RE: [SOCIAL CREDIT] New beginings

[William B. Ryan]

Thanks Steve, and also to Jessop.

"Those Indian nations that managed to retain some land base are better off culturally, but I cannot see that they are better off economically."

Why do you think that is? Does the Gates book suggest an answer?



Bill






From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Social Credit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: [SOCIAL CREDIT] New beginings
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 09:49:04 -0500

Practical solutions?

I recommend Jeff Gates, Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street (Perseus Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-7382-032602).

As an American Indian, I would like to see your statement about access to land be true, but I think that's a feudal vision. Those Indian nations that managed to retain some land base are better off culturally, but I cannot see that they are better off economically.

Steve Russell




-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tue 1/21/2003 5:41 AM
To: Social Credit
Cc:
Subject: [SOCIAL CREDIT] New beginings
I'm sorry to interrupt the flow of discussion and to come in with a bit of a
jarring note. I am not an economist, but I am interested in the subject. I
see the rich getting richer, and the poor, poorer -- which leads me to
believe that there is gross injustice in the systems; and I also fail to see
how the complicated tax systems we have evolved can ever be the 'best
possible' because of all the loopholes, all the ways in which they are
manipulated, and the amazing number of individual earners who fall through
the tax net.

I had thought that the motivation for the Social Credit approach was to find
solutions that will redress the situation. So far the letters I have read are
purely academic in the full sense of the word, and also academic in the other
sense that they are not terribly relevant to the situation on the ground.

To this layman, the unchangeable realities are that:-

-- The love of money is at the root of all evil (not money, but the love of
money.)

-- The poor we will always have with us.

-- The dogs eat of the crumbs that drop from the master's table.

Some may recognise where the statements originated. History seems to have
proved that those are universal and perpetual truths. The task of the
benevolent thinkers and activists would then seem to be to find ways to
ensure that the poor have a fairer deal even if not a slice the size of the
money-hungry, and that the crumbs which fall from the table are of an
increasing size relative to the cost of putting food on the table and clothes
on the back. The one factor which we will never influence is the 'love of
money' and the capacity of some to drive that love to the maximum, even
beyond the point where their accumulated wealth is far above the level of
their capacity to spend it. So any solutions have to be worked out in that
context.

The fundamental tool in the hands of the wealth-accumulators is control over
the means of production; and the chief, or basic means of production is
access to land. The origin of all wealth is the harvest of the earth. If a
person, or a community of persons, can forrage, can plant and harvest, can
mine for minerals, can fish, and enjoy the results of their activity, they
are comparatively well-off. If all their labours first fill the coffers of
others, then they are comparatively worse-off, and they are at the mercy of
others. Secondary production in our highly urbanized world lives off the same
resources of land and sea, and the service industries thrive off both.

This then leads us to a consideration of the political systems in the world --
money determines the state even of Western Democracy and its party-systems.
The systems favour the rich. Their elected henchman and spokespersons occupy
the seats of government. It is inconceivable to postulate a group of
businessmen who will not ensure that all systems protect their investment,
their status, their power. In the boardrooms of the world, no CEO would
advocate policies which would increase the payment to the poor at the expense
of the 'bottom line.' He is there to ensure an increasing dividend for his
shareholders -- or else he will be replaced at the next review. The same
mentality elects the governments of the lands, and the State President or
Prime Minister must deliver.

Even 'popular revolutions' have never changed that, because the new holders of
power soon become 'money-hungry' when they start tasting the fruits of their
position. power, and status.

More funadamentally, the present situation is a development from Christian
Wetern Civilisation. Not that there is a fault with Christianity, or with
'civilization', but as in all other areas of life, the 'lovers of money' were
not slow in finding ways of using the systems for their own gain. If they can
make money out of manipulating the war-zones of the earth, they can make
money by manipulating even something as pure as the gospel of Christ who came
to 'set the captives free.' This manipulation is reflected in large measure
in the Church itself -- that powerhouse of Western Christian Civilisation --
in the many thousands of divisions, sects, parties, and denominations of
something which essentially is not 'of this world' but is intended to live as
a frame of mind in individuals who follow the way. Because the party-spirit
is accepeted as valid in the Church, the protagonists of Western Democracy
see it as valid for the State. The lay-citizens suffer the consequences while
the prelates, the directors of companies, the members of government houses,
laugh all the way to the bank.

I have proposed no solutions here, but I believe that the solutions lie in a
simplification of social systems, a focus on 'local community', an
empowerment of local communities (rural and urban), a decentralisation of
economic power, a just spread of taxation and employment of tax revenues.

All this requires a change of mind-set, but that can only come from a change
of heart. Within that limitation, the task is to find a politcal-economic
system that best ekes out the substance of life to the poor. That describes a
country-tocountry relationship equally with community-to-community,
person-to-person relationships. A new money-system won't do the job.

Please accept this as a layman's view of a very complex world-condition.

Jessop in Cape Town South Africa.
-------------------------------------------------


_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2
Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html
==^================================================================