[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
inescapable. A system of Society which depends for its structure on the theory of material
rewards and punishments, seems to involve, fundamentally, a general condition of
scarcity and discontent. You cannot reward an individual with something of which he has
already sufficient for his needs and desires, nor can you easily find a punishment which
will be effective in a world in which there is no incentive to crime. We might legitimately
expect, in such a Society, a mechanism which would ensure a continual, and, if rendered
necessary by the advancement of science, an artificial disparity between demand and
supply of material goods and services, together with an organisation which would prevent
any infringement of the rules by which this disparity is maintained.
We do, in fact, find exactly such a state of (78) affairs in the world to-day. The exact
methods by which the financial organisation produces the illusion of scarcity will demand
our attention almost at once, and at some length; the organisation by which these
arrangements are enforced is, of course, familiar in the form of the Common Law.
It is astonishing to what an extent the co-operation between Finance and Law extends
without attracting any considerable body of specific comment. What is called Civil Law
is concerned almost wholly with matters which can be referred ultimately to the Money
System. That is obvious. But it is not less true to say that an overwhelming majority of
so-called criminal cases can be traced, either directly or indirectly, to a financial
incentive. Even crimes of passion take their origin, in the majority of cases, from
physiological or psychological reactions which can be traced back to economic or
financial causes. The world is full of organisations for the suppression of such social evils
as inebriety and prostitution. The financial origin of the latter hardly needs emphasis, but
it is not so generally recognised that habitual industrial overstrain, long hours, and
insanitary conditions of work, and the excessive indulgence in alcoholic or other artificial
stimulation, are (79) almost invariably found in one and the same geographical locality.
And in nearly every case, attention is directed to the suppression of the symptom, rather
than to the removal of the cause, with the result that the partial suppression of one evil is
only achieved at the cost of producing a fresh and probably more insidious disease.
It has already been, it is hoped, made clear that the gap between Demand and Supply has
nothing to do with the ability of the production and industrial system to meet the calls
which are made on it; it has to do with the organisation which stands in between Demand
and Supply, that is to say, the Financial or Ticket System. In other words, the persons
who want and cannot do without the goods which the productive and industrial system
can, and is anxious to supply, have not in their possession the tickets, the possession of
which is essential before these goods, under present conditions, can be handed over.
Now this condition has not entirely escaped attention, but most, if not all, of the attention
which has been directed to it is, I think, stultified by accepting as true, premises which
proceed from the very system which is attacked. There is, of course, the crude idea on
which, (80) originally, most of the orthodox Labour-Socialist propaganda was based.
Observing the condition we have just outlined, the simple suggestion was put forward
that the majority of the population were so poor, because a minority were so rich. This
simple explanation died hard, even if it can be said to be dead. It survived a number of
statistical investigations, mostly with the intent of showing that we do not work hard
enough, of which perhaps the latest and most complete have proceeded from the London
School of Economics, an institution which combines the curious qualities of being the
fount of financial orthodoxy, staffed by the flower of Socialistic personnel, chiefly
chosen and paid by bankers and financiers. Professor Bowley, who was, if I am not
mistaken, connected with this institution, in a treatise on the Distribution of the National
Income, referring to a period immediately preceding the first world war, estimated that
the total British income in excess of £160 per family per annum, was only £250,000,000.
Taking the population of Great Britain as forty-five millions, and the average number of
persons per family as about 4.5, which is a usual assumption, it is clear that an
"equitable" division of this income would result in an increase of the average family
income by (81) £25 per annum, which can hardly be said to be a promising basis for a
sweeping reform by taxation. As in addition, such a distribution would, under present
conditions, make the possession of such articles as motor-cars impossible to any private
owner, and so would completely inhibit their production, and the wages, salaries and
dividends distributed in respect of that production, it must surely be obvious that an
explanation more complex than this must be looked for. The point we have to make is not
merely that financial purchasing power is unsatisfactorily distributed, it is that, in its
visible forms, it is collectively insufficient.
One stage in advance towards this end is the theory generally associated with the name of
Mr. J. A. Hobson, who attributes the general lack of purchasing-power (the fact of which
he most properly emphasises), to the undue investment,of savings, on the part of the more
fortunate members of Society, in what are termed capital undertakings, with the result
that production of capital goods is in excess of the amount required. That such
unbalanced production does take place, is unquestionable; but that Mr. Hobson's
explanation is inadequate to explain the process which accompanies and complicates this
unbalancing, is, I think, not (82) less certain. Nor does this theory account for the
collective growth of bank deposits.
Both of these explanations really proceed from a misconception of what actually takes
place in the financial and costing departments of industrial organisations, and a further
failure to grasp the possible relation which can exist between the abstraction of money
and the concrete physical realities to which it relates. There is every justification for these
misconceptions; they are strictly orthodox in the sense of being the general teaching of
the majority of those persons who claim to be experts on the matter; and it is necessary
that they should be stated in order that the invalidity of them may be exposed.
This orthodox theory, then, assumes that the money, equivalent to the price of every
article which is produced, is in the pocket, or the bank pigeon-hole of somebody in the
world. In other words it assumes that the collective sum of the wages, salaries and
dividends distributed in respect of the articles for sale at any given moment, which
represent collective price, are available as purchasing-power at one and the same
moment. Certain persons have more money in their pockets or bank pigeon-holes than
they wish to spend on consumable goods. They do not spend it, they save it, as (83) the
phrase goes. By this abstinence from spending, they form a fund which enables capital
goods, i.e. tools, plant, factories, to be paid for, and therefore produced, and because of
the process by which these are paid for the capital goods thus produced become the
property of those persons who have thus saved.
Now the first point to be grasped in regard to this argument as a whole is that, even
supposing at any given moment it were true, one week afterwards it could no longer be
true. If on a given day, there was extant in the world, sufficient money to buy all the
goods in the world at the prices it had cost to produce those goods, and any portion of
that money were applied to form the payment for the production of new goods, then that
money so applied forms the costs of the new goods, and immediately there is a disparity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
inescapable. A system of Society which depends for its structure on the theory of material
rewards and punishments, seems to involve, fundamentally, a general condition of
scarcity and discontent. You cannot reward an individual with something of which he has
already sufficient for his needs and desires, nor can you easily find a punishment which
will be effective in a world in which there is no incentive to crime. We might legitimately
expect, in such a Society, a mechanism which would ensure a continual, and, if rendered
necessary by the advancement of science, an artificial disparity between demand and
supply of material goods and services, together with an organisation which would prevent
any infringement of the rules by which this disparity is maintained.
We do, in fact, find exactly such a state of (78) affairs in the world to-day. The exact
methods by which the financial organisation produces the illusion of scarcity will demand
our attention almost at once, and at some length; the organisation by which these
arrangements are enforced is, of course, familiar in the form of the Common Law.
It is astonishing to what an extent the co-operation between Finance and Law extends
without attracting any considerable body of specific comment. What is called Civil Law
is concerned almost wholly with matters which can be referred ultimately to the Money
System. That is obvious. But it is not less true to say that an overwhelming majority of
so-called criminal cases can be traced, either directly or indirectly, to a financial
incentive. Even crimes of passion take their origin, in the majority of cases, from
physiological or psychological reactions which can be traced back to economic or
financial causes. The world is full of organisations for the suppression of such social evils
as inebriety and prostitution. The financial origin of the latter hardly needs emphasis, but
it is not so generally recognised that habitual industrial overstrain, long hours, and
insanitary conditions of work, and the excessive indulgence in alcoholic or other artificial
stimulation, are (79) almost invariably found in one and the same geographical locality.
And in nearly every case, attention is directed to the suppression of the symptom, rather
than to the removal of the cause, with the result that the partial suppression of one evil is
only achieved at the cost of producing a fresh and probably more insidious disease.
It has already been, it is hoped, made clear that the gap between Demand and Supply has
nothing to do with the ability of the production and industrial system to meet the calls
which are made on it; it has to do with the organisation which stands in between Demand
and Supply, that is to say, the Financial or Ticket System. In other words, the persons
who want and cannot do without the goods which the productive and industrial system
can, and is anxious to supply, have not in their possession the tickets, the possession of
which is essential before these goods, under present conditions, can be handed over.
Now this condition has not entirely escaped attention, but most, if not all, of the attention
which has been directed to it is, I think, stultified by accepting as true, premises which
proceed from the very system which is attacked. There is, of course, the crude idea on
which, (80) originally, most of the orthodox Labour-Socialist propaganda was based.
Observing the condition we have just outlined, the simple suggestion was put forward
that the majority of the population were so poor, because a minority were so rich. This
simple explanation died hard, even if it can be said to be dead. It survived a number of
statistical investigations, mostly with the intent of showing that we do not work hard
enough, of which perhaps the latest and most complete have proceeded from the London
School of Economics, an institution which combines the curious qualities of being the
fount of financial orthodoxy, staffed by the flower of Socialistic personnel, chiefly
chosen and paid by bankers and financiers. Professor Bowley, who was, if I am not
mistaken, connected with this institution, in a treatise on the Distribution of the National
Income, referring to a period immediately preceding the first world war, estimated that
the total British income in excess of £160 per family per annum, was only £250,000,000.
Taking the population of Great Britain as forty-five millions, and the average number of
persons per family as about 4.5, which is a usual assumption, it is clear that an
"equitable" division of this income would result in an increase of the average family
income by (81) £25 per annum, which can hardly be said to be a promising basis for a
sweeping reform by taxation. As in addition, such a distribution would, under present
conditions, make the possession of such articles as motor-cars impossible to any private
owner, and so would completely inhibit their production, and the wages, salaries and
dividends distributed in respect of that production, it must surely be obvious that an
explanation more complex than this must be looked for. The point we have to make is not
merely that financial purchasing power is unsatisfactorily distributed, it is that, in its
visible forms, it is collectively insufficient.
One stage in advance towards this end is the theory generally associated with the name of
Mr. J. A. Hobson, who attributes the general lack of purchasing-power (the fact of which
he most properly emphasises), to the undue investment,of savings, on the part of the more
fortunate members of Society, in what are termed capital undertakings, with the result
that production of capital goods is in excess of the amount required. That such
unbalanced production does take place, is unquestionable; but that Mr. Hobson's
explanation is inadequate to explain the process which accompanies and complicates this
unbalancing, is, I think, not (82) less certain. Nor does this theory account for the
collective growth of bank deposits.
Both of these explanations really proceed from a misconception of what actually takes
place in the financial and costing departments of industrial organisations, and a further
failure to grasp the possible relation which can exist between the abstraction of money
and the concrete physical realities to which it relates. There is every justification for these
misconceptions; they are strictly orthodox in the sense of being the general teaching of
the majority of those persons who claim to be experts on the matter; and it is necessary
that they should be stated in order that the invalidity of them may be exposed.
This orthodox theory, then, assumes that the money, equivalent to the price of every
article which is produced, is in the pocket, or the bank pigeon-hole of somebody in the
world. In other words it assumes that the collective sum of the wages, salaries and
dividends distributed in respect of the articles for sale at any given moment, which
represent collective price, are available as purchasing-power at one and the same
moment. Certain persons have more money in their pockets or bank pigeon-holes than
they wish to spend on consumable goods. They do not spend it, they save it, as (83) the
phrase goes. By this abstinence from spending, they form a fund which enables capital
goods, i.e. tools, plant, factories, to be paid for, and therefore produced, and because of
the process by which these are paid for the capital goods thus produced become the
property of those persons who have thus saved.
Now the first point to be grasped in regard to this argument as a whole is that, even
supposing at any given moment it were true, one week afterwards it could no longer be
true. If on a given day, there was extant in the world, sufficient money to buy all the
goods in the world at the prices it had cost to produce those goods, and any portion of
that money were applied to form the payment for the production of new goods, then that
money so applied forms the costs of the new goods, and immediately there is a disparity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]