THE JOURNAL OF THE COMMITTEE ON MONETARY AND ECONOMIC REFORM $3.95 Vol. 23, No. 7 • JULY 2011 CONTENTS What We Must Learn from 11 A Century After his Birth, Marshall McLuhan Is Still Ahead of Us Social Credit 14 Europe and the American Credit Appraisers Contradict Each Other The following are extended excerpts from The Economics of Happiness on the Nature of Solvency Understanding the Financial System: Social So successful has the silencing of Social 15 A Canadian Equivalent to USA’s Credit Rediscovered by Frances Hutchinson Credit been, that the quest for answers to Sheila Bair (Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2010). A further fundamental questions relating to the theo- 17 Transitional Homes for Ex-convicts discussion of this excellent work will be carried ry and practice of finance in economic sys- in a future issue. tems across the world, is conducted without 18 Pay The Piper! Call The Tune! In an attempt to understand the present- any reference whatsoever to Social Credit 20 The Ruinous Cost of Treating Our day institutions we need to scroll back in publications. In The Economics of Happiness, Investment in Human Capital as an time. The two decades immediately follow- Mark Anielski poses several key questions. Expenditure ing the First World War saw a remarkable • Why do economists, financial ana- Publications Mail Agreement No. 41796016 challenge to the growth of corporate culture, lysts, politicians and media fixate on growth politics and economics. Foreshadowing the measures (such as GDP or gross domestic environmental, peace, and anti-corporate product) as the key indicator of human pressure groups of the twentieth century, the progress? world-wide Social Credit movement posed a • Why do economy and stock market in- serious threat to the hegemony of corporate dices have to keep growing if a community international financial interests. Despite the has achieved levels of material self-sufficien- determined opposition of salaried econo- cy and quality of life? mists, party politicians and the national and • What is money and where does it come international press, Social Credit publica- from? tions were studied and debated by ordinary • Why is money always scarce? men and women seeking economic democ- • What’s wrong with a steady-state, sub- racy in their respective localities. Through- sistence economy which has achieved suf- out the UK, in the Dominions, in the USA ficiency and homeostasis? and elsewhere, the attempt by the demo- • Why does free market capitalist eco- cratically elected Social Credit government nomics look more like a cancer cell that the of Alberta [1935+] to implement change in self-renewing life cycle of an ancient forest? the social order was observed with the clos- • What is driving our more-growth, est of interest. The very possibility of success more-consumption obsession? posed a challenge to the corporate status • Why aren’t economists and our leaders quo, to such an extent that, in the Second asking hard questions? World War era, as the following chapters • More growth of what? For whom? indicate, the episode was airbrushed out Anielski faced these questions as an econ- of history. Throughout the later decades of omist working in the Canadian province of the twentieth century the corporate world Alberta, as senior advisor on green issues to actively discouraged study of the academy: the Government of China, and as practi- texts written by the founder of the move- tioner and preacher of sustainable business ment. Clifford Hugh Douglas (1879-1952), practices. The Economics of Happiness goes by the Guild Socialist editor of The New a long way towards providing answers to Age, Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), the questions posed above, and is set to be and by many other contributors in the rich a major test of the future. However, one can literature of the movement. Continued on page 2 Social Credit from page 1 The Era of Silent Spring trace the identical questions back through By 1959 C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures each of the decades of the twentieth century, and the Scientific Revolution was raising the to the immediate aftermath of the First key topic of the failure of communications World War. between the sciences and the humanities. FOUNDING EDITOR Writing when the Bolsheviks had but Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published John Hotson 1930–1996 recently seized power in Russia, when the in 1962. The Cuban crisis of the same year PUBLISHER–EDITOR phenomenon of Hitler’s Nazism had yet had alerted the world for a brief period to the William Krehm to be conjured into existence and when fact that nuclear arsenals could indeed result ([email protected]) Roosevelt’s New Deal was still a decade into in Mutually Assured Destruction. Students INFORMATION SECRETARY the future, Social Credit founder Clifford rebelled in 1968. Veblen’s The Theory of the Herb Wiseman ([email protected]) Hugh Douglas observed: Leisure Class, Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered “There are only two Great Policies in the Philanthropists, and Tolkien’s The Lord of the WEBMASTER world today – Domination and Freedom. Rings. Yet nothing changed. The Vietnam Tony Koch Any policy that aims at the establishment War continued unabated until 1975. The Economic Reform (ER) of a complete sovereignty, whether it be so-called “Green Revolution,” the introduc- (ISSN 1187–080X) is published monthly of a Kaiser, a League, a State, a Trust or a tion of “improved” seed to Third World by COMER Publications Trade Union, is a policy of Domination, countries, had predictable and predicted 27 Sherbourne Street North, Suite 1 irrespective of the fine words with which it effect of further driving small subsistence Toronto, Ontario M4W 2T3 Canada may be accomplished, and any policy which farmers off their land to swell the shanty Tel: 416­‑924-3964, Fax: 416-466-5827 makes it easier for the individual to benefit towns surrounding the cities. As poverty Email: [email protected] by association, without being constrained and oppression increased, discussion of the Website: www.comer.org beyond the inherent necessities of the func- causes of war, poverty and oppression was COMER Membership: Annual dues tion involved in the association, is a policy noticeable by its absence. “The Economy” (includes ER on request plus 1 book or of freedom…. was deemed to exist to create employment, video of your choice): CDN$50 “The fanatical Labour theorist, who so that people could go to work to earn the would deny the right to live to any person money to pay for all the good things in life. Economic Reform Subscription only: not engaged in orthodox toil, quite irrespec- In the 1970s and 1980s another scenario One year, 12 monthly issues, in Canada tive of the facts of wealth production; the emerged on the fringes of the mainstream. CDN$30, Foreign CDN$40 Trust magnate who corners an essential arti- Perhaps small might be beautiful. Perhaps Send request and payment to: cle under the pretext of efficient production, there was no call for endless growth, with COMER Publications are, no less than the mediaeval ecclesiastics its inevitable destruction of the natural 27 Sherbourne Street North, Suite 1 who burned men’s bodies that their souls resources base of the soils. Maybe it was Toronto, ON M4W 2T3 might live, practical exponents of salvation possible to think differently about the need ER Back Issues: CDN/US$4, includes by compulsion.” to earn more and more money. Living with- postage; additional copies same When these words were written, Doug- out a car, growing one’s own vegetables issue, $2; additional issue same order, las’ work had already made his name known and cutting down on consumer items as a $3. Send requests for back issues to throughout the UK. His two books pub- whole could be less stressful not only on Herb Wiseman, 69 Village Crescent, lished to date, Economic Democracy and oneself, but on the environment and society Peterborough ON K9J 0A9. Credit-Power and Democracy, were being in general. The idea of a basic income as an used as university texts and were being inalienable right for all citizens was floated. Copyright © 2011 studied by leading economic thinkers like It joined up with the work of the Citizens’ COMER Publications John Maynard Keynes. In these, and in Income Study Group that, in seeking an end All rights reserved subsequent books, articles and speeches by to means-tested benefits, undertook statisti- Permission to reproduce is granted Douglas, every one of Anielski’s questions is cal research into the feasibility of a transfer if accompanied by: fully and comprehensively answered. Dur- income from taxation under the auspices of “Copyright © 2011 COMER Publications. ing the 1930s in Alberta, a democratically the London School of Economics. The UK Reproduced by permission of elected government sought to put Social Green Party adopted the policy of a Guar- COMER Publications” Credit into practice. anteed Basic Income for all as a necessary Postmaster, please send address Moreover, Douglas’ contemporary ob- prior condition of a free, democratic society. corrections to: servations on the Russian economy under A nice thought, said the economists and the COMER Publications Communism, the financing of Hitler, and politicians in chorus but economically it 27 Sherbourne Street North, Suite 1 the New Deal anticipated the later writings could not be done. Where, after all, would Toronto, Ontario M4W 2T3 of authors like Anthony Sutton. By the out- the money come from? break of the Second World War, Douglas PRINTING AND DISTRIBUTION and other prominent social creditors were The “Ecosocialism of Fools”? Watt Solutions Inc., London household names. During the subsequent In the early 1990s, as my children left Printed in Canada on recycled paper.