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- 0415325072.Routledge.Power.A.New.Social.Analysis.Mar.2004
- L Warren Douglas Simply Human
- Lesson Plan 117 Text
- Foster, Alan Dean Damned 1 Call to Arms
- McIntyre, Vonda Metaphase(1)
- Daniel Coyle the little book of talent 52 tips for improving your skills
- CIERPKIE WINOGRONA I CHYTROSC ROZUMU Jozef Tischner
- Lawrence Kim Pod niebem Toskanii
- Berenson Laurien MiśÂośÂć wedśÂug Lucky
- Kraszewski Józef Ignacy Lalki sceny przedśÂlubne
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today stands on the brink of irremediable catastrophe.
There is, therefore, no room for doctrinaire theorising in regard to the "aims of industry";
the trouble about industry is not that its aims are wrong, but that it fails to achieve them.
And it fails to achieve them for a simple reason the individual is divorced from the
credit which is his, and, in consequence, does not duly function as a consumer. It is only
necessary to recognise the natural relationships which underlie any sort of functioning of
an economic society. If we recognise and admit these relationships, and make our
arrangements accordingly, we have a machine which is designed to work in accordance
with the only forces which are available to work economic machines, and the result is
smoothness and efficiency. If we refuse to recognise these forces, or pretend that they
have a direction which is contrary to the facts, or clamour for a change in their nature (a
"change of heart"), we are likely to get an economic machine which is about as successful
as would be a plough if installed for the purpose of driving an Atlantic liner. We are in
the position of a would-be engineer who refuses to accept the principles of
thermodynamics, and, (183) instead of endeavouring to improve the steam engine, tries to
alter the properties of steam.
The financial relationships which correspond to these principles are fundamentally
simple. The credit power which is based on the demand of the community as a whole for
goods and services can only be effectively directed in detail by trained technicians, using
that description, in the words of the Labour Party, "to include workers by hand and
brain." But just as it is in the nature of things that ownership and finance are indissoluble,
so, while emphasising the sphere of the technician in production, it is equally certain that
his product belongs not to himself, but to the community from which he derives his
financial energy. It is the business of the scientist, the designer, and the inventor, to place
before the individuals who compose the public the achievements which are considered
possible. It, is the business of the public to say in what quantity and in what priority it
considers those achievements desirable, and it is the business of the producer, in the
general sense of the term, to act in accordance with the verdict, and to hand over the
product to the general public the consumer of whom alike the producer and the
inventor are a part. That is practically what happens at (184) present, with the vital
exception that the order system which connects the individual with the producer does not
function; whether by accident or design is largely immaterial.
One method by which it is possible to visualise in a familiar form the embodiment of
such a set of relationships is in the conception of, let us say, Great Britain, Limited. If we
imagine a country to be organised in such a way that the whole of its natural born
inhabitants are interested in it in their capacity as shareholders, holding the ordinary
stock, which is inalienable and unsaleable, and such ordinary stock carries with it a
dividend which collectively will purchase the whole of its products in excess of those
required for the maintenance of the "producing" population, and whose appreciation in
capital value (or dividend-earning capacity) is a direct function of the appreciation in the
real credit of the community, we have a model, though not necessarily a very detailed
model, of the relationships outlined. Under such conditions every individual would be
possessed of purchasing-power which would be the reflection of his position as a "tenant-
for-life" of the benefits of the cultural heritage handed down from generation to
generation. Every individual would be vitally interested in that her- (185) itage, and his
clear interest would be to preserve and to enhance it. Contemporaneously with this, he
might also be a "producer," and although it is probable that the money incentive in the
form of wages could be made small in comparison with the dividends he would receive
as a shareholder, the relation between these two forms of effective demand offers a
flexible method of transition from the existing arrangements. It will be obvious that such
a set of relationships does not impinge on what is commonly called the rights of property,
so long as these rights are "consumers' " rights. It renders each individual immune from
economic penalisation for his personal views, and thus forms the only effective bulwark
against tyranny, and it places the underlying facts of co-operative production in a light in
which they can be seen and grasped by the most modest intelligence. Under such an
arrangement, wages and salaries become what they are in fact at present - merely a credit
grant against future production, and a measure of the human energy put into production.
This credit grant would be cancelled by the writing down of the national assets to an
extent represented by the sum of wages and salaries, the assumption being, of course, that
the wages and (186) salaries represent the consumption of goods over a given period
which have to be debited against the production of the same period. The dividend which
is declared over the equivalent period represents the division of the difference between
actual consumption and actual production (both of actual products and production
capacity) over the same period.
Pursuing this line of reasoning, it is not difficult to see that in the modern world a
workable financial system is far more in the nature of an accounting and order system
than an exchange system.
When each man ploughed, sowed, and reaped his own harvest it was a reasonable
argument both ethically and pragmatically that what he produced was his own to be used
or exchanged for other products, as he saw fit. In this exchange process the use of tokens
was an obvious development. Our word "pecuniary" (Latin, pecus, cattle), no doubt
derives from the practice of using leather discs to represent a cow or a horse. The owner
of the animal parted with the disc in return for suitable consideration, and when
convenient the holder of the disc presented it and obtained delivery of the property. It is
of importance to realise in this connection that (a) The owner of the cattle and the
original (187) issuer of the money were the same individual; (b) To the extent that the
system was in use, it was obviously its intention that production of goods and production
of monetary units should keep in step that each unit of real property should be
represented by an equivalent unit of money and the destruction (or final delivery by its
original owner) of a unit of real property would consequently involve the cancellation of
the equivalent monetary unit, or its re-issue by a new owner.
It is easy to conceive that a simple monetary system of this nature would be an immense
convenience to a pastoral community limited both in numbers and in the variety of its
property, but that abuses (probably forgery and inflation) would grow as the system was
enlarged and modified to meet a civilisation of greater complexity. These abuses would
naturally produce a group of experts to deal with them and at once the general outlines of
a nascent banking and credit system become evident. The transfer of the right to issue
money from the property owner himself to a group of specialists alleged to be acting on
his behalf would be an easy step.
Now, as emphasised in Chapter V, the factor transcending all others in importance in the
(188) modern world is the cultural inheritance by the aid of which wealth in practically
unlimited quantity can be produced by a small and diminishing amount of human labour.
In order that a financial system may work in accordance with the necessities of the
conception on which money rests fundamentally it is necessary :
(a) That the money equivalent of this property shall arise from and vest in the owners of
the property. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]