Book review: "A Better World for All"

"A Better World for All" -- great title for the Christmas season, even better as a resolution for the New Year. But how to achieve a better world for all? Is the power of prayer our only hope? NO! says Ron McPherson, the author of a new book (or booklet -- just 64 pages) bearing the aforementioned title.

A Better World for All is the "Reader's Digest version" of Mr. McPherson's first opus, Freedom's Dawning, reviewed by Walt way back in 2010. See "'Facilitism': a better answer?"

What Mr. McPherson articulates in these books is a modern version of the Utopian ideal propounded nearly five centuries ago by St. Thomas More. Mr. McPherson argues that his system, Facilitism, can deliver to us a world without poverty, with far less stress, free healthcare, free education and... wait for it... no taxes! It will be, he tells us, a healthier world, a friendlier world, a happier world.

Skeptical? Sure. But we've tried everything else -- capitalism, socialism, communism and every combination and variant of those "isms" -- and nothing has worked. But, you may say, isn't capitalism working? Even in one of the few remaining Communist countries, China, they're now practising "capitalism with Chinese characteristics". Whereas in the United States it's socialism with Democratic characteristics. How's that working out?

The root of the problem, Mr. McPherson argues -- indeed, the root of all evil -- is money! [Haven't we seen this movie before? Ed.] Yes, others have said that if there were only more money, everyone would be fat and happy. Major C.H. Douglas, the pioneer of the British "Social Credit" economic reform movement, proposed a "National Dividend" to distribute more money (in the form of debt-free credit) equally to all citizens, to help bridge the gap between purchasing power and prices. This would be coupled with a price adjustment mechanism, which he called the "Just Price", which would forestall any possibility of inflation.

Printing more money turned out to be the wrong answer. In 1936, the Social Credit government of the Canadian province of Alberta, printed "prosperity certificates" in an attempt to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. The federal government took umbrage, saying only it had the right to print (and thus create) money. Canada's Supreme Court agreed and that was that.

But printing money is not Mr. McPherson proposes in A Better World for All. Think about it. Who uses cash money nowadays? The world runs on credit, which is to say, bookkeeping entries made by the banks. The "dollars" created by the Fed, for instance, don't really exist in the form of cash. Can you imagine how many dollar bills it would take to stand for the trillions of dollars in the USA's national debt?

Nor are US dollars back by anything. Once upon a time you could exchange a paper dollar for a silver dollar, or even a (very small) piece of gold. Not any more. It's all credit -- more accurately, debits and credits on bank computers all over the world.

So, Mr. McPherson asks, why don't we just do away with money? It's the kind of question that might provoke a certain amount of skepticism, not to say laughter, but the author thoughtfully provides a methodology for doing just that.

When I say "thoughtfully", I mean that literally. Facilitism is a system that Mr. McPherson has been thinking about and writing about for years. It deserves consideration. Walt recommends that you get A Better World for All -- click here to explore the Facilitism website -- and give it yours.

Bible Bill's brillliant idea to get the economy moving

Ed., who monitors WWW's stats, tells me there's been some interest in my review of James H. Gray's book, The Winter Years. And so there should be, as it appears we are headed for another depression. Perhaps it won't be of the same depth or duration as the Great Depression of the 30s, but even now people are crying, shouting [demonstrating, too. Ed.] for solutions. It's time to revisit some of the ideas that were tried 80 years ago.

In the penultimate [would that be the second-last? Ed.] chapter of The Winter Years, Gray tells the story of "Bible Bill" Aberhart, a hellfire-and-damnation prairie preacher who got politicized by the poverty and despair he saw around him, and ultimately became premier of the province of Alberta.

Mr. Aberhart was an early convert to the economic theories of Major C.H. Douglas, the British engineer who founded the Social Credit economic reform movement. The Social Credit solution to the depression was, at its simplest, to print more money. Putting more money in circulation, Aberhart said, would stimulate the economy and all would be well again.

Does any of this sound familiar? Check out Gray's summary of one of Aberhart's stump speeches:

Aberhart was at his best in resorting to allegory, and he heavily favoured such parables as the one about the counterfeit dollar bill.... It concerned a man who found a dollar bill on the street, and promptly spent it for groceries. The grocer bought some eggs from a farmer with it. The farmer paid the blacksmith, who spent it for a shirt.

Mr. Aberhart chased the dollar all over town, out into the country and back, over the next town, up to the city. Wherever it went, it got business going again to everybody's profit. Only when the banker discovered it was counterfeit was it retired from circulation.

If a single counterfeit dollar could accomplish so much, why would social Credit not be able to do infinitely more?

Now does it sound familiar? Compare Bible Bill's story with "How a government stimulus package works", contributed by Agent 6 on November 4th.

When Aberhart's Social Credit party swept the Alberta elections in 1935, he set about keeping his campaign promise to give every man, woman and child in Alberta $25 per month. (Obviously not your typical politician.) He had "prosperity certificates" in that amount printed, only to be told by the federal government that he couldn't do that, the creation of money being within their sole jurisdiction. And so the Bill's economic stimulus plan came to naught.

Imagine Bible Bill's surprise when, a mere seven years later, the Liberal federal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King (who loved his mother like anything) introduced what came to be known as "the baby bonus", a payment to Canadian mothers of a paltry $6 per month per child. If anyone can tell me the difference between Aberhart's "prosperity certificates" and the baby bonus -- other than $19 per head, I mean -- I'd like to hear their explanation.

So would Ron McPherson. He's the author of Freedom's Dawning, which propounds the theory he calls "Facilitism". In a very small nutshell, Mr. McPherson says that credit and debt are merely bookkeeping entries. (Hardly surprising, given that he's an accountant by profession.) Thus wealth can be created by the stroke of a pen. Joe Average only has $10 in the bank? Let the government add three zeros and he's got $10,000, which should take care of the mortgage for this year.

Of course I'm oversimplifying [hardly surprising. Ed.] and there would be enormous "collateral damage" (forgive the pun) were this idea to be implemented. But who would bear the brunt? The banks and mortgage companies -- the same friendly folks who opposed Social Credit and took Joe Average's farm or home when he couldn't pay interest.

Those would be the same banks and financial houses which make obscene profits of billions of dollars a year, pay millions in salaries and bonuses to their fat cat directors, and give us a mere 1/2 of 1% on our savings, yet charge us almost 20% on our credit cards.

If I owe the bank money, the manager enquires about my health every time I come in the door. "By the way, Mr. Whiteman, do you have insurance?" Otherwise, he couldn't care less about me. Why should I care about him? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.