Where Will the Money Come From?

The reader who meets Social Credit for the first time in these pages may surely be asking the question:

"But where will the money come from? A dividend to all, very fine indeed. A dividend without taxation, more impressive still. But, if no taxation, where will the money come from to pay the dividend?"

In 1939, when this country, and other countries as well, had been short of money, literally on the rocks for fully ten years, and our Government, nevertheless, launched the country into a world war that would surely cost billions, how many people asked the question: Where will the money come from?

The money did come, overnight, and not a single country stayed out of the war for just lack of money. The defeated nations capitulated for lack of munitions or men to carry on.

The fact is that money is the easiest thing in the world to produce.

But this is not easily explained in a few words. The new student cannot expect, after reading one issue of an eight-page paper, to have a satisfactory answer to all the questions which may arise in his mind. Nobody can complete a course on a comprehensive subject in just a few hours.

Taking things in the right order, we set the object of Social Credit first; investigation of the proposed means of attaining this aim will come after. The WHAT before considering the HOW.

And WHAT can you expect from Social Credit? This issue tells you briefly: Social Credit will set you free. Free, with economic security. A dividend to guarantee each individual the necessities of life, from the cradle to the grave, as long as goods are there to answer human needs.

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But money? — Just a few words here. More later.

Money is not God-made. Money is not nature-made. But money is man-made. It is then up to a community, where the Social Credit purpose is accepted, to see that the making and distribution of money be adjusted to produce the desired result.

Social Credit proposes a dividend to all, a drastic reduction and final elimination of taxes, a discount on all retail prices. None of these things can be done without an adjustment in the operation of our financial system.

The adjustment presents no technical difficulty at all. Money today is essentially bookkeeping. More than 90 per cent of the money in circulation is credit money, and this consists in figures in a bank ledger.

Social Credit offers a technique for the adjustment without upsetting anything or dispossessing any legitimate owner.

Why then is it not done today? — It is not done:

1. Because it is not generally demanded by the community;

2. Because the object of the proposed change — Freedom of the individual with his economic security guaranteed as a birthright — is yet a scandal for many;

3. Because the issue and cancellation of credit money, the bulk of money, are not under the control of the community. The issue, the cancellation, and the terms, are controlled by the banking system, which pursues quite another object than the economic security and freedom of every individual.

Once decided, the change would be an easy matter. But the decision will not be made until the object of the change is first recognized.

And there lies the real difficulty. There lies also the task of the Social Credit movement, more properly the task of every convinced Social Crediter.