res publica [translation]

I seem to have lost track of how I got there--some website somewhere referred me to a page about the publication of a Robert Heinlein book based on the Social Credit notion, which made me curious as to what the heck is "Social Credit". Apparently it's popular in Canada, which piqued my interest all the more.

So I checked Google and found this page, which has some interesting points:

• When people are paid to make capital assets and machinery with wages that come from a bank loan rather than from their personal savings, an increased amount of money becomes available to buy a supply of consumer goods that has not increased at all. "Too much money chases too few goods", and prices rise. We have Inflation.
• After the new capital assets and machinery have been installed, the manufacturer has to try to get back the cost of his machinery through prices, in order to repay his bank loan. When this happens, we have "Too little money" to pay realistic prices for the goods being marketed for sale. People are receiving "A" on each payday, and businessmen are charging prices of "A plus B". That price can't be paid UNLESS -
  • People go into debt, by buying on time, or
  • Governments borrow and increase the National Debt, or
  • Business borrows more bank credit to finance expansion, or
  • Businesses sell below cost, and go bankrupt, or
  • We win a trade war, putting foreigners in debt to us for our surplus of exports, or (if they can't or won't pay)
  • We have a war, "exporting" goods such as tanks and bombs to the enemy without ever expecting to be paid for them, and financing this by government borrowing.

If none of the above things is done, businesses are forced to lay off workers, unemployment rises, the economy stagnates, taxes go unpaid, Governments cut back services, and we have widespread POVERTY, when physically all of us could be living in PLENTY. People become restive and demoralized, not realizing that their failure is not necessarily the result of their idleness or lack of skill, but rather of the way "the system" operates.

"Systems were made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man, which is self-development, is above all systems, whether theological, political or economic...

"We must build up from the individual, not down from the State".

(C.H.Douglas, Economic Democracy. (1920) pp. 6,7)

I like this idea a lot, but am bothered that I can't find any glaring problems in it, even minor ones. I must be losing my touch.

Still, it bugs the heck out of me when people talk of "democracy" when they're really talking about representative democracy, or a "republic".

So I guess there's always that.

Last updated by eric Sat Dec 13 10:58 2003 | thought | link

crescit eundo [translation]

Article via Boing Boing about how Dean isn't really part of the Democratic Party (which makes me want to vote for him). Excerpt:

The ability to have "virtual political parties" is the greatest challenge the two parties have ever faced. There are strategies available to them, of course -- deft positioning allows them to preempt competitors, as it does in every industry, and they can use the same technology, although Internet culture doesn't seem readily amenable to either Democrat.com or Republican.com. Being a Democrat or a Republican isn't enough of an advantage anymore -- there are simply too many other places where people can get political information and find political bedfellows in an age of low information costs.

The real question is whether -- really, how -- the two parties, like any other waning duopoly, will use non-market means to preserve their fading power -- by, for example, keeping third-party candidates out of televised debates, making it harder for other parties to get public funding or closing off "open" primaries that invite marauding forms of political organization.

I think I'm curious enough to want to find out that answer the hard way.

Last updated by eric Sat Dec 13 10:05 2003 | thought | link