Page 12 - Michael 2024 January

munity as a debt to
themselves (at inter-
est), and recall and
cancel these tickets
(through prices for a
portion of the wealth
produced) before the
total wealth thus pro-
duced is exchanged
for use by consum-
ers: thus causing an
ever-widening chasm
between the commun-
ity’s purchasing power
as consumers, and
the total of accounted
prices (which is the
total money due to the
banking system) for the
wealth which the com-
munity has produced.
u The former is becoming ever more and more Hence forced export and competitive struggles
efficient. Therefore, the defect lies in the latter; it is of nations for foreign markets: hence the piling up of
the distribution that has broken down. international debts: hence economic conflicts, lead-
Now the medium of distribution is money. The ing to wars: hence the progressive mortgaging of the
monetary system is not discharging its natural whole industrial plant and capital and wealth-sources
function: i.e. is not delivering the goods. of society to the world-monopoly of banking.
A defective monetary system The State has become a slave
Money is essentially a system of exchange tick- Another disastrous consequence, indicated by
ets, the value or validity of which is based on men’s the Pope, is the effective enslavement of the State
belief (credit) in the wealth-producing capacity of (i.e., of all modern governments of all political or-
the community using them. Its sole right function is ganizations and authority in the modern world) to
to ensure that all the wealth which the community a superstate plutocracy in which supreme political
is capable of producing be continuously produced power is usurped and wielded by the monopolistic
and exchanged among consumers for use. controllers of the very lifeblood of economics and
It is the duty of the State to so control the sys- industry, which is finance.
tem of issuing money tickets for wealth-production, Now, this utter perversion of right order for the
and cancelling them through wealth-consumption, industrial and economic organization, and the au-
that the system effectively discharges the above- thority of this latter ought to be (in the temporal do-
mentioned function. But all modern governments main) supreme. This authority derives rightly from
have neglected that duty by committing the whole God, and not from the superior might or craft of
money system to the unfettered control of groups those who have usurped economic domination and
of private citizens, who have ignored that essential who are swayed by greed for power.
purpose of the system, and have made it subserve But, as a consequence of this growing financial
an opposite and anti-social purpose: which is noth- impoverishment of the masses, and of progressive
ing less than monopoly and consolidation of all eco- mortgaging of the community’s productive plant
nomic and even political power, and domination of and capital and wealth sources to the finance-con-
society in their hands. trollers, the State had perforce to take over and ad-
Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical letter Quadra- minister many of the economic organs within the
gesimo Anno, has explicitly called attention to this State.
international world monopoly of finance, and indi- Pope Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno, has indi-
cated some of its disastrous consequences. cated some of those cooperative organizations
The controllers of this financing or banking — guilds or corporations — of wealth producers,
system issue the community’s money tickets (for the purpose of which would be to secure a better-
wealth-production and distribution) to the com- planned and more efficient production of wealth.

12 MICHAEL January/February 2024 www.michaeljournal.org