Page 47 - Reflexions of African Bishops and Priests

stops, and, as a consequence, a clear incentive nomic Democracy; which is incompatible with a
exists to produce useless or superfluous articles in system which distributes goods and services only
order that useful commodities already existing may through the process of producing more goods and
be distributed.” 15 services, thus giving a clear incentive to produce
What has kept the system going useless, unwanted or superfluous things, and to
Without another source of income (the dividend), create a ‘demand’ for them.
there should be, theoretically, a growing mountain of “We are said to live in a ‘Consumer Society’
unsold goods. But if goods are sold all the same, it is suffering from the disease of ‘consumptionism’ due
because, instead, we have a growing mountain of debt! to the greed of the common people as consumers.
Since people do not have enough money, retailers must But this puts things upside down. ‘Productionism’
encourage credit buying in order to sell their goods: buy or ‘employmentism’ would be better names for the
now, pay later (or should we say more precisely, pay disease, for we are passing increasingly under pro-
forever...) But this is not sufficient to fill the gap in the ducers’ control, the consumers, whose greed is
purchasing power. much exploited in the process, being force-fed with
So there is also a growing stress upon the neces- the by-products of an industry which is primarily
concerned with the provision of work and the distri-
sity for work that distributes wages without increasing bution of money.
the quantity of consumer goods for sale, such as public
works (building bridges or roads), war industries (build- “This aim is opposite to, and incompatible with,
ing submarines, airplanes, etc.). But this is not sufficient that of production for use with minimum cost and
either. waste of energy and resources. Douglas never said
So each country will strive to achieve a “favourable that our producer-dominated credit distribution
balance of trade”, that is to say, to export, to sell to other system could never distribute money to buy the
countries more goods than it receives, in order to obtain goods wanted, but that it could not do so without
from these foreign countries, the money that the popula- producing what was not wanted, and with accelerat-
ing waste and sabotage.
tion is lacking at home to buy their own products. How-
ever, it is impossible for all nations to have a “favourable “If work accomplished, priced to cover an ac-
balance of trade”: if some countries manage to export cumulation of costs over an indefinite period, can
more goods than they import, there must also neces- be distributed only through work in progress (to
sarily be countries that receive more goods than they be piled onto the accumulated costs of work com-
export. But no country wishes to be in that position, so it pleted next year) then we have the recipe for our
causes trade conflicts between nations that can degen- modern predicament – the necessity for continuous
erate into armed conflicts. ‘economic growth’, with ever-growing squandering
Consumerism of energy and resources, as technological advance
Consumerism, or the need to create artificial needs increases the product per man-power. Unless infla-
tionary producer credits, supplemented by consum-
to sell goods which otherwise do not answer real hu- er credits mortgaging future wages, are poured out
man needs come directly from this chronic shortage faster and faster, then we can buy less and less of
of purchasing power. Hence the strain on the environ- what we have already produced.”
ment that amounts to the colossal sabotage and waste The A + B theorem
of natural resources and energy involved just to supply
purchasing power: we have to mortgage our future to Douglas summarized his diagnosis of the flaws of
be able to buy things that were produced in the past. the present price system in two proposals:
Dr. Geoffrey Dobbs of Wales had these interesting com- (1) “That the collective prices of the goods avail-
ments in his introduction of the 5 edition of Economic able for sale at any moment in a given community,
th
Democracy, in 1974: if they have been produced by ordinary commer-
“As Douglas makes clear, production is the cial methods, cannot be met by the money available
conversion of matter or energy from an unavailable through the channels of wages, salaries, and divi-
form to one in which it is available for the use of dends, at one and the same moment. They can be
mankind. The efficiency of this conversion depends exported in return for purchasing-power, or they can
primarily upon usefulness of the end-product. Use- be destroyed, or they can be bought by purchasing-
fulness to whom, who is to be the judge of it? Doug- power which is created and distributed in respect
las says these resources are common property; of a separate cycle of production. This situation is
which means that they ought to be made available worsened by what is called saving, but is independ-
for our use, and we are the judges of that use. And ent of saving at the present time. (...)”
that means consumer control of production: Eco- (2) “This situation would be almost immediately
destructive to the working of the business system,
15 Douglas C.H.; Economic Democracy, W. & J. Barr
Pty, Australia, (1920), 5th ed., 1974, p. 82 (continued on page 42)

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