Page 27 - Michael August 2021

Economic Democracy Not Through Politicians

But Humble Apostles Who Bring About God’s Action

One of the obstacles that MICHAEL has been fa- “Among the actions and
cing for a year or two is the emergence of a system attitudes opposed to the will
of control and espionage in Communist China called of God, the good of neighbor
“social credit”, which is confusing, since it is under this and the ‘structures’ created
same name that the financial proposals of the Scottish by them, two are very typ-
engineer Clifford Hugh Douglas, conceived in 1917, ical: on the one hand, the all-
and taught since 1935 by Louis Even and MICHAEL, consuming desire for profit,
were propagated to fight poverty and correct the vices and on the other, the thirst
of the current financial system. It is to avoid this confu- for power, with the intention
sion that MICHAEL increasingly uses the words “eco- of imposing one’s will upon
nomic democracy” to refer to the financial proposals others.”
of Douglas. As a matter of fact, his first book on the These two “attitudes op-
subject, in 1918, was entitled Economic Democracy. posed to the will of God” de-
The “social credit” taught by MICHAEL is the com- scribe the behavior of inter- Saint John Paul II
plete opposite of Communism, because it respects national bankers quite well:
private property and individual freedom, and wants to first, the thirst to accumulate billions of dollars, and
make each citizen a true “capitalist”, that is to say, the second — once they have more billions of dollars than
owner of a capital coming from the double-fold com- they will ever be able to spend on themselves — the
mon heritage of natural resources and inventions of desire to impose by force their will on the nations and
previous generations. peoples of the whole world.
However, until recently, another obstacle was also As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,
confusing, namely, the existence of political parties one fights a vice with the virtue opposed to it. In this
called “social credit”: such a party existed in Canada case, we must therefore fight the selfishness of the
on the federal scene until 1980, and was even in power bankers with our own gift of self, our self-dedication.
in two provinces, Alberta (from 1935 to 1971) and Brit- This is precisely what Saint John Paul II wrote a few
ish Columbia (from 1952 to 1991, except for the years paragraphs later in the same encyclical mentioned
1972 to 1975), but without applying any principles of above:
the financial reform of Douglas. (We will discuss the “These attitudes and ‘structures of sin’ are only
Alberta experiment of 1935 at the end of this article.) conquered — presupposing the help of divine grace
This is what led some people to believe that MI- — by a diametrically opposed attitude: a commit-
CHAEL, when talking about “social credit”, is promot- ment to the good of one’s neighbor with the readi-
ing this former political party called “social credit”. In ness, in the gospel sense, to “lose oneself” for the
reality, MICHAEL does not promote any political party, sake of the other…”
old or new, and its ideas can be applied by any politic- No change in society can be achieved without the
al party already in power. As Douglas and Louis Even gift of self. And a great cause like Social Credit, or eco-
always explained, we will not obtain the application nomic democracy, is no exception.
of Social Credit by promoting political parties, wheth- Alain Pilote
er they are called “social credit” or otherwise, but by
educating the people and doing apostolate work, giv- by Louis Even
ing of oneself. Two contradictory terms
If it is not by a political party, then what is the for- Question — Could Social Credit (or Economic
mula for applying Social Credit? The formula advo- Democracy) be used as a platform for a political party?
cated by MICHAEL is to educate the population on
the solution to be brought to the current financial The first obvious answer is: “This question does
system, to allow the government, regardless of what not make sense.” It doesn’t for whoever really knows,
party or allegiance, to apply this financial reform. on the one hand, what Social Credit is all about, and
Without this strength in the people, the pressures of on the other hand, what a political-party platform is.
financiers on governments win the day. Would you ask: “Could the multiplication table
In his encyclical letter Sollicitudo rei socialis (the be used as a platform for a political party?” or “Could
social concern of the Church), Pope Saint John Paul II the existence of the St. Lawrence River in Canada, the
wrote (n. 37): Mississippi River in the United States, the Alps in Eur- u
ope, be used as a platform for a political party?”

www.michaeljournal.org MICHAEL August/September 2021 27