividend to Paul, plus the dividend to Peter, plus the dividend to everybody, will find on the markets the goods which Paul, plus Peter, plus everyone will choose to buy.

But is there not a limit?

The limit is where the capacity to produce would be exhausted. It is a good distance from where we are, although we use that productive power to turn out a quantity of things nobody wants. Did you ever hear a man, a man not in the moon, express his fear of Canada's impotency: "Canada cannot make enough shoes for all Canadians, cannot grow enough wheat to bake enough loaves, cannot raise enough cattle to supply enough milk, butter or meat..."?

No. Never.

Someone may be tempted to draw an exception: “Canada cannot build enough houses for all her families." But this is a lie. Your cousin James cannot find a house for his growing family; but give him $10,000, and tell me how long he will be houseless, if he is really anxious to have a home. Houses can be built when they can be paid for. The housing problem is simply a money problem.

I think I begin to understand.

Yes. Just go on thinking in terms of things, of goods, of realities — and you will admit that our material problems are few and easy of solution. Well, under a Social Credit financial system, finance would reflect facts. Dividends, money, purchasing power, would come from the financial system, as easily as goods come from the producing system. Quite another picture than what we have today, isn't it?

You bet!

Well, join with me. Join with all Social Crediters. Get your friends and neighbours along. Let us all demand Social Credit. Demand it from our representatives in every Government where laws are made. Let us demand legislation to make money serve men, instead of men serving money; to have money determined by the presence of production, and not production determined by the presence of money; to get purchasing power distributed by dividends to all, as fast as applied science, machines, power and increment of association replace man's labor in an ever-incraasing production, actual and potential.

From Our Mail Box "THE ONLY HOPE"

Cape Town (South Africa) Congratulations on the publication of Social Credit. I have been a propagandist Douglasite since 1924. During the late war, as an Engineer officer, it was my privilege to meet the splendid workers for Social Credit in Australia. In these far away corners of the world, we have received enorm. ous encouragement through the knowledge of the great work Čanadians are doing. In Social Credit lies the only hope of general welfare and peace, Keep on going on!

CHARLES B. MUSSARED

FROM SCRATCH TO GREAT THINGS

Garrett, Indiana (U.S.A.)

It is very encouraging to see the progress you have made since you started, you might say from scratch and on a shoe string. It reminds me very much of another movement started and founded on poverty by Saint Francis of Assisi, and that succeeded in a big way...

JOSEPH BABINEAU