(The first part of a talk given by Louis Even on Radio-Canada on January 19, 1945.)

The dividend, a means to an end

It would be a very narrow idea of Social Credit to consider it merely as a monetary reform. The scope of Social Credit is much more vast. It is a whole philosophy — the very philosophy of association — that Social Credit wants to be fully respected in politics and economics.

Too many people believe that they have said everything about Social Credit by calling it, disdainfully, an impossible promise of $25 a month ($800 a month in 2004) to each of the country's citizens.

Paying a monthly dividend of $800 to each citizen is a highly reachable objective, if you consider the country's products, but a very unreachable objective, if you must obtain permission first from the diabolical heads who regulate and set conditions at will on the volume and circulation of money in the country.

The periodical and free dividend to each member of society is part of one of the proposals of Social Credit, because, in today's world, with production mainly resulting from the subdivision of labour and the ever-growing contributions of applied science, there is no other means than the dividend to realize the philosophy of Social Credit in economics.

The association for the associates

What is the philosophy of Social Credit? Has Social Credit got a philosophy?

Social Credit proclaims a philosophy which had existed as long as men have lived in society, but which is terribly ignored in practice — more than ever in this day and age.

This philosophy, as old as society itself — therefore as old as the human race — is the philosophy of association.

These are high-flown words: philosophy of association. Nevertheless it is the one concept that is in the minds of all men who group, band together, for a definite objective.

Here are ten farmers from the same country road who join together to transport their milk to the dairy. Why do they join together? Because they are all convinced that, in this way, each one will get more advantages than if each one had to see to his own affairs separately. None of them loses out, and it is in the interest of all to make the best use of their time and transportation facilities.

The motive which causes them to join together is the confidence that each one of them will draw an advantage from the association.

It is, moreover, this same principle which is at the base of co-operatives of all kinds.

What is true of the association of ten people, what is true of all associations, big or small, working-class or agricultural, sports or cultural, lay or religious, is just as true of the general society which we call the State, whether it be a Canadian province or the Confederation of the ten provinces.

The philosophy of association is therefore the joining together of all associates for the good of the associates, of each associate.

Society for all of its members

Social Credit is the philosophy of association applied to the general society, the province, the nation.

Society exists for the benefit of all the members of society, for each and every one. It would be an insult to a man if you told him:

“Sir, you are part of society; you cannot escape from it, because the matter does not concern a particular enterprise, but deals with social order. You will therefore obey all the laws, you will fulfill all of your obligations as a citizen, or society shall punish you. But do not expect anything from society. You could, without being at fault, find yourself without shelter, bread, protection: society would not give a darn about you: others will benefit from it, not you.”

To talk this way would obviously alienate a man from society, or provoke his revolt against the existing state of affairs.

Provocation to anarchy

Well, in our present social organization, although no one officially talks this way, a great number of citizens feel frustrated by being denied the advantages of society. And when the number of frustrated citizens is too great, or if the frustration lasts too long, these frustrated citizens often revolt against society. Their revolt is not without provocation.

You can write and expostulate as much as you wish against the Anarchists, the Communists, or the Socialists: But if society continues to be an organization in which a handful of people exploits the great number, if applied science and the progress of generations serves only to make outcasts, starving, or war-driven people, nothing, absolutely nothing will prevent the insurrection of the masses that one immolates.

You could imprison those who break windows to steal products. But it would be much wiser to begin to imprison those who have caused for decades the accumulation of products behind windows, under the masses' hungry eyes. The prisons would be less crowded, but better utilized.

However, there is a better solution than anarchy. Instead of revolting and levelling everything off, we can organize to impose a reform — a reform to make all members of society, all without exception, the real beneficiaries of the social organization. And that is precisely what the Social Credit Movement seeks to accomplish.

Social Credit, the opposite of monopolies

Social Credit is a doctrine which stipulates that society exists for the benefit of all of its citizens.

It is for this reason that Social Credit is, by definition, the opposite of any monopoly: the economic monopoly, the political monopoly, the prestige monopoly, the brutal-force monopoly.

Let us define Social Credit as a system of society at the service of each and every one of its members, in which politics is at the service of each and every one of the citizens, and economics is at the service of each and every one of the consumers.

Now let us define monopoly: the exploitation of the social organization at the service of a few privileged individuals, in which politics is at the service of clans called parties, and economics is at the service of a few financiers, of a few ambitious and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

A monopoly ignores the rights of the multitude that it exploits. Social Credit claims rights for the least and smallest of the citizens.

The habit of thinking about monopolies in terms of big industrial enterprises is too prevalent. An enterprise can be large, and yet can serve the mass of the consumers, without being a monopoly but a well-organized business that serves the population.

What constitutes the noxious character of a monopoly is not so much its size as its unhealthy and antisocial objective. Its fault is that it uses dishonest means to suppress competitors and to bribe governments, which results in the easy exploitation of society for the benefit of a few.

The monopoly of money is protected

Too often, those who condemn monopolies stop at specified industrial monopolies: the electric monopoly, the coal monopoly, the oil monopoly, the sugar monopoly, etc. They ignore the most pernicious of all monopolies in the field of economics: the monopoly of money and credit; the monopoly that changes a country's progress into public debts; the monopoly which, by controlling the volume of money, regulates the human beings' standard of living, without any relation to the realities of production and the needs of families.

The monopoly of party politics

Yet too often, one forgets that politics, which ought to see to the stabilization of economics, has itself become a monopoly. But because this monopoly is present in the form of political parties, and because party politics struts under the name of democracy, the people are taken-in. They think that political parties were made for them, whereas they were made to exploit them. The proof lies in the results.

Collusion

Let us point out, in passing, that political parties are very careful not to denounce the money monopoly; the other monopolies are criticized (it is in style to win votes), but of the money monopoly, not a word is said. Likewise, the money monopoly is very careful not to put up obstacles to party politics. The big economic monopoly and the big political monopoly seem to have passed a kind of gentlemen's agreement between themselves, a mutual accord to protect each other, at the people's expense.

We have read, in a private letter, signed by a former Premier of the Province of Quebec, the expression “the sacrosanct-monopolizing finance”. But this expression, this “sacrosanct-monopolizing finance,” did not often appear in the public acts of this Premier, while the province's credit during his term in office, as before and ever since, was graciously offered to this same sacrosanct-monopolizing finance.

One will understand that the Social Crediters fight simultaneously the money monopoly, because they want economics to be at the service of all consumers, and party politics, because they want politics to respond to the good of all citizens.