Details

Written by: Editorial Staff

Category: May

Published: 24 July 2026

Hits: 0

Of all the social measures established in Canada, — the family allowances are the most approaching the Social Credit proposal of a dividend to all. They are a dividend to children. They are an income tied to the person (the child) and dissociated from employment. They are also the most direct way to help the family get access to more consumable goods as the number of consumers increases in the home. The fact that they are financed from the revenue of taxation is not however a feature of Social Credit, but arises from the predicaments of the present financial system.

But of all the social measures, the family allowance is the only one of which the rates have not been adjusted to the increased cost of living. And this is an injustice done to families raising children.

The members of the Union of Electors all these years have conducted an active campaign of pressure upon the Government, demanding that the situation of the family allowances be corrected without further delay. Since the return to power of the Conservative Government, on March 31 last, the Union of Electors has distributed two million (2,000,000) printed letters to that effect throughout the country, asking people to sign the letter and address it to the Honorable Mr. Monteith, Minister of Social Welfare in Ottawa. A number of delegations have also met members of Parliament in various constituencies, to ask them to support the demand.

Details

Written by: Louis Even

Category: May

Published: 24 July 2026

Hits: 0

 

Douglas, the founder of the Social Credit School, was one day asked exactly what he expected the propagation of his doctrine to achieve. The great man answered as follows:

“I will tell you in a broad way what we are aiming at. We are striving to bring to birth a new civilization, something which extends far beyond the bounds of a change in the financial system. We are hoping, by various means, chiefly financial, to enable the human community to step out of one type of civilization into another, and the first requirement, as we see it, is that of absolute economic security.”

A liberation

What will this new civilization be like? How will men in their conduct, in their relationships with one another, be better off than they are today? What will be the special marks of this new civilization in which, according to Douglas, men will be able to build through Social Credit?

No one can give exact and definite answers to such questions. Social Credit has never pretended to blueprint a particular way of life for anyone. It would emancipate man, but it has no wish to dictate to him.

Or, as another Social Credit writer put it, Social Credit is not a panacea, but rather a liberation.

A panacea is a universal cure for all diseases, physical or moral. Obviously panaceas have no reality; they are wishful thinking. And Social Credit is certainly not a panacea.

Under a Social Credit system, it will still be necessary to maintain production; there will still be difficulties to surmount, diseases to be cured, sorrows to bear, studies to be pursued, evils to be fought, and virtues to be acquired. Overweening ambition will have to be restrained, injustices will have to be righted, and charity practiced.

Why then do we speak of a new civilization? Because the men who will build this new civilization and live in it will be men free from the perpetual anxiety about tomorrow's bread, just as long as mother nature brings forth enough wheat to supply bread to everyone; and so too for the other material necessities of life.

Today, grain elevators are full to the point of cracking open; farmers lament the ever-increasing surpluses of wheat. Yet for all this, there are many who go hungry. Under a Social Credit system, such a situation would be impossible. The supply of bread would be determined by the supply of wheat, and not by money. There would be money equivalent to the supply of wheat necessary to make bread; that is to say, there would be both wheat to make bread and money with which to buy bread. And the same would be true for all the other goods and services available to meet necessities and wants.

The right of all to material goods

Our present civilization certainly abounds in material and cultural riches. And religion offers its spiritual wealth in abundance.

Yet our civilization is a civilization of men in bonds, of men subjected to conditions which more often than not make it difficult or impossible for them to share in these material and cultural treasures. Even the pursuit of the spiritual is hampered because a man absorbed in the battle for material necessities does not live in a climate favourable to the contemplation and acquisition of virtue.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian, pointed out the necessity of a certain amount of material goods for the practice of virtue. Which is not to say that the mere possession of wealth in itself renders a man virtuous. He must still work at the practice of virtue. However, the lack of this prerequisite, the want of the necessary material conditions, creates an obstacle, and it is the duty of the economic and social order to remove this obstacle.

The same holds true for culture. Earning a livelihood should not so occupy a man that he has no time for other human activities which are more important. But this invariably happens when a man is hemmed in by anxiety for tomorrow's food.

Absolute economic security

We admit, then, that Douglas is right when he says that, in his mind, the first condition necessary for the foundation of a new and better civilization is “absolute economic security”.

“Absolute” — that is, without conditions. In other words, the guarantee of one's daily bread by the mere fact of one having been born into a world capable of furnishing, quite easily, daily bread to all.

Relatively few people enjoy such absolute security today. Even among those who possess the means of making a living for their families, the majority are never sure that they will have these means tomorrow or in ten or twenty years time.

Yet, if our socio-economic system were well ordered, if the acquisition of the goods and products of nature depended only upon the existence in sufficient quantities of such goods, then everyone in Canada, as well as in many other countries, would be able to enjoy absolute economic security.

But when getting hold of goods depends upon financial conditions which are not in accord with the fact of the existence of these goods on the one hand, and of the existence of needs on the other, then absolute economic security is impossible. Security then depends upon fluctuating conditions over which the individual has no control; and any security then degenerates into insecurity.

In physical reality, we have a basis for security; but our financial system is the root of insecurity. And since finance is given priority over reality, it follows that insecurity prevails over security.

Hence the statement of Douglas, that the emergence of a new civilization presupposes the application of certain measures, especially in the field of finance. And this is the specific aim of Social Credit's financial propositions which Douglas himself formulated.

What will result?

— But what effects would this absolute economic security have upon individuals?

— What effects would it have upon you personally?

Let us suppose that a sum of money, capital, were invested in your name. Let it be that you cannot withdraw the capital thus invested, but that it brings you an annual revenue to the end of your days, sufficient to permit you to live decently and comfortably. This would be for you absolute economic security. Now, in what way would it affect your life?

One thing is sure: you would immediately lose any uncertainty about being able to provide for your needs. Would you continue to work for a salary? You might, if you liked the work and if the extra revenue permitted you to live a larger and fuller life. Perhaps you would choose to leave this occupation in search for another which, though less lucrative, would be more to your taste (for you now no longer live in the shadow of want). Perhaps you might choose to work for yourself, profitably or otherwise, making your own free choice of your occupation.

You yourself would choose what you wanted to do since you are now, financially, a free man. Your neighbour too would enjoy this privilege, were he to benefit from absolute economic security. And so too would all citizens when, according to Social Credit principles, all were endowed with this same absolute economic security.

It also becomes apparent at once that certain inevitable changes would take place spontaneously.

Since purchasing power would lie, for the most part, in the pockets of the consumers, it would be they who would dictate to production what to produce. The economy would become an economy of the consumer and, in so doing, would regain its true function and end.

Again, the relations between employer and employee would automatically take on a new aspect. There would no longer be any question of unions of workers and syndicates of employers to fight one another. Men, once assured of their daily bread, would no longer have to submit to the imposition of conditions disagreeable or intolerable. The various groupings of those engaged in production would almost surely take new forms with the “hired help” assuming the role of true associates in production.

When men are set free by this economic security, the many pompous dictators will no longer have the power to make them kneel and grovel. Which is perhaps why those who aspire to lord over others are so violently opposed to Social Credit.

The fear of abuse

— But will there not be those who will abuse this new liberty?

Would you yourself abuse it? If you had the chance to acquire this liberty, would you prefer to have it withdrawn for fear you might abuse it?

But let us admit for argument's sake that some might misuse it. Is this a good reason for holding on to an economy of slavery, an economy whose theme is anxiety for the future, when economic security is possible for all?

Pope Pius XI noted that a certain degree of ease and culture does not hinder but rather facilitates the exercise of virtue, providing one makes wise use of such material benefits. He knows very well that some will misuse them. But nevertheless, he claims them for each and everyone as conditions of an economic and social system well and truly constituted. (Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.)

We stated above that, even under a system of absolute economic security, there would still be problems to be resolved. But they will no longer be problems of finance, but only such as relate to the functions of man other than economic. There will be educational, civic, medical, moral, and religious problems — as there are today. But are we afraid of them? Does anyone pretend that the influence of our existing financial system can replace or even aid to any degree the educator, the priest, or help morality and religion?

Why is it that a man should not be able to learn mastery of himself by some other means than that of the continual fear of not having enough to eat? And why should it be necessary for this spirit of fear for tomorrow to be perpetuated through the conniving of the money and credit masters, when our granaries are full to the point of bursting?

The present system is nothing but economic heresy — want in the presence of abundance. Social Credit would substitute for it a true orthodox economy, an economy of security for everyone justified by the evidence of concrete, physical facts.

Details

Written by: Dr GEOFFREY DOBBS

Category: May

Published: 24 July 2026

Hits: 0

It used to be said concerning economic affairs that events behaved as if they were in the pay of Douglas. That was during his lifetime; and now, after his death, the same might be said concerning political affairs. Looking through some back numbers of The Social Crediter I came across this sentence in a letter from Douglas published on October 15, 1947:

"There is nothing which will suit our common enemies better than the pursuit (by us) of the 'ignis fatuus' of Party Politics." The ignis fatuus — the will-o'-the-wisp which lures men to destruction in the bog — could any analogy be more apt?

And now, eleyen years after the Alberta S. C. League Convention of 1947 turned its back on Douglas — and adopted the slogan: 'On to Ottawa' there remains not a single Social Credit member of the Canadian Parliament, or, indeed, of any other Parliament in the world. In New Zealand also a tremendous effort has been devoted to Party Politics, and in two successive elections falling proportion of votes, and not one single seat has been won. Even in Great Britain, some energetic. Social Crediters are pursuing this will-o'-the-wisp without the faintest prospect of success. So far as I can see, among the politically active movements for Social Credit, only the Union of Electors has not turned its back on Douglas to follow this will-o'-the-wisp into the bog of wasted energy and failure. The attempt to defeat the Enemy at his own game, to attain centralized Power through the mechanism of Party Politics, has failed utterly, and permanently.

This is not the time for recriminations, but for sympathy, for humility, and for a re-birth and rethinking of Social Credit, starting with a return to the steady light which Douglas shed, and to the firm ground which it has illuminated.

The Social Credit movement arose in the first place out of the tremendous outburst of interest, enthusiams, thought, discussion and controversy which centred about Dougla's economic analysis and proposals, at a time when the world was being put to financial torture and was obsessed with its economic agony. This original impulse has largely died down, not because the economic problems have been solved, but because the financial torture has been somewhat alleviated by the drug of inflation, and the financial aspect of our troubles has been cleverly overlaid with politics, beginning with a second World War, and proceeding to the establishment in different countries of various forms of the Managerial State, so that nowadays people see their difficulties in political rather than in economic terms.

What so few people, however, even Social Crediters, seem to realize is that Douglas was well aware of this change of emphasis, and in his later years gave  us a second, political, analysis and proposals, every whit as deserving as was the first of study, thought, discussion, enthusiasm and action.

Just as Douglas alone has made proposals which would give integrity to the financial system, so he alone has made others which would give integrity to the political system through the restoration of responsibility to the elector. The "Responsible Vote" is a conception as vital to the survival of any real democracy in the face of the Communist and the other forms of Monopolistic threat, as is the National Dividend; indeed, at the present time it is more urgent; it takes priority. Communism possesses the integrity of a policy carried to its logical extreme; it has the power as well as the weakness of insanity. We cannot hope to prevail against it with mere pretence and propaganda, but only by a still greater integrity applied to a sane and realistic policy. Social Crediters have a heavy responsibility to the rest of the World because they alone at present are the possessors and guardians of a means of political and economic salvation. With this brilliant new political doctrine of Douglas still barely launched upon the world, it is pitiful to read in the press that the "Social Credit" of Western Canada is now scarcely distinguishable from Conservatism, that the "Welfare" proposals of the New Zealand S. C. League are scarcely distinguishable (if one is not interested in finance) from those of the Labour Party, even that the word 'Douglasite' is used by some of these people as a term of opprobrium. Such an attitude earns only the contempt even of the indifferent elector.

After the death of a great man there is usually a period of disillusion, of disunity, and of mutual distrust among his followers; but Douglas has now been dead over five years, and it is time that we arose from the ashes of our mourning and of our false hopes, and took up again the enormous and thrilling adventure into which he leads us.

(Bangor, Great Britain, April 25, 1958)