MeulenBth section two
Volume II of this correspondence, 208 pages, letters of B to M, 5, 8. 1949 - 5. 3. 1950
5.8.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
if there would be a historian among the people who now govern England, he would direct the attention of his countrymen to the fact, that the present situation of the Allies is the same as the situation of Napoleon in Germany was in the year 1811.
(Winston Churchill was, among other things, also a historian. Moreover, at least at one stage he was said to have possessed an almost photographic memory. Neither helped him from committing numerous misjudgements. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
His power was without limit but the oppressions by his generals, governors etc. were so great, that many Germans said: A new war against Napoleon, one with the aid of Russia, is the only thing which may help us. Thus, by organisations like the "Tugendbund" and others, the new war was prepared. The supposition of this consideration was, that Alexander I was a liberal man, humane and righteous.
Once Stalin is dead and his successors treat the Germans better than they are now treated by the Russians (Soviets! - J.Z.) (not probable but by not impossible, either), then the war begins anew at the first fit occasion. It begins anew, inevitably, if by accident or by the physical properties of the atomic bombs, stored in Nevada, Canada, etc., these bombs explode by spontaneous ignition. No thing in the world remain unaltered by time. Bombs of any kind explode one day or they lose their explosive force.
I do not pretend that such a development would be best for Germany, but people seldom act so as their own best interest would demand.
The dismantling ("Demontagen" of German industrial plants, which was still much worse in the Eastern zone, where it happened repeatedly, even after the workers had reconstructed their machines!) produce today the same, effect as the treatment by Napoleon I, his Continental System and his tax-impositions produced in the years before 1813. But there is, today, no historian of any influence among the English leaders.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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7.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
in the whole economic world prevailed and prevails the false opinion that a note is a loan granted by the note-bearer to the bank, and that note-issuing is the right to raise loans from the public. This false opinion caused the prescriptions on redeeming the notes on demand, the limitation of the issued mount to - - say - - the threefold of the bank's own capital and, at last, to the note-monopoly. It seemed too dangerous to entrust, to a private enterprise, such a privilege as to raise loans from everybody and this without the expressed consent of those who grant the loan.
The true nature of a note is that of a clearing certificate. From that very nature follows, that the greatest amount of notes does not require a redemption fund. Further, it follows that there must always be a creditor who is obliged to accept the notes at par in his usual business. ("Rückstrom" ["reflux"- J.Z.] - principle.)
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
Please turn.
A clearing cannot be prevented by distrust nor can it be fostered by trust. Any arising distrust accelerates the performance of clearing; that's all.
As long as legislation has not yet provided the proper laws and procedures for clearing, the latter must be pressed into the imperfect forms of credit. It may be compared with insurance, which, for centuries, could only be performed in this way: The things to be insured were sold, to the company which granted insurance. At the same time, the company sold the same things to the insured, in case the things were not destroyed during the time of the insurance. The price for the latter selling was lower than the price of the sale to the insurance company, and the difference was the premium. Some centuries after the invention of that system, it was discovered that insurance is a transaction sui generis and now it gets its own legislation.
(J.Z.: Containing many imposed wrongful rules, on organisation form, supervision, securities, interest rates, investments, entitlements, currency to be used, gold clause prohibitions, taxation, membership and also ever changing ones, thus artificially providing a great degree of insecurity in this sphere as well! - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
So the clearing centre must, at the present state of legislation, lend the clearing certificates (notes) to employers and other people.
The clearing certificates (notes) are on demand "realized" by the bearer. A real credit instrument is not realised on demand.
Bth.
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8.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
the "Courrier de France", of 4.8.49, quotes from Saint Exupéry's "Terre des Hommes":
"J' borde la Tripolitaine. Et le sable se dore. Dieu, que cette planète est donc déserte! Quelle part de roc et de sable. La terre est vide. Il n'est plus d'hommes quand on l'observe à des kilomètres de distance."
Saint Exupéry is an old aviator and became a great writer deserving the title of a philosopher, judging by the quotations brought by the "Courrier de France".
That the world is the contrary of overpopulated is the impression of many travellers and I think that this impression is - - beside the statistics - - of much value.
Saint Exupéry saw North Africa and South America. We know that both countries, in old times, had a population comparable in density to France or India. We know today that the Incas were already in a state of degeneration, predecessors displaying a degree of culture and, in consequence, of population density as today in the best cultivated parts of Peru.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 9.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
in the April-issue of "The Individualist", page 12, article "Population", you say: "Scientific improvements have hitherto been mainly in the direction of saving labour: They have not increased the production per acre".
By and large you are - - I think - - in the right. Since 1800 the production per acre has about trebled, in England, Germany and Belgium, but the population has more than trebled. Also, in England the grain producing area seems to have diminished. But, as it was, since 1800 the trouble of agriculture to sell its products, and not the problem to produce more food to offer to the population, it was quite natural that the progress was, first of all, in saving labour and secondly in saving seed, lastly only in increasing the yield. What agriculture wants - - at the present state - - is gain, not yield.
Concerning China, Davies, in his celebrated work about China (I learnt this from Roscher) says, that Chinese are very dextrous in tilling the ground, but are the contrary when it comes to cultivate new land. So the heights - - in general - - are still uncultivated. Also, there are still many swamps in the country, which are not transformed into arable soil. From later reports and tales of personal acquaintances, I got the impression that still nothing changed. even now. The lack of capital may be one of the reasons, also a standard of value, as it was in the last decades, does
not invite creditors to grant long-term loans.
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The main difference between Malthusianism and Anti-Malthusianism seems to be: The latter point to the difficulties which agriculture has to sell its produce and only secondly to the social and political difficulties to produce (in China, civil war, external war, robbers, inflation).
Malthusians say: There are difficulties in producing and that all other difficulties are so trifling, that they can be neglected - - as far as the fundamental principle of Malthusianism is concerned.
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Atomic scientists assert: It would be possible, with relatively small expenses to destroy all of the polar ice around the North Pole. Once destroyed, it will not develop again, at least not in some centuries. The newly won land could - - probably - - be cultivated. (J.Z.: Only at the South Pole could land be gained thus. The radioactive pollution aspect should not be ignored, either. Moreover, how much low land would be flooded as a result? - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
(Maybe, sceptics will remark that the countries at the equator will then become deserts and the countries in our zone so hot as is now Arabia, so that, in balance, nothing is won. Maybe!)
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Meat production, in the greatest part of Africa, is merely a question of the Tse-Tse fly. (Greatest? - J.Z.)
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
turn - over
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(On the back page B. wrote the following. - J.Z.):
Let me reproduce here, from the German Statistical Yearbook for 1937 the following numbers:
Yield of Wheat per Hectare in "Doppelzentners".
(1 hectare = 2,471 acres.
1 Doppelzentner = 100 Kilograms = 0.11 short tons = 220.46 pounds.)
Average figures
Country 1936 1935 1930/34
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Great Britain &
Northern Ireland 20.6 23.4 22.6
Germany 21.2 22.2 21.6
Belgium 26.6 25.5 25.7
Denmark 26.0 31.6 28.8
France 13.4 14.5 15.5
Ireland 20.7 27.5 27.2
Italy 11.9 15.4 14.9
Netherlands 29.2 29.4 29.7
Poland 12,2 11.5 11,7
Spain 7.6 9.4 9.5
Sweden 20.8 23.6 22.8
Switzerland 17.5 24.0 21.4
Russia - 8.3 7.2
Some days ago, I had a discussion with the editor of an agrarian monthly. From him I learnt:
In Germany it would be technically easy to increase the yield to about 40 DZ per ha. Technically possible it would be to increase the yield to about 50 DZ per ha., although not any more easily.
But to increase the yield above the present number of about 22 DZ would be economically difficult. The cost of production would rise in some kind of geometrical proportion. For Germany it was until now much cheaper to get the (wanted DZ? - hand-written insertion is almost illegible! - J.Z.) of wheat from abroad than to produce it at home. To increase the yield to about 30 DZ would be possible by the present technical means, if the price of wheat could be increased correspondingly. It would not require very much. A little more care in labour, more expenses to fight against mice and other "Schaedlinge" (none of my dictionaries translates the word) (vermin, parasites - J.Z.), better selection of seed, shortening the time from harvest to milling the wheat, etc. would also be of great effect. Plants for sprinkling (very effective), other irrigation improvements. The establishment of drains in districts like Brandenburg, near rivers and lakes, would cost much money and are not possible, but the protection of the creditor is too bad. (Gold clauses are prohibited, first and even second mortgages are no longer possible, because the "place" is occupied by anterior creditors.)
In Russia the problem has been for centuries: To plough some centimetres more deeply. The peasants would not (too much labour) and often could not. But the collective farms manage it. (While the system holds agriculture back in many other ways! - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
Bth.
14.8.49.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 10.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
my mind is not so far from vanity as not to read with great pleasure the modest contribution on pages 31 & 32 of "The Individualist" of August-Edition, that you were kind enough at to copy from my letters. I appreciate the honour and thank you very-much.
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Page 28. "It only the politicians will stand out of the way." Very good!!
"Let us free the exchanges." Excellent! Let me add: And if politicians say (as they do): "No - - we regulate exchanges!" Then every kind of rebellion is morally permitted and the gentlemen should know that. (They do not yet know it.) .
"Let individuals buy as free men where they want to." Let me add, that this freedom of buying is a personal right, which no government can rightfully take from its subjects, and no majority from a minority, without tyrannising over them. Every kind of resistance is morally permitted.
But now:
"If USA finds nothing in Europe that she wants to buy, she must resign herself to the loss of her export to Europe."
Let me use here Kant's method of thinking and concluding: It involves a critique of the suppositions.
Who exports? The USA?? No!!! That's merely a "facon de parler" and should not be taken serious. Who exports? Some merchants or other people, who exercise, in some transactions, the function of a merchant. - The USA neither export nor import.
The single merchant does, normally, not consider the average price level of a country. Beside: That price level cannot be easily calculated. Experienced statisticians differ sometimes widely, when they try to compare
the average price level of two countries or two times. (Believe an old statistician or - - if not - - read: "The Making of Index Numbers", by Irving Fisher, one of the most important mathematical books ever written and sufficient to place the author among the best economists.)
From the fact that merchants do not consider the average price level, it may already be concluded that it does not possess the importance ascribed to it by many economists. But the following objection seems near at hand: Well, maybe that the average price level is not so important, but the price of the single product is the point. Here modern economists overlook an important circumstance. Let me explain it by a constructed example:
Let us suppose in England everything, produced In the country, would be offered in the stores at a higher price - -expressed in gold - - than in any store in the USA. Let us further suppose that England wants cotton, an article not offered in English stores. Then, obviously, there exists a price for cotton so high, that the importer is able to buy
any goods in England, export it into the USA for a very low price and, nevertheless, wins not only so much, that he can buy at Savannah the same quantity of cotton which he had exported (in form of cotton goods - J.Z.) but also makes a good profit.
Suppose, a given quantity of cotton would, in normal times, cost in England L 100, 000. Now let us suppose, all goods in England become so dear, that no goods - - priced in gold - - are cheaper than in the USA, the times, consequently, becoming quite "abnormal". The merchant sees that the difference is least at - - say typewriters. Their price is, in London, double (let us suppose) that at New York. Then the USA merchant demands for his cotton, instead of L 100,000 much more, say L 1,000,000. If the English pay that, than every good in England may be bought by the merchant to brought to New York and could there be offered at a price much lower than the cheapest good of the same type is offered at New York. His gain is still very considerable. The greatest is the gain if he buys typewriters in London. He spends L 500, 000 for typewriters, brings them to New York (I do neglect here the cost of transportation) and sells them for L 500, 000 or more exactly spoken, for the Dollar amount equivalent to L 500,000. Then he takes L 100, 000, buys with them the same quantity of cotton as he had brought to England and has won L 400, 000.
(J.Z.: Will the cotton producers accept the L 100,000 for their cotton or will they discount them, seeing the low exchange rate between US dollars and English Pounds, which would then be likely, i.e., the low purchasing power of these Pounds in England? I think the explanation through a change in the exchange rate between Dollars and Pounds is easier and more realistic. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
Expressed in abstracto (abstractly - J.Z.): There exists always a price for imported goods so high, that the Importer is able to export with profit, may the price level be as high as it may.
Such a transaction it not advantageous for the importing country, but it is possible, and if the goods to be imported are absolutely necessary, then even a tenfold price is paid and more. It would be easy to verify this doctrine, generally acknowledged in the political economy of some decades ago, by the development in Germany after 1945. In that year the price - - to give an example - - of tea and coffee was about a hundred-fold of the price before the war. And yet there were people enough that paid this price and renounced almost all other things, bread included. Many students came to the University of Berlin from abroad, also from China and India. They brought with them some pounds of tea and lived in Berlin for several months from the sale of one pound of tea. (Their habits were modest.) From time to time, their relatives or friends sent them a parcel with fresh tea. The service they won was their education at the university. At that time it was by far not as good as tertiary education at most other universities in Europe, the library, the laboratories and the buildings being for the greatest part destroyed and the celebrated professors teaching in 1932 having disappeared, murdered or emigrated.
The supposition in the cotton example is that the English are permitted to pay in Pounds, what they are presently not permitted to do, and that the USA merchant is allowed, by American laws, to accept the Pounds, which, as far as I know, he is not permitted today.
(J.Z.: Also, that both are not forced to utilise only the official exchange rates, and that the amounts used fall under the permitted quotas and goods exchanges, etc. - Under free exchange rates and in the absence of all other restrictions, the exchange rate would settle at a level which would permit Americans to buy as cheaply in England as at home, and which would make the seemingly low prices in the USA for the English buyers as expensive as the prices in England. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
If the USA merchant demands Dollars, all is completely changed and it is really so, that
firstly must be found out some English goods so cheap that they can be successfully exported to the USA.
(J.Z.: Under free exchange rates Dollars and Pounds would be continuously traded at their free market rates. On the exchanges for foreign currencies in England or in the US, US dollars could then be bought a their market rate with English Pounds, without any difficulties. But if pounds are artificially and officially overrated against Dollars, by a fixed exchange rate, prescribed by the governments and defended by its "experts", then a "dollar-shortage" does, naturally, appear. - I was once present at a public meeting in Wollongong, where hundreds of people, students, journalists, "experts" and businessmen, all defended the continuance of officially fixed exchange rates, with all their troubles, and considered freely floating exchange rates to be quite utopian, wrong and even harmful, too risky or dangerous. I was the only one defending them - and, naturally, did not convince any of these "minds" full of fixed ideas. - A few years later, fixed exchange rates were almost forgotten and floating exchange rates taken for granted! Fashions exist also in "economic" thoughts and ideas. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
The present "Dollar-Scarcity" in England is as artificial as the scarcity of L-notes was in England after 1844.
"Let us free the exchanges." (Here, particularly, the foreign exchange rates. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
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From the translation of an article in the "American Mercury" by H. W. Seaman, published in the October issue, 1948, of "Das Beste aus Reader's Digest", I learnt what a miserable standard of life the English workers have arrived at. I think it very dangerous to further lower this standard, now not very far from the low standard in Germany. I am convinced that not the (seemingly) high wages in England are the real cause of the importation and exportation troubles. The real cause is exclusively the pernicious system of paying imports in the money of the exporters government. (*) (This system was invented - - as much as I could ascertain - - by Rashin, the first Czechoslovakian minister of finance, a dangerous deflationist. Then it was taken up by Schacht, the much admired, and used, with great success, to enslave the German workers (and not only the workers). This success aroused such an enthusiasm of the bureaucracy in all countries (fully justified from its standpoint), that it was adopted in all countries of the world.)
(*) (J.Z.: This requirement would be no more than a minor nuisance - provided, exchange rates and other conditions for dealing in foreign currencies, would be quite free, moreover, if also all kinds of private and cooperative alternative exchange media and clearing certificates and clearing institutions could be freely used. Then, for instance, for US Dollars and English Pounds, there would be free Exchange Offices e.g. in London, as well as in New York. In both cities Dollars as well as Pounds could then be freely bought and sold, in any quantities, at floating exchange rates, roughly providing, with their current exchange rate, a purchasing power equivalence for both currencies in both countries. The demand that English importers pay for their imports in US dollars could then be easily fulfilled by them purchasing these Dollars first, with their Pounds, either at a London or a New York foreign exchange office, one of many, privately or cooperatively run and free from any government meddling. I am well aware that many more wrongful and absurd government restrictions exist than the insistence of paying for imports not with the own currency but with the exporting other country's currency. I believe that B. did here stress this aspect all too much. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
In olden times the Pharaohs of Egypt enslaved their subjects and abused them e.g., as pyramid builders. But for what purpose are the enslaved European workers used? The bureaucracy which abuses them is not able to use the workers either for pyramids nor to perform anything, but for upholding its power.
(J.Z.: Here one should not forget the "palaces" of the bureaucrats, often built at huge costs, never even minding huge over-runs of the original cost-estimates and the often luxurious furnishings in the offices of the higher bureaucrats, nor their relatively high earnings, fringe benefits and pensions. Not only their power urges get satiated, involuntarily, by the victims of their taxation, legislation and regulation powers. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
If I would concede the errors of modern economists to be truths, then I would have to give up the principles laid down in the immortal work "Free Banking" (J.Z.: Here he 'lays it on', rather thickly! - but it may have helped, as an "argumentum ad hominem". - J.Z., 28.1.01.), which I certainly will not do and rather say with Abaelard:
"Si omnes patres sic, ego non sic", and if no man in the whole world would adhere and the author himself would sacrifice the principles, my opinion would remain quite unchanged.
The author himself???? It is one of my greatest sorrows, for a very long time, to read the first 5 lines in the August issue of "The Individualist".
These 5 lines are in good harmony with the lines on page 28: "If US finds nothing etc." But they are in the strongest contradiction to "Free Banking".
5 % to 7 % of the insured workers unemployed. That are - - I estimate - - more than a million of people. If their unemployment would really produce for England's economy more advantages than disadvantages, then the existing legislation prohibiting Free Banking is a good legislation, for it prevents the million to be employed, and if the legislation would be repealed and the workers informed, then they would be able and would certainly use
their newly won liberty to relieve themselves from unemployment. What do you prefer now? Unemployment for the million or Free Banking that frees them from unemployment?
C'est à prendre ou à laisser!
From the passages quoted under the heading "employment", in "Free Banking", page 429, everybody, who did not yet know it, may learn that (involuntary! - J.Z.) unemployment is an evil. And now I must read that you restrain that view very considerably by stating that at least in our time and under the present circumstances the unemployment of about a million in - - on the whole - - no evil.
This matter is very serious.
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There is a very effective check to extravagant wages: The impossibility for employers to pay them.
There exists also a very effective means to explain to the workers the impossibility to pay extravagant wages:
The employers could offer the workers to hand over to them the shops, so that they may continue to work there, organised as a cooperative. He employer may reserve for himself the job as a manager for a number of years. Vis-à - vis the social revolution, which is already beginning in England, it will be their best place.
(J.Z.: I do not consider it just to hand over all remaining capital assets to the employees free of charge and claims, although I know that a number of employees have done this. I do hold, and in one of his earlier free banking books and later, in discussions and letters, B. did also propose this transformation in a free market & capitalistic, competitive and profitable way: It would be possible, just and advantageous to all involved, to sell the enterprise to its employees, on terms, with the whole negotiated amount payable right away, but not in cash but in industrial bonds issued by the coop or partnership of the former employees. These bonds are to be interest-bearing, to have a gold clause and to be gradually amortised, largely by being paid off with claims or clearing certificates against this coop or partnership. Then the supposed "burden" of the acquisition of the enterprise would, in most cases, amount only to a fraction of the additional earnings which the cooperators or partners could obtain in this way. The former exclusive owner, if also a capable manager, might be retained for his life-time, by his employment contract, as a manager, being renewed again and again. His management troubles would thus become very greatly reduced, largely to the technical and commercial factors to the extent that these require top level management, with the burden of managing subordinated and dependent people largely disappearing, as in all sound self-management schemes. Many enterprises change hands every day. But, alas, the employees only rarely appear thus organized and financial as buyers and self-managers for them, although they could and should. Most enterprises are not bought or taken over by cash deals. If only they had done so - 150 - 200 years ago! How different would history have run then? - J.Z., 28.1.03. Cooperators might even retain him as a "president", for publicity purposes, if is his not a good manager, leaving whatever management is still required, in the hands of their executive or directors. With speeches and interviews this president, with his good name and reputation, however undeserved, might then still earn his keep, although, otherwise, his contribution to the productivity and the sales of the enterprise might be zero. However, I doubt very much that the top men would be getting the kinds of salaries and golden handshakes and pensions they now allocate to themselves at the expense of the firms, that is, its employees and shareholders and customers. - That often represents as much of a racket, perhaps sometimes even a greater one, than that of the self-allocated salaries, fringe benefits and pensions which the politicians allocate themselves at public expense when they get into the saddle. Not that this would be the worst damage that they do. - J.Z., 23.4.03.)
The workers organized into a cooperative cannot enter in a strike. If they want to increase their income, they must either better their production or increase the prices of their products. The former will, probably,
always be possible. The latter they may try one time and from this they will get a lesson which they never will forget and that by their own (and freely chosen - J.Z.) experience
Some years before 1933 I said to some owners of large agricultural estates, to whom I had an opportunity to talk: "Make cooperatives out of your estates and become their president. The Russian Revolution will claim us in a few years, in some form, be it by the Nazis or by the Communists; but, probably, the cooperatives will then be secure. Of course, they believed me crazy. And now? You know the "land reform" in Germany, fostered by the Allies.
That "land reform" will one day - - not very far away - - turn against the owners of factories and great estates in England. The English soldiers win here the impression, that expropriation is not only economically possible but also morally unobjectionable, for - - they say - - if it would not be, the English government would not have demand it (for Germany - J.Z.).
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Very faithfully Yours, signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, …. 13.8.1949. Your letter of 11. 8. 49, received today.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
Malthusianism.
Not to be proven but to be assumed is:
There is a natural tendency in population to grow to its optimum.
There is also a natural tendency of the population to remain stationary when the optimum is attained.
"Optimum" is a notion not to be quite distinctly fixed and it is variable, too.
Therefore, generally, the population becomes already stationary before the optimum, as estimated by optimists, is attained.
The study of history may lead to these doctrines and give them some probability.
There exists also a "revolutionary" theory of population, with which I sympathise and which at leapt is not in contradiction to science. That theory says:
Not the tendency of self-preservation in individuals is the original fact which impartial observation presents, but self-preservation of species. The tendency in individuals to preserve themselves is merely a special case of self-preservation of species. The force, by which species exist, produces individuals for the sole purpose to secure the existence of species. If the fate or the existence of species is severely menaced, then the genius of species produces individuals gifted with qualities to conquer the circumstances which menaced the existence of the species. Example: The often admired faculty of birds, buffaloes, etc. to be the sentinel of a group, was, probably, not originally in the nature of the animals. But when the existence of the species was menaced, nature called into life animals with a "sentinel-mentality,' by selection, by mutation, by other ways we do not yet know.
In man the same. At a certain degree, when animal faculties (strength, courage, cunning, mobility and 1,000 others) are no more sufficient, then nature lets arise men with new faculties: organising, tyrannising (? temporarily and rationally dominating? - J.Z.) where it must be, sacrificing themselves, amusing others, love of science and arts and, at last, social faculties, such as conceive Free Banking ideas and communicating them to others.
Here nature follows its usual way: It scatters very many seeds so that one individual may live. Hundreds of utopists must be borne before one reformer-scientist can operate. Many anarchists (the word taken in its popular sense) must do a revolutionist work before one scientific anarchist teaches his fellows not to conquer tyrants but create a state of maximum liberty. (To kill fellows like Hitler is not superfluous. A community which does not possess tyrant-killers [executioners! - J.Z.] is lost.)
And now it is the genius of the human species itself, which creates a new kind of individuals: Scientists - - not lacking courage - - who show mankind how to attain its optimum in number.
For the first time I found these ideas (in another form) in Tolstoy, who asserts that humanity produces reformers just like ants produce "soldier-ants", which remove every obstacle to the ant-community.
The great reformer, who not only conceives the needed Ideas of social reform, but finds also the suitable words to convince his fellowmen to act in the right way, must still be born. But so that he may be born, he must have a chance. The chance is a priori greater in a mankind of 6,000 millions of people than in a population of 2 1/4 milliards. And that is one of the reasons to bring the population of the earth to its optimum.
(J.Z.: For my taste, he does personify "nature" here all too much, just like religious people, e.g. Tolstoy, personified their "god" and read good intentions into him. But at least he indicates natural development trends that go in the indicated direction. Alas, like individual survival instincts, they are not preparing us for many of the present technological and scientific risks. They do not let us feel e.g., x-rays from TV sets or computers or radiation from nuclear reactors or their garbage, perhaps until it is too late. Or thousands of cancer-causing agents. Nor am I prepared to wait for a new kind of "saviour". Perhaps many great innovators are already born but, under territorialism, like under an avalanche or a flood, or under a fresh lava flow, they cannot freely develop but, rather, perish. Moreover, not only the creative potential of a few ought to be fully released but that of everyone, no matter how small it may be. That requires, among other things, e.g. individual secessionism and full exterritorial autonomy, which, in the monetary sphere, means full monetary freedom and, in the communications and recording, archiving and publishing sphere, means the full utilisation of all affordable and efficient as well as lasting alternative media. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
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Thank you for the clipping from the Times of August 9, 1949, with Lord Boyd-Orr's speech on food supplies by
cultivating Africa. (A revival of ideas of colonialism and of the re-assumption of "the white man's burden"? - J.Z.,
28.1.03.)
Interesting and just! The Lord says and is right: "Unfortunately, like all other branches of biological science, which sought to enrich the world in the equal interest of the people in all countries, it was starved for funds".
Let the funds be lent on a gold basis ("Goldwertklausel" - gold clause) and the veterinary stations will get, in a few months, more money offered to them than they are able to use.
(But really - - you are a noble mind - - such a thing as supplying an adversary with arguments did not happen since the year when Malthus first published his book. If there exists a karma of the Indian kind, you will have the pleasure to be re-incarnated as the Robespierre of the year 2000-revolution, whose duty it shall be to sent the small remnant of the then still living Malthusians to the Guillotine - - Euthanasia.)
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If the number of hours that a man works in agriculture, is the same, in the past and present, then an increase in the agricultural out-put per hour means also an increase per man.
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But you are right: If a man owns only so little land, that he can cultivate it all in a week, he will not produce as much as a man with more land.
(J.Z.: For the rest of the time, he might produce agricultural machinery for others, thus increasing their productivity. Many city people do that all the time, on top of a little gardening at home. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
In Germany the number of men, who own quite small pieces of land, not sufficient to occupy their full labour-time, are numerous. They work as "hands" at the estates of men possessing more than they can cultivate on their own. That state is not ideal. In Germany, for decades, the owners of great agricultural estates complain about the small supply of labour and favour the Polish agricultural labourers, who work in July and August for some weeks in Germany. (That was before the war.)
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It the money value of the output per worker in agriculture is only 1/5th of that in industry, then the old complaint of agriculture would be justified, namely, that prices of agricultural products are too low.
(J.Z.: Which is not exactly an indication of food shortage and of there being too many mouths, and buyers, either. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
Restriction of wheat planting in USA.
At least we agree here that the USA could supply many more people with food if these people were able to buy the food. That is the Malthusian side. The commercial side is:
Take a country A able and willing to supply the 10 millions of inhabitants of its neighbour B - - a people living from industry and suppose that country B in able and willing to supply A with all industrial products it wants and likes, and then entrust the commerce of the two countries to a bureaucracy as it exists now in England, America and in the whole world. What will be the effect? Country B is unable to sell more than trifling quantities to A. It seems, in consequence, terribly overpopulated. Country A, on the other hand, suffers a terrible agrarian crisis. The government restricts the arable land and many people use wheat etc. as fuel or give it the pigs.
There is only one remedy: A great cudgel and chasing the bureaucracy.
The price of labour in the USA and in England and the relation of the two prices has nothing to do with the possibility to transport these victuals which the British are willing and able to pay for, to England. If the price is high enough, it enables the merchants to buy in England such things as cost - - counted in gold - - more than they cost in the USA and, nevertheless, sell them in the USA cheaper - - counted in gold - - than American stores can
sell them. The transaction is - - commercially seen - - no great advantage for England, but it is a greater advantage (much greater) than the present state.
A year after abolishing the bureaucracy's guardianship, England's industry is so efficient that at least 1,000 kinds of goods are, counted in gold, much cheaper in England than in the USA and, nevertheless, the wages are at least as high as in the USA. Technology has, for centuries, been England's Ally and it will be again, tomorrow, if the great
cudgel is applied. (At the time of Napoleon I it was estimated that England's machines did the work of 700, 000 men, which in other countries had to be furnished by an additional population of at least 14 millions of inhabitants. So England's inhabitants and her machines gave a man-power equal to that of France, at that time about 26 or 27 millions of inhabitants.)
(J.Z.: I assume that B. did here bungle the translation into English of what he had here in mind in German. If the machines merely did the work of 700,000, then they added, in machine power, only 700,000 man-powers, not 14 million. But if already then 700,000 English workers were provided with as productive machines, that their output was increased 20 times, then it would have taken other countries 14 million of as strong men and able men, but working without machines, to produce as much. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
Instead of recommending austerity, economists should recommend the contrary: England should abolish all custom duties and let Americans and other people export to England whatever they like, untaxed, the most unnecessary things not excluded. Be sure that Englishmen will import it and let it be their responsibility get return freight. They will get it, if they are not mothered (or smothered - J.Z) by the bureaucracy. (And if not, then they miscalculated. Why must the English rack the Americans' brains???? (I don't get his meaning here. Many of B.'s letters to M. were insufficiently proof-read by B. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
Free the exchange (by the cudgel!)
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"Where previously we exchanged X goods against X goods, we can, after the fall, get only X-Y goods." Certainly! Then - - in a few weeks or days - - prices rose in England and fell in USA, as Gossen explained better than I can explain it here. Then the change of prices has its natural effect and the former state will really be restored, as may be seen at every page of history.
J.Z.: Without M.'s part of the discussion quickly on hand, and in this formulation, B. is here not clear to me, either. As I see it, over the mediator of a freely fluctuating exchange rate, the price levels of two countries will tend to balance, not for all goods, but in the average, still leaving all exporters and importers numerous chances with particular goods. A fall in the dollar value of the pound would restrain purchases from America while encouraging American purchases from England. A rise of the pound value, expressed in dollars, would encourage English imports from America while restraining American purchases from England. Whichever free exchange rate develops will about equalise advantages of trading for both countries and maximise as well as balance goods trade and payments between them. Since they are not the only trading partners, the balancing will occur often indirectly, in several steps involving trading of both with other countries. - J.Z., 28.1.03.)
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Gold standard.
If England created such laws, which made the degrees of prosperity a function of the supply with gold, then that is not a natural state of things. Gold coins should be like nails and hobbies. It would be unwise and tyrannical to prohibit them and to hinder debtors trying to pay their debts with gold coins, as long as creditors are willing to accept them. On the other side - - and there lies the rub - - it is unwise and tyrannical to compel debtors to pay with gold coins, if creditors are served as well by clearing and other means of payment.
Gold, in impossible legal claim, but (sometimes difficult to impossible to fulfil - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
Gold is a good legal tender. (If one has sufficient for this purpose. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
All, what is said against gold as a standard (means of payment - J.Z., 29.1.03.) was really meant against gold as a legal claim. (By creditors against debtors. - J.Z., 29.1.03.) (Read Tolstoy's book: "The Slavery of our Time", in which he proposes to abolish money and replace it by a Christian conviction. Tolstoy was never aware that he spoke always against gold as a legal claim.) (By creditors against debtors. - J.Z., 29.1.03.) Economists still do not perceive it as that. Tant pis pour eux!
In Persia and other oriental countries it is a very old commercial law that debtors must pay gold coins only if this is expressly agreed upon. If nothing is agreed concerning the means of payment, then always local currency is the means of payment, to the value of as many gold coins as was agreed upon or could be taken as agreed in honest commercial business. I learnt from a book on oriental commercial law that also in cases where gold coins were expressly agreed, the creditors, in practice, took every means of payment, clearing by no means excluded, that was not unusual.
The above stated ideas are - - as you see - - not a mere fancy but were practised by the commercially best trained people in the whole world. (You know the old oriental saying:
Three Turks are wanted to cheat a Jew, three Jews to chest a Greek, three Greeks to cheat an Armenian,
and 7 Armenians to cheat a Persian, and finally the Persian will have cheated the 7 Armenians.)
(The contradiction to this story is here, that the Persians appear as the most dishonest ones, while the principle and practice described is an honest and practical one. - All analogies do limp, at least somewhat. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
The here stated idea means simply introduce (more - J.Z.) honesty (and practicality - J.Z.) into business. No debtor can honestly promise that there will always be enough gold in circulation to satisfy the creditor, but if the debtor has gold, then it would not be honesty for the creditor to decline to accept it.
W. B. Greene arrived at the here explained doctrine in a quite a different way. (Tucker, "Instead of a Book", page 232.)
"Substitute verity in the place of fiction", that was his opinion and his great discovery was: It's not merely a moral doctrine but an economic and social one as well.
Some people say: Gold should never be a standard of value because it, obviously, cannot be an honest standard of currency. (By such expressions they meant the legal claim of creditors to that currency). Experience in Germany, during the (Great - J.Z.) Inflation, showed that gold may very well be a standard of value and that prices on the goods of stores may well be expressed in gold, while no gold circulates. Really, there were only a few kilograms at Berlin and at Pforzheim (the seat of the gold-industry), which were daily bought and sold, but it was sufficient to
fix an exchange rate of paper money for gold. The price was published and this published price served as multiplier In the stores. This system was already widely used in 1922.
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You say: "… paper will not be acceptable abroad unless the foreigner can get the right goods at the right price there." (Rather, the right price for his goods. - Or, for the paper that he accepts, an exchange rate that permits him to buy the right goods there, at the right price, for his exports. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
The thing is theoretically not so simple and in practice much more simple.
The foreigner normally deposits the notes with a bank. Then he gets a quittance or certificate for the deposited notes. This certificate he sells the next day, maybe, even on the same day. An experience of more then 300 years shows that in London there were always buyers for bills exchange and similar documents.
The importer does not care for the right goods and their price. That's a matter for the man who buys the notes. Experience taught that a difference of 1 % in value made dozens or hundreds of goods exportable which, before that difference arose, could not be exported.
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Devaluation. I think that we agree here completely. Devaluation is, in my opinion a violation of the personal rights of the owners of notes and of all creditors and is merely a legalised theft. (The cudgel, the cudgel!! Landsburgh, an author who published for many years the much esteemed monthly "Die Bank", proposed an amendment to the constitution of every country, insisting that a minister who devalues or inflates, or debates the currency in other ways, should at once be hanged. He demanded that the gallows should be depicted on every bank note, together with that article of the constitution. The new standard of currency should - - so proposed Landburgh - - be called "Galgenwährung". (Gallows Currency - J.Z.)
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Rückstrom. Interest of bankers! Intelligence of bankers!! Insight of bankers!!!! I learnt that in inflation times and learn about it every day by the banking conditions of Germany new in full vigour. It is my sincere opinion, that average bankers are the most stupefied part of the people, still more stupefied than average ministers. Business and stability of credit conditions must become quite independent of the intelligence of bankers. The Rückstrom-Principle guarantees that independence and stability.
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Vansittard. If he speaks of "The Germans" that has no more value than has the average German's talk about "The English".
I see well, that people like Vansittard do have the power in England, and that men with political experience (to which - - I think - - Vansittard does not belong) are of no influence, as happens now in the whole world.
But this power depends upon a circumstance not no so unchangeable as V. believes: It may be that the successor of
Stalin treats the Germans better than they are treated now by the Russians (Soviets! - J.Z.) and demands only a collaboration with Russia. An empire from the Rhine to Vladiwostok led industrially and, perhaps, commercially by the Germans (Commerce does not need leadership, far less commercial leadership - J.Z., 29.1.03.), aided by Asia (Who is to be the actor there? - J.Z.), which in less then 10 years will be under the influence of the Russians, and an empire in which, perhaps, Free Banking is permitted, would in the next war occupy the little England - - militarily well prepared (for this -J.Z.) by Malthus - - within a few days, and the next generation may thank Malthus and Vansittard if it is for the next decades a "protectorate" of the Kremlin. Friends of England, as I am, are now silenced by the dismantling policy.
(The "Demontagen" the taking apart and removal of whole industrial enterprises. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
Allies intimidated - - - in "Faust", Goethe lets his Mephistopheles say:
"Den Teufel spuert das Voelkchen nie, (The people never perceive the devil,
"Und wenn er sie beim Kragen haette!" even if it has them by the throat! - J.Z.)
He speaks of intimidation. I will believe, that he in not intimidated, but here are other points of view than such a primitive feeling as intimidation.
I thank you very much for the clipping.
(May the English and the Americans place an army of more then a million men in Germany, that would be a contribution to security. But the dismantling policy is a bad thing.) (It was also a stupid thing. The Allies got thus outdated equipment an then, with the aid of the Marshall Plan and on credit, they got the most modern equipment in the world, far superior to the dismantled machines. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
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Which industry is today no war industry??? Even agriculture is a war industry.
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Beatrice Webb. Very interesting. I would never have believed that such an author as B. W. can be dry.
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King Hall. He does not see, that if all that he wants done is actually performed while Free Banking is not permitted or in use, then "England is still a well equipped ship without the screw which moves the ship. Then even the best machinery in useless. Nevertheless, King Hall sees many things that remain unnoticed by others.
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Education. "… This contradicts the entire philosophy of freedom. …" - There are several philosophies of freedom. I adhere to Seneca's philosophy, and S. was the first author (known) to have written against slavery. But I think that he was a follower of Roman Lawyers, who taught: Freedom is for adult, not for minor men. They should have as much freedom as possible and not more.
(J.Z.: We still believe this regarding e.g. children and are, I believe, right in doing so. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
But I agree with 90 % of what you say, and your personal experience (most interesting for me) corresponds to mine. Learning is now made interesting for children. There you are right, and that is - - in general - - the true reason why children now like it more to go to school than we did.
But there you are also right as well: Children of today learn surprisingly less than we did. All old teachers say the same. If such a fact is observed in England as well as here, I am inclined to ascribe it to a change in the human constitution for about 40 years. The increasing physical size of the youth indicates that such a change in their constitution took place. If I would be a dictator, I would now let the school age begin at 8 years and let it cease at 17 or 18. Then - - I think - - boys and girls would be as educated as we were. Men live longer today, develop within a longer period than we did and, if treated according to their changed nature, would, perhaps learn more and with greater pleasure than we did.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
(J.Z.: I do very much doubt that not only length, weight and development ages of children have changed [have you seen quite convincing figures on this?] but their mentality and learning ability as well, apart from the statism and popular myths they are indoctrinated with in school, by teachers likewise indoctrinated. What we may see there may largely be the result of the ever-increasing bureaucratisation of the education system, and the unionisation of its teachers, of the certification system for "teachers", of generations of compulsory attendance and of prolonged subsidisation of the whole system, at the expense of taxpayers. Has any other expensive and extensive governmental bureaucracy become more efficient over the decades? I do not know of any. On the contrary: In all of them costs and manpower go up - and services decline or become even negative values. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, …. 14.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
if a people, or a large group among the people, is convinced that it is suppressed or exploited by another group, then the latter is in danger. It is not important whether the first group is really suppressed or exploited. Important is only the conviction. Example: India. The masses were convinced that "the English" (no distinction was made) suppressed and exploited the Indians. It would have been easy to explain that on balance the presence of an army commanded by Englishmen and the existence of a supreme government by Englishmen was a great advantage. The cost of the English government was certainly a trifling fraction of the costs of the Rajah's government 200 years ago, the cost calculated in working hours per inhabitant. But that was all unimportant. The people did not know it and the few who knew it did not dare to speak up about it. The European friends of India, who said it was, were - - of course - - suspected of being in the pay of "the English".
Now came what, inevitably, had to come. The "movement" found leaders, the leaders found adherents, and many fanatics among them, and when such a weak, tyrannical and ignorant government as the present government began to "rule", it was removed. (Tyrannical? Yes - - although the tyranny was merely modern prescriptionism, as in the case of India the modern monetary legislation.)
Why are tyrannical governments always weak? Because they waste their time and their power on enforcing trifles and pedantries, which their ignorance takes to be important to uphold their power. To express it more correctly: For the government the upholding of such things as religion, monetary monopoly, racial privileges and class privileges are unimportant.
(J.Z.: On the contrary, they might consider only such things to be important and thus bring about their own downfall. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
The weakness of a government may be hidden for centuries. But suddenly such a weak government comes into a
situation as so many Asiatic governments came, who commanded hundred-thousands of soldiers, when they collided with European governments, or the Inca-government came, when a few hundred Spanish thieves invaded the country. (They mobilised the numerous dissenters and held the ruler hostage! - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
(One must distinguish a government and a bureaucracy. An almighty bureaucracy always makes us believe in the existence of a powerful government. But if the government is really powerful, then the bureaucracy obeys it, too, as other groups of subjects do.) (J.Z.: In reality, a powerful bureaucracy mostly weakens the government as well as the people and then the government can be easily overthrown or defeated. - J.Z., 29.1.03.) (J.Z.: However, the phenomenon of some honest and efficient public servants does also exist. But we should never become dependent upon their services, as we were before upon the services of an absolute monarch and his appointees or "born" aristocratic sub-rulers. - Free competition and free consumer choice and sovereignty in all spheres. - PIOT, J.Z. 22.5.03.)
At present the greatest part of the English working classes believes to be suppressed and to be exploited by other classes. Whether they are or not is here unimportant. As long as they believe it, they will follow and, at the deciding moment, obey those who promise to subdue and exploit the other classes on their part. ("Expropriation des expropriateurs.")
(J.Z.: That would really make sense towards the most important expropriators of today, namely, the politicians and bureaucrats. See my proposal on this in PEACE PLANS 19c, now also available free of charge by e-mail. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
The first to submit will be the bureaucracy, simply to keep its jobs. The government does not recognise its real situation because it is occupied e.g. with licensing barrows (The Individualist, August 1949, page 31) and such things.
There are now three possibilities:
1.) The "development" continues as it had begun. Some new Cromwell will accelerate it and become, for some time, dictator of the country.
2.) The "development" is still more accelerated by the landing of 1 million Russian soldiers. The weight of a soldier, his weapons and ammunition, machine guns, etc., is about 300 kilograms. An aeroplane of 20 tons transports about 60 soldiers together with their equipment. 16, 000 aeroplanes (which Russia very probably possesses) will transport them from 1,000 places of appointment within to hours or less to England. If the number of troop concentrations is large enough, then the preparations for an invasion cannot be detected, not even by better spies than England does, at the moment, support in Russia.
In the same night, when the troops are transported, a "coup de main", will replace the present ministry by a communist committee.
The Russians will come in the name of liberty. The new government will promise many things, and the first will be to compel merchants to sell food for half of he price at which they sell it now. For some days that is possible. Public executions of "saboteurs" will enforce it (for a week or so - - a decisive week).
For Russia that's an act like the occupation of Czechoslovakia, of Poland, etc.
What will England do? Send a million of English soldiers to Russia?
Militarily, that would be possible and also in 6 hours, if the million can be gathered. But in Russia that million will soon suffer the fate of the "grande armée"in 1812.
A few days later, the Americans will come and bomb every English town occupied by the Russians. Perhaps they will really kill the whole invasion army.
Etc.
And, at last, the Russians will erect in the Hyde Park a monument to honour Malthus, who prepared this action so admirably - - a monument 100 times greater than that for Lenin at Moscow. He deserves it.
3.) An organisation is created in consequence of which the working classes do no more believe to be suppressed by other classes. The most simple way would be the transformation of factories, etc. into cooperatives. All what is said against this economic form is unimportant compared with the political advantage. Also - - as Beatrice Webb (or Potter - - she wrote her books before she married) explained in her book on cooperatives - - all disadvantages can be easily removed by reforming the early and primitive organisations.
If I lived in England, I would propose an article:
a) the workers of all factories where more than 100 workers are occupied, organise themselves in a cooperative.
That is done within an hour.
b) The cooperative leases the factory. The former owner becomes president of the cooperative as long as the
lease contract is in operation. If the organisation is well prepared, that can also be the work of one day.
c) Once the factory is leased, the cooperative considers the possibility to buy the factory.
Example: The factory is worth L 1 million. The cooperative hands over to the proprietor 10, 000 bonds of L 100 each. The bonds are in the usual form of industrial bonds quoted at the exchange. Coupon-sheets of the usual form are attached to every bond. The interest may be 4 % p.a. (or 1/3rd % monthly). In every year (or every month) a part of the bonds is drawn by lot. The last bond may be drawn after 30 years (or so). Then the cooperative has to pay annually L 578, 301 - After 30 years it is the proprietor of the factory.
An essential condition by which the bonds and the coupon-sheets differ from the usual form: Drawn bonds and
due coupon-sheets are "paid" by the obligation of the factory to accept them in its normal business in the same way as it would accept legal cash money.
Monthly payment (I even would prefer weekly payment) has a great advantage. The workers become soon accustomed to continuously redeem a certain amount. If the redemption is only every year, they cry: "The burden is too great! Also the financial ability of cooperative managers must not be over-estimated. But when the redemption is due every week, no great ability is needed to provide these
4 % p.a. will be (about) the amount of the rent to be paid to the proprietor. The slight increase to 5,78391 % will enable the cooperative to become proprietor itself.
If the relations between proprietor and cooperative are good, the proprietor will leave a part of the redemption to the factory to improve its plant. At present and in most factories great improvements of the plant are impossible because the workers fear to be replaced by the machines. When the workers are themselves proprietors, they are interested to improve the plant, either to earn more money or to shorten their working hours.
One must also consider that at present from all patents taken out no more than about 2% to 3 % are utilised. The rest becomes useless as a result of the economic (rather, anti-economic! - J.Z.) obstacles against using them.
The resistance of the workers is one if the obstacles and an important one. (In England much more so than e.g. in Germany.)
Many observers reported that England's plant is, in the average, backward, compared with that of Germany, Belgium or Holland, not to speak of America. That relates to the time before the war.
A very great advantage for all parties and the country will be the economic impossibility of strikes under such a system.
The next advantage is: The interests of the workers change completely. They acquire now real economic interests. 100's of things, today quite outside their sphere (J.Z.: Unless they have a very good suggestion-box and bonus scheme! - J.Z., 29.1.03), become very interesting. The price of the factory's product, the taxes, the price of raw materials, customs and the real optimum of daily labour time, are now really studied. The appeals of Communists become ridiculous. Communists know that very well and are the most exasperated foes of "cooperative socialism".
It will be observed that much more than 50% of the workers prefer the wage system to the cooperative system, simply because they feel themselves not able to do more than their daily labour. But the possibility will also be there for these workers to organise themselves into a cooperative. It will exercise a good economic influence.
On the whole: Their belief to be subdued and exploited will be diminished, so that it exerts no longer a political danger.
Many 100's of arguments - - and very good ones - - may be urged against the system but, if the proprietors should decline it, then they might tomorrow be deprived of their factories without compensation. That may be their argument for the system.
The conviction, not to be exploited by the new system, is well founded. The payment for rents and interest, payable for the next 25 or even 30 years, may seem a kind of exploitation. But even the average worker will comprehend, that a civil war would cost more.
Concerning the technical side, it will be necessary to subdivide the co-operative into smaller cooperatives - - say of a dozen or so members - - which farm from the great cooperative a part of the factory. System Bata. The system has been introduced, for about 100 years, in French mines. Zola, in his "Germinal" describes it. (In the first world war I often visited the mine where the events, described in "Germinal" took place.)
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In Germany no journal will accept an article on a subject as I do here submit to your criticism. No meeting discussing the subject is possible. The people who write in daily papers, journalists, etc., are government officials or professors or professional writers. It's impossible to break this "ring".
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Perhaps it is not without interest to consider the military side of the now given problem. There is only one means, if one will tackle the problem seriously. That means is the rearmament of Germany in a form, which does not endanger the military strength of the West. This could be achieved in the following way:
a.) Dividing Germany into more independent countries than now exist. The average size of an American State
should be the size of a German State.
b.) Leaving monetary, economic and military independence to every State. The possibility for every State to
conclude military treaties with England. (System of before 1806.)
c.) The treaties under b) should provide for the possibility that German soldiers can do their service in England.
The number of German soldiers in England should be equal to that of English soldiers in Germany. (The
relations between English soldiers and the German population are very good.)
d.) Ending every kind of dismantling (of factories. - J.Z.).
e.) Repealing every law which defames Germans.
f.) Subdividing every German State into cantons as in Switzerland.
g.) Permission for every canton to organise a militia.
h.) Recall some die-hards by a plebiscite, at first Vansittard, if he still has any public service job at the time of the
plebiscite.
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Utopian? Of course! There are many people in Germany, who prefer the Russian government to the here sketched kind of liberty. And there are many people in England, Vansittard and many others, who also prefer a Russian government in Germany to the ending of dismantling and such things. But, as old Schiller said:
"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgerichte" (World history is the world's court. - J.Z.)
and for people like me the German proverb applied will be:
"Mitgefangen, mitgehangen!" (Caught together, hung together. - J.Z.)
Very faithfully Yours, signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 15.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
National News-Letter, issue of 2.6.1949, page 7, quoted the Economist of 14th of May 1949. Some details of much increased wheat production are given for Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, States where soil erosion etc. menaced the production, as Malthusians feared. But
204 million bushels were produced in the average of 1924/26,
349 " " " " " " " " 1944/46,
per annum.
The Economist quotes Sir John Russell who estimates that at present only 1/3rd of the world's land-surface suitable for food production is at present so used.
Some days ago the Berlin daily "Telegraf", published an article pro Malthus. The "Telegraf" was impartial enough to publish some days later another article with figures like: The maximum of the world's population may be 10, 000 million men. The production of food could be 25 times greater than it is, as far as technology is concerned. The latter figures were from a Russian economist.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Telepathy through space was undoubtedly observed. But how far goes telepathy? Also from star to star?
Can telepathy go through time as it goes through space? Some mystics think: it can. They refer to the fact that a little time-difference is nearly always observed. The question is only how long can the time difference be? Can it bridge centuries? multiples of centuries? "Kalpas"? Some Indian Sects thinks it can!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The above mentioned issue of National News-Letter, reproduces at page 7 a speech of Mr. Bailey, President of the Scientific Instrument Manufacturer's Association.
"The rates of pay of scientific-instrument makers in Western Germany have been estimated at 1 s. 10 d. an hour. This is certainly, at the moment, one third less than British rates and thus accounts for the fact that German precision instruments are selling for one-third less in the world's markets."
"The policy of allowing this unfair competition, coupled with the purchase tax, has, I fear, already sounded the death knell of the promising camera industry in this country."
Stephen King-Hall adds:
"Another way of looking at it that Britain's prices are higher because her workers' living standards are higher than those of other European workers, who work just as hard. DO Germans and others regard our living standards as unfair?"
I think, I understand a little economic statistics, but to estimate the difference in pay of German workers and English ones, expressed in shillings and pence, would be a task that I would not attempt now.
Further: I really doubt whether now, after repealing the "planned economy laws", the standard of German scientific instrument makers is not higher than that of English workers. May it be or not: Nobody in Germany or elsewhere covets the English a standard of living as high as it can be. The others will not have more to eat if the English have less.
Moreover: Mr. Bailey does not estimate the share of wages in the price of the product. That is obviously necessary in such comparisons.
Concerning purchase taxes (sales taxes - J.Z.), they exist also in Germany, perhaps in all European countries.
Germans work with very bad machines. Their product will not be the beet. The best instruments are now produced in the USA, where wages are higher than in Germany or in England. And, nevertheless, American instruments are cheap, as I read some months ago in a German economics paper.
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Yours faithfully, signed: Ulrich von Beckerath.
(J.Z.: What counts are not the absolute labour costs for such comparisons but the part of labour costs per unit produced. Under high productivity for labour (well trained and equipped with machines and not held back by union rules etc.), the wages may be higher than in other countries and still the labour costs per unit as well as the sales price per unit produced may be lower. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
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(Note from B. to M regarding agricultural yields, following the previous discussion on this. - J.Z.) (16.8.49.)
In the range from about 22 DZ (Doppelzentner) to about 30 DZ the increase in yield would be absorbed by the increase in production cost, but not surpassed. The peasants are not interested in increasing the yield, if their gain is not increased, to. On the other hand, it would be possible that an increased yield reduces the prices or the speed of selling.
My impression is, that humanity has now attained a state, where the interest of peasants, not to increase their yield too much, collides with the consumers' interest to increase the yield. There are two remedies:
1.) replacing the present habit to produce only for the market of the current year and the next by the habit to conclude long-term agreements, 10 years and more, by which the consumers (great cooperatives, administrations, etc.) bind themselves to pay a fixed price (counted in gold units) for the time of the agreement, and to buy the whole crop.
(J.Z.: The whole crop? That could lead to over-supply, like many governmental agricultural subsidies do. The quantity so purchased, should rather be set at a maximum limit, corresponding to estimated consumer want demand at these prices. Thus farmers would tend to produce as much, but no more, in the average. I also believe that 10 years would be too long a contract period. Two to five years would probably mostly suffice, with contracts for the future to be renegotiated at least a year before they run out. There should also be a clause to cover the impossibility to fulfil such a delivery contract on these terms because of floods, draught, storms, frost, pests etc. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
2.) If that does not prove sufficient: To replace the present system of agriculturists that produce at their own risk by a system, where the consumers are proprietors of the soils and the agricultural labourers are employed under conditions as now in many gas works. The wage increases to the same extent that the produced gas increases (per employee! - J.Z.) and, moreover, the workers participate in the amounts of expenses saved and measured by a normal standard.
If the working expenses per cubic foot are normally X and by care and effort of the workers they are, in a given month, only 1/2 X, then the saved 1/2 X is divided, so that - - say - - 3/4 of the savings go to the workers and 1/4 to the gas works.
Example: In a given quantity of gas that part of production costs, which by care etc. of the workers may be reduced is 1 Pound. The workers reduce it to 10 s. Then 7 1/2 s. are distributed among the workers and 2 1/2 s. is taken by the gas work.
That system is essentially different from participating in the profit. "Profit sharing" is of little effect.
(J.Z.: It does become effective when earnings from profit sharing come to pass by at least a minimum percentage of total earnings, say, 20 to 30 %. Then workers become really interested in cost savings and improvements, provided their jobs remain secure. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
The best system ever invented to combine all advantages of employment with the advantages of independent labour has been that of Bata, the great shoe-manufacturer. I think it is known in England no less than in Germany or in Bohemia, where it originated. The progress by Bata is greater than the progress by Taylor.
(J.Z.: The system is known under many names: Gang work, work cooperatives, autonomous group work, organisation development etc. and a large literature exists on it but I have not yet seen a book that describes all its varieties and compares them with each other. Alas, all these innovators have not yet sufficient dealt with the sales problem for their increased output, utilising monetary freedom methods. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In Burma certainly one of the most fertile countries, there were rice producing areas, in 1,000 hectares, in:
1936/37. 1937/38. 1938/39. 1939/40. 1940/41.
4900 5073 5073 4860 5023
The yield was, in 1,000 Doppelzentners
72 024 69 960 81 869 71 060 81 980.
Consequently the yield per hectare was:
14,7 13.8 16.0 14.6 16.3
(Wagemann, Suedostasien.)
That is very much less than it could be. Here are still great reserves to be unlocked by more capital.
From a statistics of Japan I remember that the yield per Hectare was about the same as in Burma. I hope to get more information.
The most surprising figures were (for me) those of Java.
The population was in 1927 = 737 per square mile, and the trouble was, nevertheless, to find markets for the food produced.
Bth.
16.8.49.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 17.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
in "Free Banking", page 368, you write: "… proposals to confiscate private industry are here ignored as impracticable."
That was quite right at the time when you wrote it. And now???
The social revolution in England is going on, fast. The most remarkable is the mentality, which made the social revolution possible, has now replaced the old English mentality, whose basis was economic independence. 40 years ago, those English workers, who meditated about things beyond their household (a little more than in other countries, not very much) and who thought that the capitalistic system was not good enough for them, would replace it by a system of cooperatives. That was far from abolishing private property in industry. The true reason for which the mentality of the workers (and not only of the workers) changed, was that the "leading" class failed in every respect. This class, still now considered as "exploiters" by the workers, proved to be unable even to exploit. Such a class - - to speak the truth - - neither excites respect nor deserves it. The exploiters appealed to the government no less than the workers themselves do. It would be contrary to all historical experience if such an incapable class would not be replaced by another, one that at least understands the art of exploiting. In Russia the replacement is now finished. The new bourgeoisie works in a very primitive manner: immediately by State power, as the Hyksos and the Normans did, but they work, and protect the workers from unemployment. The workers in the Eastern world now build ammunition factories, just like the old Egyptians built pyramids; the protection against unemployment is the same as that of the old Egyptians. The only - - but remarkable - - difference is: The old Egyptians were so angry about their protection against unemployment, that they swore (look at Herodot) never to pronounce the names of Cheops and Chefren, the main builders of the pyramids. They would deliver them to oblivion, in spite of their pyramids. But a Greek historian (Herodot mentions his name - - I forgot it) preserved the names of Cheops and Chefren. Modern slaves are quite far from such a mentality. They will be protected against unemployment and in a manner easily to be conceived. About all other things they do not care.
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Zander may tell you about the lady Professor Vierkandt, who visited him some weeks ago. She is one of the most intelligent women I ever met with. She told me:
Man is a part of nature. Acts of men are phenomena of nature. So the construction and the use of atomic bombs
must be considered as an act of nature itself. Does reason go far astray if it supposes that the extermination of mankind and of every life on earth by atomic bombs is an act of nature by which it corrects the blunder it committed by creating and developing man?
That in the same idea which came to me. Important ideas seldom develop in one head.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
(J.Z.: I don't like a personified nature (and its assumed purposes) any more than a personified God, supposedly punishing us for our "sins". There isn't sufficient mental progress from the all powerful and "reasonable" God notion to the all powerful and "reasonable" Nature idea. - J.Z., 29.1.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, … 18.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
economists did not yet sufficiently distinguish (perhaps they did not yet distinguish at all) the great difference in the working of a free exchange market under the following conditions:
1.) the country is at a gold standard, model 1913,
2.) the country is at a gold standard insofar as the government permits setting of prices in gold and allows that the
means of payment, at the pleasure of the debtor, is gold coins or local currency, the latter in such quantity as
corresponds to its quotation at the market,
3.) the country is at a paper money standard, as now more than 9/10th of the world is, England included.
Now let me suppose that in England all prices double - - the prices expressed in gold units - - so that all goods in England cost double the quantity of gold than they would cost in the USA. If then England is at condition No. l., then all gold will flow off to the USA, and quickly, too.
All terrors of a lack of gold will be observed: Unemployment of many millions, etc. That state will endure until the price level of England is diminished, at least for a great quantity of goods. The gold exported from England will be used to pay former debts and will hardly be used to pay for new imports. Imports will practically cease. Many creditors will lose their money. Economists will talk of the admirable automatism of the gold standard that restores "normal" economical conditions without government intervention and do not perceive, that granting the creditors a legal claim to gold is a very far-going government intervention. In every case, the rate of exchange will remain essentially unaltered, that is: it will not differ more than about 2 % from the rate before the crisis.
Very different is the situation under condition No. 2.
Gold will flow off, too, but gold will now purchase goods. Creditors are not entitled to claim gold and will be so kind as to accept local currency, foreigners as well as others. Nobody will become a bankrupt because of a scarcity of gold. If all gold is exported from England, the English will offer local currency as a means of payment. There is always any quantity of means of payment used in London as local currency, that an importer, importing cotton or coffee, will accept. May be, that such a quantity is great. The merchant will demand such an amount of local currency, that he is able to buy, at London or in other places of England, goods of any kind for which there is a market in the USA.
To represent the situation clearly: If the amount of local currency is fourfold of what it was before, then every commodity of England is fit to be exported. The merchants are then able to buy the commodity in England and sell it at New York cheaper than American commodities of the same kind are sold there. The supposition is, that the English consent to pay the high prices for imported goods.
How far the readiness goes to pay very high prices was observed during the "cotton- famine" from 1861 to 1865. (American Civil War.)
If the English are not ready (to pay high import prices - J.Z.) then imports cease correspondingly. That is inconvenient but no catastrophe.
In practice, the merchant who imported cotton, coffee, tea etc. to England, will sell the local currency and exchange it at the market for that currency which he wants.
In London that is no problem. He gets USA-Dollars as easily as Paraguay-Money to buy Maté and import the Maté to New York.
May be that at the exchange-market the quotation is reduced to 25 % of the quotation which would be observed, if the price level in England and in the USA would be as in 1913. But at such a quotation no less English goods can be exported than were in 1913. Free Trade devaluates in this manner the English money exactly in the measure as English industry wants, no more, no less.
Now it becomes an important circumstance that the prices in England remain expressed in gold units. The second important circumstance is, that the local currency is expressed in gold units, too.
On the notes, certificates, etc. is printed:
"This note etc. is accepted in the business of the bank XYZ
and its debtors so as its face value of gold would be accepted."
But, what do the note bearers observe? At the exchange market local currency suffers a considerable discount against gold units. That - - of course - - causes distrust. Everybody will get rid of his local currency as quickly as possible. He will bring it to the places where it is accepted for its nominal values. If he is a debtor of the bank XYZ, then he will pay at once his debts. If he is not one of its debtors, then he will bring the notes or certificates to the bank's debtors, the shops, the artisans, etc., who all are (so tyrannical is the bank!) obliged to accept the notes at their nominal value. The shops etc., in their turn, at once pay their debts to the bank, so that the notes disappear very quickly from circulation - together with their discount.
It would be in contradiction to the experience of centuries if production would not be stimulated by such a quick turnover. But increased production means always a decrease in prices. The main element of price, that is the costs of selling - - advertising, commissions for agents, rent for storing the commodities, increased insurance, etc. - - normally about 40 % - 50 % of the price - - can be reduced without reducing the wages or the gain of the employers.
Plant improvements, impossible before, are introduced. "Shop-Rules" of the Unions, observed in times of unemployment, are no longer observed. Etc. Thus, after some time - - certainly in less than 6 months, the difference between England and the USA is not greater than it was in 1913.
Distrust in a monetarily well organised community is no less important than trust.
The economical condition No. 3 is often investigated by modern economists.
The author of "Free Banking" observed well, that if gold coins are simply replaced by fiat money, the economic conditions of the country are not improved, but made worse. The worst is: The monopoly bank becomes the master of the country and prescribes all economic conditions. If the managers of the bank are average men, they impoverish the country as now England is impoverished in the midst of a plenty of best trained workers, raw materials offered from all sides et lowest prices, of the very best plants, etc. The intention of the impoverishers are, nevertheless, the best. But they can do no good, for a similar reason as even the best trained bear will do no good - in a china store.
----------------------
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 19.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
three years ago, you invited Mr. Ness Edwards (Parl. Sec. Min. of Labour) to discuss with the P.R.A. (Personal Rights Association - J.Z.) (tel. Wimbledon 0950 ) the doctrine, believed, by many workers: ..0
"It is the inalienable right on the part of workers in industry to decide who they will work with." (Individualist, Dec. 1946, page 43.)
Mr. Edwards did not phone yet. Obviously, he is still meditating the problem, one of the most serious and difficult ever raised in sociology. MY impression is that until now no group except the P.R.A. advocates right standpoint. How carefully Mr. Edwards had studied the question before publishing his opinion. one may see from
his distinction between industrial workers and others. The distinction is not without foundation.
Let us consider the situation of one of the great agricultural cooperatives in Italy, which took on lease many of the vast real estates of bankrupt proprietors in the years after 1905. (The history of that movement is still to be written.) This was done to the advantage of both parts. The proprietors got a secure income, which they were not able to gain by their own activity, and the agricultural workers improved their condition surprisingly. A great advantage for Italy was that strikes, of course, were impossible everywhere the workers were organized in cooperatives. But, as the Indian proverb says: "Every little grain of rice casts its shadow."
The proprietors inevitably were monopolists of land, and this monopoly was inherited by the cooperative. It's an old objection of State socialism against cooperative socialism that the latter does not remove the monopoly of land. (State socialism does not answer the reply of cooperative socialism that replacing private monopoly by state monopoly brings the workers from the frying pan into the fire.)
Seriously this problem was for the first time investigated by the Austrian economist Theodor Hertzka, in his two works "Freiland" and "Eine Reise nach Freiland", published in the eighties. Hertzka (one of the founders of cooperative socialism) (Buchez proposed "open cooperatives" before him, as B. pointed out elsewhere! - J.Z., 30.1.03.) said: The problem of the monopoly, exercised by cooperatives in agriculture or in industry, can only be solved in one way. There must be created an obligation for co-operatives and all others, who exercise a monopoly, to admit every worker who wishes to work at the monopolised place. Even if - - says Hertzka - - the time of work at the place may have to be reduced to one hour daily, by the necessity to occupy a great number of workers and the income of the workers correspondingly reduced, if, under such conditions, the workers continue to work there. There must be advantages which compensate for the impossibility to work there for longer than an hour and for an income of only one hour daily.
Nobody will contest the logic of Hertzka's train of thought. Further investigations must prove whether the consequence must be driven to the degree proposed by Hertzka. E.g., it seems that in the case of railways an exaggeration of the number of workers, whose time of work is as much reduced, endangers the security of railway transport. In very small cooperatives or shops, that are not organised on a cooperative basis, the trouble to enforce the principle may be greater than the rouble by the rest of monopoly remaining also in small operatives. But P.R.A.'s principle is right: Nobody should exercise a monopoly, neither a single person nor a group of persons nor the government.
One may say, that in industry it is easy to find jobs, so that the workers in industrial groups may be permitted to decide who they will work with; the social trouble would then be less than the trouble caused by the presence of a worker in the group who, in important questions, does not share the opinion of his comrades.
Possibly that was the opinion of Mr. Edwards when he spoke of workers in industry. But I think that industry should not, in this point, be privileged against agriculture, although it may be advisable to except very small groups. Further, this exception should be restricted to a predetermined period, say 15 years.
Jefferson, the great democrat, proclaimed the most important and generally neglected principle that every generation should frame its own legislation and that no generation has the right to bind posterity to its laws. The period of laws, consequently, must be limited by the constitution of the country, so that, once the period has passed, the validity of the law ceases, unless it is expressly renewed by the legislator. Shorter periods for a law's validity, than the constitutional one, must be permitted, of course.
In every case a philosophical consideration of the problem leads to the realisation that Mr. Edwards' principle is bad and even undemocratic, the word taken in good modern sense. That the principle is also very bad in practice, and injures the real interests of the workers, is now to be seen in Germany. Shop councils are generally introduced and have the right or the power, and use it, to put a veto against the engagement of workers whose mentality or political past (say former nazis, although most of them now see to what craziness they had adhered ) does not please them or seems to be "suspect". Socialists find difficulties in districts where 'Christians prevail and vice
versa.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, …. 20.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I received several printed matters for which I thank yon very much. Truth, Economist, "analysis" and the cutting from the Indian Journal I sent you some weeks ago.
In "Truth" (Aug. 5, 1949, page 160) I find under the heading "Vigilant's" Letter- Box the communication: "Devaluation". - Expert opinions differ; in the meantime hold the prefs. (Prefs? A typo for rates? Short for preferences? - meaning bids for currency? - J.Z.)
There are to "experts" concerning devaluation. Devaluation is a legal theft. It robs the class of creditors and makes presents to the class of debtors. That's all. Certainly: Theft can also be considered from a technical standpoint and insofar there are experts in devaluation as there are burglars who are real experts in burglary. (You know the often told story of the manager of a prison. He had put the key of a safe into the safe and then
closed it inadvertently. How to open the safe?? By an oxygen-hydrogen blow-pipe? (blow torch? welder? - J.Z.) The manager's boy had a better advice: "Let celebrated burglar, escorted here yesterday, open the safe! He can do it! And really - - in a few minutes he had it opened without damaging the safe, something experts in safes were unable to do, the world "expert" taken in its usual sense.
There are also people, who do not think that devaluation is a crime. I would like to compare their mentality to that of old Greeks and Phasacians. Odyssey, 9th song, verses 40 ff. There the noble Odysseus describes his bad luck, when he robbed the Kikones. These indescribably barbarians defended themselves rather effectively, so that the noble hero Odysseus could not steal much more than a leather-bag full of wine, which the priest Maron, son of Euanthes, had given him - - not voluntarily - - but to avoid sacking and things still more evil. (Verse 197.) I think that the noble hero Odysseus here told the truth (which he did not do) for I know of many similar stories from the Russians, when they sacked Berlin. A bottle of "Schnapps" and they spared the inhabitants - - not in every case, but generally. Poles and Czechs did not do so. They extorted the liquor and then plundered and violated the women. Russians, including men from the lowest classes, are, in general, much more cultivated than Poles and Czechs. (In general; I know exceptions.)
(J.Z.: Some Berliners had left their wine & liquor cellars full and thus produced Red Army drunks, who raped and looted more than usual. As for Poles: Our neighbours on our ground-floor flat were Poles, who spoke placatingly with the Russian soldiers and thus saved us and all those who lived above us, at Berlin N 65, Togostr. 32 E, from rape and looting. - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
History always repeats itself, so that it is sufficient to change the names in old Homer to get modern history and any other. But - - as often remarked - - history does not repeat itself in every respect. In details there are progresses and regresses, if such a "facon de parler" is permitted. Such a detail is represented in Homer. Here the old reporter of robber romances tells us (Song 11, verse 367), that Alkioous, chief of the pirates, is very touched and says expressly: "Odysseus, I see that you are not a worse robber than myself, I believe you. Robber-minded stories, as you told us, cannot be invented. Here I am an old expert! He was quite overwhelmed by pity to hear of Odysseus's back luck in plundering Ismaros. He resolved to compensate Odysseus (not at his own expense: Song 11, verse 340.)
And here is the progress, considered from the a standpoint of outsiders, like you and I. What would you do, if Odysseus came one day to you, brought in by your Nausikaa, and told you, what misfortune he had at Ismaros? I think that you would phone Wimbledon's police station and tell Nausikaa: My dear daughter, if you meet such a boy again, as you introduced here today, do not be impressed at first sight. There are such and such.
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Modern men are - - concerning robberies like devaluations - - still at the state of old Phasakes. They do not consider it as a crime. But 3,000 years later they will.
I heartily greet your daughter, who is young enough to live to see the victory of the Free Banking idea.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 22. 8. 1949. My letter of 14.8.49, page 4.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
until now the theorists of international law treated States as individuals and supposed that the same doctrines
are applicable to the moral law for individuals and to the actions of and against States. Such a confusion can do no good, as is seen in the case of Germany. The question is:
1.) What minimum of obligations can be imposed upon the single, adult German, considered from a standpoint of reciprocity?
2.) What maximum personal liberty must be granted to the single German, also considered from a standpoint of reciprocity?
An impartial investigation concludes:
Every man has a right to choose his own government, but only so as Benjamin R. Tucker understood the thing, Auberon Herbert, and others. But a man has not the right to demand that others constitute for him a government as he likes it, located in that and that town, commanding that and that territory, etc.
So it was by no means a moral duty of the Allied to organise a German government over the whole of West Germany, endow it with the power to prescribe upon its subjects certain monetary abuses, such as the issue of a forced currency, etc. If the teachers of the right of nations taught, that it was a moral duty, they were very much mistaken.
To get a maximum of personal liberty in Germany (and not only in Germany), it should be divided into communities as small as is politically and economically possible.
(J.Z.: Alas, here, too, he still upholds territorialism rather than individual sovereignty, individual secessionism and only exterritorial autonomy for their voluntary communities. Under Free Trade, which all would be free to adopt, they would not need any exclusive territories but merely exclusive private and cooperative etc. properties while the Protectionists etc. could voluntarily segregate themselves and boycott others as much as they liked. - But B. might have been engaged only in discussing what he thought to be politically practicable then or acceptable to a mind like that of M. - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
The theory is - - not completely - - expounded by Proudhon in his "Du principe fédératif" and the practice in Switzerland, by the Germany before 1914 (rather before 1860? - J.Z.) (not less cultivated than any country in the world) and the USA, where there are States the size of Swiss cantons and yet neither economically nor culturally nor politically inferior to New York.
If there are people - - like Communists - - who wish to he governed by a central power, I say to them:
Organise that power! Cede to the power as much of your income as you think fit. Imitate the sect whose chief is the well known Aga Khan, from whom loafers robbed some pounds of Jewels, some weeks ago at Monte Carlo, sacrificed to him by his adherents, who by this sacrifice - - as they firmly believe - - accumulated a good "karma" and will be reborn as angels, white elephants, holy apes or gods in some heaven. You, communists, will certainly also find some Aga Khan, who generously accepts your gifts, supplies you with prescriptions to produce and to consume, forbids you books etc., which endanger your spiritual welfare, etc. But: Do not compel others to imitate you.
What concerns the others, they will not sacrifice 80 % of their labour to a government. They want personal liberty, etc. That - - at present - - in only possible by an alliance with the Western World and a precaution so that not another totalitarian government like the Hitlerian can arise. A Federalism such as Proudhon proposed it, is the best means. (Did he propose federalism between small territorial States or between sovereign individuals? - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
Like all good things in the world this Federalism cannot be upheld without brutal force, just like the wallet of anyone of us cannot be protected without brutal force. (That force does not have to be and should not be "brutal", but merely defensive, with as much defensive force as is required! - J.Z., 30.1.03.) Today that means:
a.) At least one million German soldiers, well armed and always on the Qui vive at the frontier,
b.) at least one million of English, American, etc. soldiers also at the frontier and allied with the Germans.
(J.Z.: "the" Germans never existed and do not exist now. Standing armies do not offer the best protection. Elsewhere B. advocated an ideal form of militia for the protection of individual rights - and also for liberation efforts without any "brute" force being used. - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
If one day the about four millions of Russian soldiers are dismissed, then things are changed.
(J.Z.: Then these 4 millions were "in the hands" of a Stalin. But they were not all Russians. Perhaps even the majority among them was born among the over 100 other suppressed minorities in the Soviet Empire, beside the suppressed Russians. Alas, the Western World's freedom lovers did not sufficiently ponder the overthrow of a regime like Stalin's and the liberation of all its involuntary victims. They still have not done so for the remaining tyrannies. - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
There is no other means to avoid a slavery worse than Hitlerism, not only for Germany but for the whole West, too. (What about the fostering of an uprising of military and other slaves in that tyranny? - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
Suppose, there will be no such army at the frontier. What will be the effect - some days after the beginning of the next war? About six millions of German workers will be compelled to make ammunition for the Soviets, and two weeks later 4 million French workers will help them. Four weeks later, the rest of Europe will work for the Soviets, very probably England, too.
I don't speak of atomic bombs which - - you certainly have read it - - the Soviets are now testing in the Kirghizian steppe.
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You may object: The hate of the Germans, as a consequence of the continued dismantling is now to great that it will be easy for the Russians to cause the Germans to desert and to come to them. (Soviets =/= Russians! "Demontagen" in East Germany were even worse! - J.Z.) In that Russians are good experts; their first very successful action in this direction was to win the whole Czech army in the first weeks of the first world war. The Czechs deserted to the Russians - - the colonel of each regiment at it's top - - and, to say the truth, they were very well received and treated. The objection is probably right at present. People like Vansittard have achieved what the secret Nazi-Propaganda never did. The latter is no longer taken serious, but Vansittard is taken serious and deserves it.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 28.8.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
it may be that Free Banking gets an assistance from a side not expected but predicted many years ago, long before WW II. I append here a paper, "Telegraph", weekly edition, from which you may see, what forgery plays in Western Germany. It may be that central note-issuing becomes technically impossible in a short time. The main difficulty is - - I think - - that no paper dares to publish an article about anything which seems to endanger the present note-monopoly.
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Some weeks ago, I tried, at a meeting of the Social Democratic Party, to explain that the present monopolistic system violates the right of the workers to be always supplied with as many means of payment as to uphold production, which no genius can do in Frankfurt, while the means of payment are wanted at Hamburg or Munich. Much less can it be done by the gentlemen now doing banking business and having no other recommendation than their pitiable role in the great crisis of 1932. You will believe me that I was laughed at.
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I think that you will have read that Hitler, during the war, got English notes printed in great quantities. In 1945 these printers (workers) took these notes together with the printing machines with them. A part was discovered a year or so ago.
Notes from "small" bankers, very probably, will not be forged. It's not worthwhile. The snide (? forgery - J.Z.) would be detected in a few days.
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The "Sozialdemokrat" of 14.7.1949 reports that the New York firm Bache & Co. sells tins, containing 100 ounces of fine gold, for 3,945 Dollars. There are many buyers. If the information is true, then 39.45 Dollars per ounce could be considered as the true value of one ounce expressed in Paper Dollars.
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In his book "The Prince", Machiavelli remarks (chapter 6) that all armed prophets won. This remark of 1532, when the "principe" was first printed (some say it was printed 1515), has not been refuted by history. Hitler and Stalin may also be considered as armed prophets. (They won, at least temporarily! - J.Z., 30.1.03) Their doctrine is a religion, although a very bad one.
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A Greek historian (who's name I forgot - - Thukydides??) reported: Spartan men were absent for a long time and peace seemed far away. Then Sparta's women sent a message to the army and pointed out that, since for a long time no children were born, the State was obviously in danger. The army must admit this danger and send 50 handsome warriors to Sparta with all the virility necessary to propagate the race. The 50 men did their duty and did it well, but about 20 years later the new generation had the greatest difficulties. The "legitimately" born would not recognise them as equal by birth. The law proved to be ineffective. The story seems very credible.
(J.Z.: How many of the children born, supposedly as a result of this government "action", were actually fathered by the male household slaves? - The free Greek males certainly used the female slaves as sex objects. Why not the free women? Do we have here one of the minor causes for the downfall of Sparta? - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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29. 8. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I bought - - although it was light-headed - - for 30 East-Mark a copy of Webster's Complete English Dictionary, edition 1882, price in this year = 1 L + 11 Shill. + 9 Pence.
5.60 East-mark are now sold for 1 West-mark. The quotations at Zuerich were:
1 L = 11.45 Swiss Franc,
100 West-marks = 68.00 Swiss Franc.
So that the price of the Dictionary was:
30 x 1 x 68 x 1 = 0.382 L = 6 s. 4 d.
5.6 100 11.45
Cheap, I think.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
The Dictionary's weight = 4.4 kilograms = 9.77 pounds, 1 pound = 453.59 grams.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 3.9.1949. Your letter of 25.8.49, received 29.8.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
with real pleasure I read your remark:
"A company may insure me against fire, although we both know that if all the buildings insured in this company
are burned down together, the company may be unable to pay."
Although you are not an Insurance man, you found out here a very important point in the insurance business, which more than 99 % of insurance men do not find out. A slight generalisation lets us see that here we have to do with a very general principle governing social, political and individual life. For more than 1 1/2 centuries it has not been discussed - - as far as I know.
The danger that the premiums received are not sufficient to pay all damages may be as small as any optimist may estimate it, but it never becomes zero. Theoretically that is clear a priori. From time to time practice confirms the theory. Before the great conflagration of San Francisco in 1907 - - following the earthquake - - one read in many books, that an experience of many decades had proven: The sum of all damages in one year never exceeded a certain limit. And, nevertheless, in that year the d