The Washington times., 1934-04-04
True 7 To
" Type
Promise Of PLENTY,
in Douglas Plan,
for You and Me
BY GILBERT SELDES

Oy U4AOGNk i OGLDGS
r Z can't understand why the
Douglas scheme hasn't made
more headway. 1t is one Of the
simplest and most attractive
proposals for getting out Of
our present troubles and for
avoiding the same troubles in
the future; it requires no revo-
luton and brings up few moral
questions; it does not expro-
pirate the goods of any one
and although radical, it is
decidedly not Communist; even
the bankers, according to the
latest pamphlet I have seen,
will not be abolished, although
their functions will be returned
to a pre-boom level.
Best of all, the Douglas plan
assumes plenty. The pamphlet
I referred to places a choice
before us; between two creeds,
Of which the old economics is
the. science Of scarcity and
want and the new economics is
the science Of wealth and
plenty.
The two quotations on the
title page are noteworthy. The
first, for the eraS of scarcity, is
from Mayer AnSelm Roth
Schild; it is dated 1870; it is
almost too frank to be genuine:
'rPermit me to issue and control
the money Of a nation, and I
care not who makes the laws"
The second, for the new era
Of plenty, is from Woodrow
Wilson: "The vitality of Amer.
lea lies in the brains, the
energies, the factories, the
enterprise Of the people through
out the land. . in the richness
Of the fields. in the wealth
which they extract from nature
and originate for themselves
through the inventive genius
of all free American COM
munitieS."
You and I Get Money
In short, the Douglas plan is
q plan for controlling money
and credit. The new thing is
that it proposes to finance you
and me, as consumers, instead
of financing K and Y as pro-
ducerS.
Major C. H. Douglas, the
economist Of Social Credit,
bellies that ''Our incomes never
catch up with the prices Of the
goods we need and DESIRE"
That this is true, every manu-
facturer who still has some Of
his 1880 surplus on hand will
testify. Social Credit proposes
to close the gap between the
factories and our purses. By
doing so, it also proposes to
give economic security to every
one of us.
The essential thing in the
scheme, in practice, would be a
dividend, issued to every one
of us as shareholders in the
greatest corporation in the
world, the United States Of
America. With Government
control Of money and credit,
that dividend would correspond
to the real wealth Of the
country; it would not repre-
sent mere paper money because
it would be backed by our
actual wealth. And the dividend
would help to keep industry
functioning steadily.
b We've Got Everything
+ There are other points in the
Douglas method. (The PAM
phlet, From Debt to Prosper
ity," issued by the New Eco
nomics Group at SIS Fifth Ave-,
explains them all, simplyo
The basic thing is the profound
assurance that the United
States "has the materials, the
equipment, the power and the
skill to produce three times as
much as now. Only the lack
of money prevents it from do
ing so; a shortage of buying
power denying it the prosperity
and the dividends that it's re.
sources justify. How long will
the shareholders tolerate this
shortage, when there is every
reason to declare dividends and
achieve a prosperity never be-
fore experienced?"
I said at the beginning that
the slow growth of the Douglas
plan in the public mind sur.
prised me. I suppose the rea-
son for the delay is that it
is fundamentally a financial
scheme and you cannot get
normal people fanatical about
finance, as you can about the
gold standard or the rights Of
the proletariat.
I wouldn't know whether
there is anything seriously
wrong with the Douglas eco
nomics; but humanity speaking,
tho 1,,hola Tolan iS en0rm0IISlV