WHAT IS SOCIAL CREDIT ABOUT?

In this age of plenty for all, SOCIAL CREDIT campaigns for optimum economic
security and political freedom for each individual. This means first an assured BASIC INCOME over and above earnings. It also means using the power of voters over their political representatives, local and national, to get the results people want. How can these aims be met?

THE BASIC INCOME
The production of goods and services is now so efficient that it can provide A
SUFFICIENCY FOR ALL. But because of the application of science and technology, even fewer people need to be employed in the process. So, in modern economies, increasing productivity exists side by side with “unemployment” and job insecurity, ie, ‘poverty amidst plenty’ in various forms.
The major factor in this situation is automation, machines of all kinds replacing
human labour in industry, commerce and agriculture. This follows from the
accumulated knowledge of generations of scientists, engineers and inventors. Its effect is to provide us with an abundance of goods and services, while simultaneously depriving more and more people of their incomes through unemployment and early retirement.
Contrary to orthodox economics which advocates ‘economic growth’ to provide
‘more jobs’, Social Credit recognises that ‘unemployment’ is not a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved’ by ‘making work’, but is the opportunity to develop a more leisured and harmonious society. Just as we have freely inherited the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven, Rembrandt and countless others in the arts, so we have freely inherited the benefits of science and technology. It is OUR COMMON CULTURAL HERTAGE, entitling each of us to an equal and fair share in it as our birthright in the form of a NATIONAL DIVIDEND. On this basis of our common cultural heritage, unemployment can be transmuted into more leisure with a BASIC INCOME FOR ALL.
Such dividends would be over and above earnings. To forestall any possibility of
inflation, the National Dividend to all individuals would be matched by a reduction in retail prices to the consumer through the mechanism of the JUST PRICE. This is best visualised as the reverse of VAT. As VAT increases prices, so the Just Price would reduce them, so eliminating inflation for good.
Financing the national Dividend and the Just Price necessitates reforming the present monetary system so that it accurately reflects the realities of modern economies, ie, abundance, not scarcity. Money is not Wealth but only its token, and tokens cost next to nothing to produce. So what is physically possible and socially desirable can certainly be made financially possible. The technicalities of doing so are fully explained in the available literature. A 700-volume Social Credit section is on public access at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.

GETTING RESULTS PEOPLE WANT
This reform needs a well-informed electorate to demand RESULTS which are clearly socially desirable and physically possible by applying pressure on their political representatives, local and national, under the sanction of dismissal if the results are not forthcoming. This envisages by-passing party politics by voters themselves taking the initiative to formulate their own policies.
Political parties represent particular interests and each manifesto reflects those
interests. Conflicting arguments such as privatisation v. nationalisation, or between more or less taxation only serve to divide electors on complex technicalities they are not professionally qualified to decide upon.
By contrast, provided the result demanded is shown to be physically possible, voters could unite on such a demand as ‘Basic Income as a Right’. All that is necessary is a few activists in each constituency to run a ‘Citizens Policy Association’ to formulate the results required, apply the pressure of informed opinion on their representatives, and avoid getting involved in the technicalities of achieving them, which are the responsibilities of politicians and their expert advisers.

SUMMARY
Social Credit campaigns for optimum economic and political freedom for each
individual by ensuring (a) consumer control over production – economic democracy; (b) voter control over policy – political democracy. Social Credit stands against the political party system, the existing financial system, and against all concentration of power over individuals, whether economic or political.
“A phrase such as ‘there is no money in the country with which to do such and such’ means absolutely nothing unless we are also saying ‘the goods and services required to do this thing do not exist and cannot be produced, therefore it is useless to create the money equivalent of them’. For instance, it is simply childish to say that a country has no money for social betterment or for any other purpose when it has the skill, the men and materials to create that betterment. The banks or the Treasury can create the money in five minutes, and are doing it every day..’ C. H. Douglas, founder of Social Credit in “Control and Distribution of Production” (2nd edn.) (1934)