Money versus Man

A Statement of the World Problem from the Standpoint of the New Economics. (Contains criticism of Maj. C.H. Douglas's Social Credit new money theory). "The century that has come and gone has witnessed a practically complete reversal in the nature of the monetary system in this country, from a public system with money issued by the supreme authority of the realm to make possible the distribution and exchange of wealth, to a private system with money, or its complete equivalent, issued by private people and created by them to lend at interest." --p19 "To-day over 97% of the total money owned by the individuals of the nation is privately issued, and by far the larger part of it has no tangible existence whatever. It represents a debt of goods owed to the individuals who own it, by the nation, enforceable by the law, which has, without the sanction of any national authority, been quietly added to the burdens of the nation by methods that resemble the tricks of the conjuror." --pp19-20 "The existing plutocracy, or aristocracy of creditors, can only be a transitional stage between the old and the new. It is far less securely established than the old landed aristocracy, which it so ruthlessly displaced. For the world cannot permanently be kept in poverty by financial restriction of production in peace time, and allowed only fully to produce for destruction in war. The party economics, whether of Capital or Labour, will have to give way to a national and international economics that does not end by defeating its own purpose. Alternatively, it would seem, the white race must destroy itself by internecine struggles on an ever increasing scale of destructiveness and hand on the civilisation they have inaugurated to whoever may then be left alive. It would seem unlikely, now that the principles and practice of science are so widely disseminated, that the world could ever wholly revert to an unscientific economy." --pp88-89