Catholic Journal Preaches Degrading Servitude
The winter issue of the Australian Catholic quarterly
"Twentieth Century" contains two articles on automation, both of which
preach gross materialism. If machines are going to do the work at present
performed by men, how will men obtain money to buy the goods necessary
for a living? The answer supplied by the "Twentieth Century" writers is
gravely wrong. They say very clearly that the matter will be overcome
by CREATING MORE JOBS. The two writers are F. J. Corley, S.J., an American,
and W. J. Byrt, "an Australian sociologist". Both are concerned with maintaining
the present materialist system, which, by its very nature, grows and grows,
irrespective of whether the growth is serving man. Both writers sacrifice
man to the economic system, they deny the basic Christian principle that
the economic system should serve man. They do not seem to see that it
is gravely wrong for the economic system to be made an end in itself.
W. J. Byrt's statements need no comment; they could well have been written
by Comrade Krushchev:
"The main difficulty as regards employment which
is likely to be caused by the rapid adoption of automation is that of
transferring labour from one industry to another. Problems of re-training
are involved and, if large-scale transfers were to take place, it would
seem that national training schemes are desirable. In addition, most of
us tend to be conservative and to resist attempts to make us change our
occupations. Transfers of labour should, then, be planned on a national
scale and with the co-operation of the trade unions . . . Unless any large-scale
transfers and retraining are adequately planned in collaboration with
the trade unions, and unless those likely to be affected are kept adequately
informed of developments, the resultant uncertainty is likely to result
in irrational antagonism..."
Father Corley, in his article, quotes (with
approval) the following un-Christian nonsense by American trade union
leader, Gearge Meany: "... The simple fact remains that to stay healthy
the national economy must keep growing. It must provide millions of additional
jobs each year as our population expands. It must do this even during
a period when the introduction of automatic labour-saving machinery tends,
at least temporarily, to cut down the number of employment opportunities
normally available ..." God's abundance means nothing, apparently. The
important thing is work, even if it means creating unnecessary work. Under
this system, approved by the two writers in "Twentieth Century", man has
no right to live unless he serves to expand the economy. |
Debt Produces Slavery
The New Times May 31, 1957.
The "dark" continent of Africa can teach one thing at least,
to the great land of Progress and the Dollar. That something is contained
in the African proverb: Debt produces Slavery.
By contrast to this fundamental
wisdom, the United States produces such geniuses as can build two million
dollar atomic-powered submarines and never lose a moment's sleep as
to who and whose great-grand-children will pay off the incurred debt.
We will fly to the moon in a matter of a few years, our scientists tells
us, but they don't tell us that the result of such suicidal spending
will necessitate planet Earth being a world of debt-slaves footing the
bill.
Isn't it truly a phenomenon of striking proportions that in this rapidly
churning time of great scientific and material progress man must still
work the same number of hours at his machines that he did before he
had them? One begins to ask what the purpose of his machines are; certainly
not to free him of drudgery, so that he could perhaps read a few books,
but perhaps only to raise his cost of living. His employment, it must
certainly be admitted, is an end in itself, and not the reason, which
induces him to enter into employment, i.e., his need for goods; if this
were not so then why isn't he allowed to enjoy the fruit of his labor,
instead of being kept artificially in debt?
Or as Douglas puts it: "This idea of thrift, like that of economy,
is an example of the perversion of an idea which has lost its original
application . . . The fact that there is no physical limitation to the
satisfaction of reasonable material requirements -that is, in fact,
there is no such thing in the modern world as a poor country in any
sense other than that of a scarcity of tickets to function satisfactorily
as purchasing-power-only serves to transfer this exhortation to the
thrifty, from goods, of which there is a surfeit, to money, of which
there is a scarcity. The situation is similar to that of a man provided
with every form of food and with coal, wood and matches with which to
cook it, but who is accustomed to cook his food upon a paraffin stove,
and is informed that there is only a pint of paraffin left, and that
in consequence the most rigid economy of food must now and in the future
be enforced. And the extraordinary part of it is that the world in general
as represented by the man, seems unwilling to try the effect of wood,
coal, or any other fuel than the metaphorical paraffin; or even, if
forced, to eat his food uncooked. It is hardly necessary to stress the
attractions of this situation to the paraffin merchants.
"Taking the situation as it is, and assuming an increasing capacity
to produce and deliver goods per unit of time as the consequence of
scientific progress, it is not difficult to see where obedience to this
parrot cry of economy must lead us. If it does, in fact, reduce or even
stabilize our consumption of the goods produced, and the hours of work
and the number of commercial workers remains the same, then, not only
is unemployment stabilized, but either a greater proportion of the production
of these workers must year by year be exported or in some way or other
more and more organisations must be built up and the problem complicated
at compound interest. Since, under these conditions, every country would
be an exporting country, and the exporting of goods to other planets
is not at present practicable, it is not difficult to forsee that complications
may arise,"(i.e., WAR. It seems there has really never been any
other kind of a large war, than a trade war.) "When in addition
we see the purchasing-power of 'savings' constantly filched by excessive
prices and predatory taxation, the adjuration to 'save more' seems to
underrate even meanest intelligence."
Or as the debt-manipulation scheme has been put by others: place the
hungry population on one side of a field, place their produce on the
other side of the field, then place a bank with vaults full of gold
bricks, upon which is based the money-tickets that are issued by the
bankers in the centre of the field. It is needless to say that the population
must produce precisely the amount of goods as will be exactly commensurate
with the amount of gold in the bank vault, no more or less, in order
to have a stabilized economy, provided that any increase in population
is exported to the moon. It will further be seen what will happen if
the bankers, acting perhaps on whim, as in 1929, decide not to issue
money for an indeterminate length of time: the goods will rot and the
people will starve until the bankers can decide how much they want to
increase the interest on their money.
And why is it so difficult to suggest that the above stranglehold could
simply be removed by basing the money NOT on something inorganically
not related to production and hoardable like gold, but on DEMAND (KREIA,
as Aristotle said) for goods?
Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate
the value thereof:
In Thomas Jefferson's letter to Crawford, 1816, . . . and if the national
bills issued, be bottomed (as is indispensable) on pledges of specific
taxes for their redemption within certain and moderate epochs, and be
of proper denomination for circulation, no interest on them would be
necessary or just, because they would answer to every one of the purposes
of the metallic money withdrawn and replaced by them", we find
the germ of Gesellite stamp-scrip which in no way would run counter
to the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, in which Congress shall have power
to coin money, regulate the value thereof".
A recent example of the Gesellite stamp-scrip
was given thusly: "when the legislature so deems useful to the
public good, to issue paper money subject to continuous redemption by
means of an adhesive stamp of suitable size and strong enough gum, to
be affixed monthly on the government's paper currency. Said stamp to
be one percent of the value of the means whereby all government expenditures
will cancel out in eight years and four months, leaving no public debt
at interest on posterity. This form of tax, i.e., the one percent monthly
stamp, can never fall on anyone who has not one hundred times the amount
of the tax in his pocket the moment it falls due. It eliminates wangles
of assessment and the cost of collection." Under such a set-up,
the value of the nation's money would depend on what it was spent on,
and as a result there would probably be less of a tendency to invest
in atomic weapons, than in something more constructive.
Recently an expert in the field of government
finance was asked:
"Why is it necessary for the U.S. to pay interest on money it borrows
from itself?" He faltered and said with a smile: "Oh, that's
high finance: who knows?"
It would seem that the eight billion dollars a year interest (that was
50 years ago!...ed) that Americans pay on their public debt for the
subsidy of the banking business would cause each individual concerned
to assure himself of his constitutional privilege by holding every member
of congress responsible for the legal and correct issuance of money.
The statement "All men have the right to be born free of debt"
recalls Benjamin Franklin's exhortation to congress not to let any bankers
in the government. If you do, he said, "your grandchildren will
curse you."
And certainly Christ's wrath at those who would make one of these little
ones stumble is directed at the immorality of a child inheriting the
millstone of debt-slavery.
- - Chester Naramor, of Streator, Illinois, U.S.A.
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