Page 22 - A Social Dividend: An Income Guaranteed to Each Citizen

u body of knowledge passed from generation to 2. The National Credit Office would issue the
generation and form a common inheritance. This interest-free money/credits needed to finance new
common inheritance is a real capital. Indeed, it production, and these credits/money would be
is the most important factor in today’s abundant withdrawn from circulation as that particular pro-
production. Yet, today’s method of distributing duction was consumed.
and sharing the wealth of the common inheritance 3. The bookkeeping price of products (total
ignores this reality. costs, including profit) would continue to be es-
Basic Corrective Principles tablished by producers but a general discount
would be granted to the consumers upon every
The founder of Social Credit, Scottish engin- retail sale according to the calculation explained
eer, Clifford Hugh Douglas, proposed two prin- above. The National Credit Office would compen-
ciples that would correct the system’s inherent sate the difference to the retailers upon presenta-
flaws: tion of sale receipts.
1. Financial credit must exactly reflect Real 4. A periodic (weekly or monthly) Dividend
Credit. would be given to every citizen, without condi-
Real Credit is the physical capacity to produce tions and whether or not employed, because each
and deliver necessary goods. Financial Credit — person is a co-owner due to the fruits of progress,
money in all its forms — must reflect this Real the biggest factor in today’s production. The Divi-
Credit. It must be issued as production costs are dend should be large enough so that, combined
incurred and withdrawn from circulation accord- with the discount on prices, every individual could
ing to the rates of consumption of goods and enjoy at least the necessities of life. The Dividend
depreciation of productive assets. All that can be would increase as the total national production
feasibly produced in response to the public and increased even while the system required less
private needs of the population must be made fi- labour inputs. Progress, instead of causing prob-
nancially possible. lems of unemployment and misery as it does in
2. The real cost of production is consumption. today’s financial system, would create leisure and
This truth can be easily understood if one sets freedom for non-industrial activities, while main-
aside the financial aspect and only considers real- taining a money supply sufficient to buy all the
ity. The real cost of an item is the total amount of production that was needed by the population.
energy and materials consumed during the pro- For its Implementation
cess of its manufacture. This new mode of distribution and sharing
So, if on the one hand, the total public and pri- wealth exploits no one and does not require that
vate production in the country in one year is $32 the means of production be nationalized. Further,
billion, and if over the same period the total con- it is both logical and humane. Since it is very dif-
sumption is $24 billion, one must conclude that ferent from the current system it cannot be imple-
the real cost of production for that year was not mented without first being studied and accepted
$32 billion, but actually $24 billion (or 75% of what by the citizens themselves. Let us be very, very
we can call the “bookkeeping price” of the pro- frank: Social Credit clashes head-on with the
duction). If all the production is to reach consum- money dictatorship. An election or a change of
ers, which is actually the sole goal of production, government alone cannot bring about these chan-
the consumer must be able to purchase it at 75% ges.
of the bookkeeping price. This can be achieved
One cannot expect Social Credit to be estab-
by granting consumers a 25% general discount, lished until there is a significant demand by the
while compensating the retailers and producers people insisting on its implementation. This force
for this discount so that they may recover all of
their financial costs. will not be created until a sufficient number of in-
dividuals know and understand the principles de-
Three Financial Proposals scribed. That is why the Pilgrims of Saint Michael
Social Credit makes three proposals: support no candidates in elections and oppose all
smokescreens that stoke divisions (when our goal is
1. The establishment of a National Credit Of- to unite the citizenry). Our aim is to intensively keep
fice — which could well be the Bank of Canada — up the work of educating and informing citizens of
whose role would be to ensure the money supply the principles and benefits of Social Credit. v
conforms to the realities of production and con-
sumption. Louis Even

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