"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"
Edmund Burke
May 2003: Social Credit as a Moral ForceI have argued that if social credit is economically possible in a mini-nation, it should be economically possible in a municipality. Economically possible. Politically, of course, social credit is not possible anywhere at present. In addition, no country is sovereign in the true and full sense-least of all the United States-in a world in which states are proxies for their creditors. No country will be sovereign until one issues its Economic Declaration of Independence.The Credit of Alberta Regulation Act was passed in August/September 1937 and was finally disallowed by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 1938. John Hargrave pointed out that (1) Alberta could not be starved out (she could be self-sufficient in food and timber) and (2) Ottawa would not send in tanks. Why, then, did Alberta not refuse to abide by the Court's ruling and let the Act stand? Answer: the Manning/Aberhart government (Manning was premier in name for the first year) was carried to power in August 1935. There was a small window for decisive action. Two years earlier, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, and his First Hundred Days made history. Had the Manning/Aberhart government acted equally vigorously in its first hundred days, the results would have been greater than FDR's, would have been truly earth-shaking. Alberta would either have become the first social credit commonwealth or exposed the forces that stood in its way. It just wasn't the same twenty-four months later, and no one should have expected it would be. The concept "either achieve social credit or expose the forces that stand in its way" still seems to me the right and only method. It is the same method that Gandhi made famous in India under the name of Satyagraha, "truth-force." It puts one in a morally unassailable place. So if we can get a province, let's have Alberta all over again, only better this time. And if we can only get a city, let's have a city. Of course, a municipality can be starved out. Self-sufficiency is not a necessary condition for a social credit economy. It is a great advantage in a war, and this is a war; but it seems to me municipalities could make up for this lack by sheer multiplicity. They lack the advantage of self-sufficiency, but they have the advantage that they are very get-at-able and very numerous and could create the necessary institutions much more quickly than a province or nation. Self-sufficiency is not a necessary condition for a social credit economy, but what is necessary is to account separately for factors inside the municipality and factors outside it. I can't believe this is beyond human ingenuity. What we are doing at present does not put us in a morally unassailable place and does not expose the forces that stand in our way. It is like Captain McWhirr in the Conrad story "Typhoon," who will none of the art of storm-dodging: Suppose I went swinging off my course and came in two days late, and they asked me: "Where have you been all that time, Captain?" What could I say to that? "Went around to dodge the bad weather," I would say. "It must've been dam' bad," they would say. "Don't know," I would have to say; "I've dodged clear of it." Just so, we do nothing. And when people ask why
we do nothing, we say that great forces stand in our way. "Must be
awfully big," they say. "Don't know," we have to answer
if we are honest. "Steered clear of 'em." |