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 damages exceeded the average sum, observed for decades, very considerably, and many insurance companies became bankrupt. Since that year the earthquake clause became general.
A similar case was, perhaps, the great loss in Middle Europe in the year 1921. The year was extremely hot. The companies' reserves were destroyed by the inflation. It was the general opinion in that year, that the German companies were saved simply by the progress of inflation beginning in October 1921.
The first scientist who earnestly considered the problem was Jacques Bernoulli, whose book on probabilities ("Ars conjectandi") was published 1713, 8 years after B.'s death. (Burnt 1943) B. said, that there must be a probability which, in practice, can be considered as zero and he proposed to accept the fraction 1/ 10.000 as this probability, as long as facts or better reflections than his may lead to the acceptance of another fraction. As applicable cases Bernoulli mentioned: The obligations of an insurance company or of single merchants who granted an insurance, other obligations of merchants, decisions of judges and some others which I forgot.
Some decades later Buffon, in his "Arithmétique morale" (*) again considered the problem and proposed the fraction 1/100,000 as a probability which, in practice, could be considered as zero. Buffon said: 1/100,000 is about the probability for a healthy man to live at least 24 hours. Everybody, in normal times, is convinced to be alive the next day and insofar, in his practice, takes the probability of 1/100,000 as zero.
(*) (Microfiched by me in PEACE PLANS 332. I would like to get a German or English translation, to enable me to read it. - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
But in insurance business the question arises whether the probabilities are known well enough by mere observation, even if the observation would include a period of many decades. Therefore - - at least in Germany - - some founders of insurance companies inserted a clause: In cases of excessive damages, the company will raise a fresh payment from the insured, but not more than a certain multiple of the normal premium. Damages, which cannot be paid by such fresh payments, shall be considered as not insured.
Example: The first insurance conditions of the Gotha Fire Insurance Company, published 1820, demanded that every insured must hand over to the company a bill of exchange for an amount of the eight-fold of the normal premium. The usefulness of the clause was seen at the conflagration of Hamburg in 1842. The Gotha Clause shifted the risk from the company to the insured and was a very good solution, certainly a much better one than the omission of every clause - - as at modern insurance companies - - for the case that unexpected risks disturbed the normal business.
At the inflation time in Austria were founded hundreds of small insurance companies which insured not in paper crowns but in grain or other real values. The greatest part of the insured were peasant. All these small companies had clauses similar to the old Gotha Cause.
I think, that if by such clauses commercial risks may be eliminated, that is a better solution than to consider the risk to be zero, just because it can be estimated to come to less than 1/10,000 or 1/100,000 or so.
Concerning the redemption of bank notes, experience has proven that the risk is much greater than 1/10,000. At the moment, I am not able to verify that assertion, my library being burnt.
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Notes considered as loan certificates.
Certainly you are right if you say: "If I owe B. Pound 10 and he owes me L 10, it were obviously foolish for us both to pay over L 10 to the other."
For your, for me and for many other people it would be foolish. But Jevons in his book "Money" (burnt) tells us, that still in the 19th century the merchants of Manchester as well as those of Liverpool - - certainly no blockheads, considered clearing as a most unreliable means of paying. Every day a messenger was sent from Manchester to Liverpool, who paid, with notes, for the cotton, brought from Liverpool to Manchester.
In Germany a law of the Nazi-time is in force, by which banks or any other money institutions are prohibited from creating accounts which are not to be transformed into cash but which can only be used for clearing purposes. From their standpoint the Nazis were quite in the right. Clearing means independence from the State Bank. The Nazis wanted everybody to be dependent upon the State Bank and exposed to economic (or physical) annihilation if the State Bank would not grant him means of payment.
Tyrannical governments do, from time to time, issue such laws. The first seems to have been issued by Chamillard, minister of Louis XIV., after the death of Colbert: His notes had to be used in every private payment for an amount of 1/4. (Obviously, of the amount to be paid. - J.Z.) (I quote from Roscher, "Nationalökonomik des Handels und Gewerbfleisses", 7th edition, 1899, page 325, $ 52.)
Interesting is that Laws, as the quoted German one, are not considered to be tyrannical but as increasing stability in trade, and this by the people as well as the average economists. (Marx calls them: Vulgär-Ökonomisten") (And Marx was perhaps the worst of them! - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
("Den Teufel spürt das Völkchen nie,
"Und wenn er sie beim Kragen hätte." - Goethe, Faust) (Translated somewhere above. - J.Z.)
In judging notes of the old style, the mentality factor cannot be discarded.
One party says: Merchants are so important persons for the community, that they must be endowed with the permission to raise loans from the people in a way, that the people have merely theoretically the choice to escape the raising of the loan, but not in practice. Nobody can refuse notes if there are no other means of payment at hand.
Another party says: There should be no more compulsion in the community than is necessary. A means of payment, based on the clearing principle (such as the certificates issued on the basis of the "Four Bills") should at least be permitted. If they are permitted, then any other principle may compete with the "Clearing Certificates".
Both parties start from a certain mentality, the second from a mentality not very far from Anarchism. (Admitted,
but justified by Benjamin R. Tucker.) Among the authors of the "Four Bills", there was only one, who conceived completely the mental basis of the clearing principle, but he was prudent enough to keep his opinion for himself.
The difference between a note of the old style and a clearing certificate becomes evident also from other considerations.
To credit belongs, essentially, a time, for which the credit is granted. If the creditor is entitled realise his claim at any time, and if the debtor is ready to realize the claim at any time, without delay, the connection between the two parties is not any more that of creditor to debtor but of claimant to obligee. Zander, in his treatise about railway money explained the difference well. If the railway pays wages and other expenses by certificates which it accepts at any time for tickets and freight charges, these certificates are no loan raised by the railway from the public. But if the railway issued so many certificates, that the possessor of the certificates eventually must wait until he gets an opportunity to exchange it for a ticket, then the railway becomes a debtor and the ticket-possessor a creditor, and then the sum of the issued (and not immediately usable - J.Z., 30.1.03.) certificates becomes a loan raised from the public.
This difference may seem to be merely theoretical and "hair splitting", but, in practice it is important and the non-distinguishing does, thereby, announce a mentality quite different from the mentality which distinguishes the two relations.
If in every case the railway, issuing certificates, is considered as really raising loans from the public, or a group of shops, issuing certificates, accepted at the shops as money, is considered as raising a loan from the public, then the possibility of exchanging the certificates against goods or services is merely a collateral security and the obligation to exchange the certificates in this way is a burden, imposed upon a debtor, who is also trustworthy without that obligation.
Trust of the possessor of the certificates is the most essential element in his relation to the issuer of the certificates.
(J.Z.: Only at the moment of accepting them. Essentially, there would be close to certainty that the issuer would accept them for his goods and services any time and could do so. That could be almost immediately tested. As for the right to issue, without thereby burdening anyone else but oneself, spreading rights rather than additional obligations by the issues: Morally, one should be at liberty to oblige oneself to deliver immediately goods and services, to the limits of one's supply capacity, in a technically perfected form, with transferable certificates or accounts, on paper or electronically, without this being interpreted or really being, an imposition, in any way, any burden laid upon others. The own goods- and service vouchers are such IOUs. Their value is judged by others, evaluated and rated and perhaps refused. But if they do accept them, then they are only under the "burden" to claim or collect or accept the offered goods or services. If they do not claim them, then they have no one to blame but themselves. It would be as if they had bought a cinema or theatre or concert ticket and then thrown it away. It is also obvious that no one could cause an inflation with such "tickets" or self-imposed obligations to deliver goods or services, immediately. People will not be ready to accept more of these IOUs than they expect to be able and willing to use, soon, especially when these tickets or goods- or service warrants are also time-limited. And the issuer will not oblige himself beyond his capacity to deliver. Goods and service side do then, obviously and necessarily, stay in close balance with the kind of money or tickets etc. issued and streaming back "for redemption" in goods and services, for all such "private money" issues. - Elsewhere B. pointed out that "distrust" or the "discount possibility" is also an essential part of this monetary freedom system. Any discount, arising out of ignorance or distrust, would accelerate the reflux of these "tickets" for "redemption" into the ready for sale goods and services, and would thereby remove them and the distrust, rather rapidly. - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
But if the issuing is not considered as raising a loan from the public, then the relationship is very much changed. That the existing legislation has not yet recognised the special nature of the here given relationship does not prove the non-existence of such relationships. Trust is now required in no higher degree and of no other kind than the purchaser of a postage stamp at the post office must have in the post's reliability. This kind of trust is different from a creditor's trust, not merely in degree but in kind. The obligation of the issuer to exchange his certificates against his goods or services, is now no more a burden - - and perhaps an unnecessary one - - but, on the contrary, the way of least economic resistance. On the other hand, the obligation to redeem the certificate in gold or whatever the standard of value may be, is not any more essential, although, in the case of a loan it may be an essential means to maintain trust.
It seems, the complete theory of the here possible relationships has not yet been worked out.
(Freedom for all non-coercive monetary, clearing and credit relationships as well as for all non-coercive sexual and religious relationships! - J.Z., 30.1.03.)
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My ethic Christian ????????????????? Firstly:
The Christian ethic declines Justice, the word taken in its usual sense, which Christ himself emphasised (Matth. chapter 20 and other passages). But Kant said: "Let Justice prevail, even if all scoundrels in the world would perish" and asserted that this was the true meaning of "Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus".
( Excuse me - - but my Webster does not distinguish Justice and justice. What's the matter?)
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"… your altruistic pleasure as one among other pleasures ... "
Knohi Sauton !!!! says the Delphian god, and it's much less easy than it seems. Kant asserts that nature will perform its intentions by our actions and for this reason sometimes accompanies them with pleasure and sometimes with feelings of another kind. I think - - and hope to agree with Kant - - that the subsumption of many-
fold feelings, now etymologically subsumed under the word pleasure, is not the best treatment of the different notions from a philosophical standpoint.
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Glory - - atom-bombs will, probably, in a few years, lay the glorious beside the inglorious, the egoistic beside the altruistic and the clearing house certificate holder beside the bearer of a gold redemption note, if at that time both are not still prohibited, which is the most probably.
Glory - - I beg you to believe me - - without detailed proof - - that my resemblance to Achilles is very moderate and - - I am afraid - - would not be acknowledged by that great boxer and corpse desecrator.
But: In one point I do resemble him (not equal him): When he said, that it was no glory to be a king among the shadows of the subterranean world, I do agree and add only, that even royal splendour among men cannot seduce the philosopher. If our friends say: He did, what he could, although a weak, mortal man, that's glory enough.
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Cooperation. Your conjecture that the dividends attract many women, even in cases where the commodities in cooperative stores are inferior, has much weight. In Germany, some decades ago, people observed the same. Private shops competed then, successful, by granting dividends also, by issuing "Wertmarken" (coupons, value stamps, very small credit tokens - J.Z.), but the government prohibited them, which was unjust and silly.
(J.Z: My father showed me once a whole book filled with this legislation and the commentaries on it. Those, who, like him, still tried to find loopholes in these laws, regulations and juridical decisions, had certainly a big job on hand, and, if they temporarily succeeded, then a small segment of the flood of current legislation, regulations and juridical decisions would soon close it again. The same applies to tax laws, protectionism, foreign exchange controls, the remnants of the capital markets etc. Nothing else helps here than individual secessionism, combined with exterritorial autonomy, started by either a monetary revolution or a general tax strike or by people and soldiers seceding en masse from a warlike government and genuine citizen-militias of volunteers, knowing and appreciating all their individual rights that have so far been discovered. Today freedom is not impossible - it is simply outlawed, in almost every sphere. The little that formally remains has still to be fought for, all too often, in expensive and long court battles and even these self-defence options are often denied, e.g., by many forfeiture laws. In all too many respects, we have revived the worst aspects of absolutist monarchism and mercantilism. Somebody should try to make an objective evaluation of the wrongful burdens placed upon American colonialists by English Kings and Parliamentary "representatives" with those which "liberated" Americans have "placed upon themselves" -through their "elected" "representatives". I believe their burdens today, reckoned in gold weight values, imposed labours and prevented opportunities are much larger than they were then. And then they did rise, considering their minor burdens as already too large, compared with the liberties they could still experience at least at the frontiers - of if they choose to join a Red Indian tribe. - J.Z., 23.05.03.)
Scarcity of Dollars. Agreed!
Unemployment. Your arguments are not without foundation but the present situation shows that the relations of workers to employers are on an unsound basis.
In Russia the share of the managers of cooperatives in the product is - - I learned it from several articles - - greater than the share of employers in England and in America. That could be o n e reason to transform as many concerns as possible into cooperatives, whose managers are the present proprietors, as long as they live. Workers should immediately have to confront the real barriers for wages, which will be the case only if they are organised in a cooperative. On the other hand, there is no sound reason why they should not get higher wages if there really exists the economic possibility to increase the present wages.
Free Banking is - - I think - - a means to better the state of human society and should not be used, and in that way discredited, in class warfare battles. Free Banking should contribute to apportion, in a just way, the product among workers, managers and the others involved in production. It should not be used to exploit workers by employers or - - I know cases in Berlin - - employers by employees, or to exploit both by commerce (very frequent) or commerce by production, as in countries with price control.
(Fiat justitia, pereat mundus!)
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 4.9.1949. Your letter of 25.8.49, received 29.8.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
today I find in the Colloquia of Luther, published about 300 years ago, that passage:
Des Evangelii Art. (The true nature of the gospel.) (The wisdom of the Evangelium? - J.Z.)
"Cassia ist Zimtrinden gleich, hat die Kraft, dass es die Augen purgiert und reinigt, und ist gut wider Ottern- und Schlangenbisse. Ist ein Bild des Evangelii, welches die Finsternis vertreibt und bringet das Licht wieder und ist eine gemeine Arznei, etc."
(Cassia resembles the bark of cinnamon; it has the power to purge and to clean the eyes and is good against stings of snakes and bites of adders. It's a symbol of the gospel, which expels darkness, restores light and is a common medicine. etc.)
From time to time good old remedies are simply forgotten. Is Cassia still known as a remedy for cataract???????? (Obviously this was what Luther meant.)
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Rheumatism. For years it was my habit to drink, before going to sleep, one cup of peppermint tea or two. If I do so now, I can be sure to wake up, 2 hours later, with all symptoms of rheumatism in the calves. Other drinks have the same effect. Some time ago, I had an opportunity to talk about this with a very intelligent lady, who said to me that she had observed the same and since that time drinks nothing for 3 hours before sleeping.
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I received today
1.) "Truth" of 26. 8. 1949,
2.) "The Economist" of 20.8.1949,
3.) "National News-Letter" of 11.8.1949.
Thank you very much.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 5.9.1949. Your letter of 25.8.49, received 29.8.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
Colour bar - - certainly - - the Hereros were treated by the German government as coloured people generally are treated by the White. I am far from excusing it. What concerns the treatment by the colonists, I heard from several people, returned from South West Africa, that the Negroes preferred a job with German colonists to any other. If that should be true - - and I learnt so many details from my acquaintances, that I am inclined to believe it, they will have done so because they considered the Germans as the lesser evil, not because they loved them or hoped to march together with their masters "to the top of civilisation".
But for me all that is not important. A man is responsible for that which is in his power. He is not responsible for the acts of a government which taxes him, also not for acts of other people who speak the same language as he or confess the same religion or share his prejudices. He may be suspected to emphasise criminal acts or the principles for which they were committed, but not as much as he may be judged by his own acts or words.
As for myself, I am member
1.) of the République supranationale, whose founder was H. L. Follin,
2.) of the "Cosmopolitische Union", founded by Werner Ackermann.
Both Associations (I joined them a short time before 1933, demanded from their members a declaration that nationality would never be, for them, an consideration to judge men and that, insofar, the member gave up his nationality altogether.
If a Herero tribe would today introduce the mutual banking principle, then I would, at once, beg for the honour to be accepted as an assistant member of the tribe.
If you have an opportunity to read "La solidarité sociale" by G.-L. Duprat, Paris, 1907, please read at first the chapter "La responsabilité collective". On page 103 Duprat says inter alia":
"La plupart des sacrifices humains sont le fruit d'une croyance universelle à la responsabilité collective dans le cas d'offences individuelles." Duprat further says some most valuable things.
Concerning the Senegal Negroes I do admit that they were perfect gentlemen compared with the SS-men who spread Nazi-"Culture" in Poland and in the Ukraine. And I think than more than 3/4 of all Germans admit it too.
Intermarriage? I know that the people with the longest colonial experience, the Portuguese, favour intermarriages and with best success - - the thing considered from a political standpoint. If the offspring of intermarriages are well treated then this is the best support for the white race. If I were a statesman I would favour intermarriages, too.
But: Are intermarriages in the personal interest of those involved? There are such and such. Here in Berlin, I
knew before the war the owners of two Chinese restaurants. Both were married to German women. Both women were content with their husbands and told me, that they were probably better treated than German wives are by their husbands. From people who lived in India, I learnt that marriages with Indian girls are not to be recommended. The superstition of Indian women surpasses all limits and their mentality - - I heard - - is that of women of the lowest classes in Germany, even if they belong to the Brahman caste. Very good were the experiences with Suaheli girls and women, reported by some of my acquaintances. Their notions of cleanliness are different from German notions but their character is excellent, also they are willing to learn and to accept European manners. One fault is, my acquaintances reported - - that they treated the children of white men too well, with the result, that the children become insolent.
After 1870 a literature came up in Germany which intended to introduce a "racial mentality" into Germany. The authors had no success. There was never a strike if, e.g. a Negro worked at a German harbour and I know of no example where any couple was troubled because one partner was coloured, except during the Nazi-time. But the Nazi-Literature itself confirms that "racial mentality" was not a feature of the German race, or more exactly spoken, of 9/10th of it. (Antisemitism set apart.) Goebbels and many others repeated constantly that Germans
must now begin to think in racial notions and that it must be the aim of the NSDAP to "educate" the people in this sense. In the South of the USA such admonitions would have been very superfluous.
One of the reasons for which the Germans in the USA were hated and in contempt and still are is: At the slavery time (before 1863, when Lincoln freed all slaves) and later, the Germans did not exclude the Negroes from their
circles. And more: When a slave fed, he tried to come into a district where Germans lived. There he was sure not to be betrayed. Often the Germans liberated a slave whom the American police had captured. On this I read some stories.
At present my impression is, that the American Negro-Soldiers are much more welcome among the Germans (girls included) than the Americans themselves. I would not say this if my acquaintances did not get the same impression.
(An aside: In May, when the Blockade was finished, but from time to time the Russians captured trucks with cargo, the American Military Government one day sent some Negro soldiers with each truck. All were men of 6 feet and strong as buffaloes. The Russian soldiers, obviously, had never before seen Negroes and were so terrified that the formalities, normally taken hours, were this time fulfilled in less than two minutes, for more, than 100 autos.)
The propaganda against the Senegal-Negroes in 1918 and later, was the work of a very small group but well trained in propaganda. What I heard personally at Mühlheim on the Rhine was: The Negroes and the Moroccan Soldiers were much better than the French themselves; nobody had expected this.
(J.Z.: They should have. France was partly occupied and a battle-zone for years, while Negroes and Moroccans, like many Germans after 1918, had experience with French colonialism. Moreover, Negroes and Moroccans, as such, were not attacked by German forces, at least not in their home-lands. Naturally, under their conditions, they were part of the French forces. - J.Z., 31.1.03.)
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Dismantling in Germany, Victor Gollancz and the "Jew-Question".
English politicians should read the "Principe" of Machiavelli, chapter 5, last sentence. There M. speaks of conquered States and distinguishes - - very well - - conquered republics and other States. He says:
"In conquered republics, there is always much hatred against the conquerors and the lost liberty will never be forgotten. Therefore, the conqueror must destroy them or chose them for his residence."
Another passage of the same chapter is:
"Who becomes master of a community which before lived in liberty and does not dissolve the community may, with certainty, expect to be ruined by the conquered community."
History confirms the opinion of this old expert. Napoleon says in the "Mémoires de Saint-Hélène", that his fault was not to destroy Prussia. He had reduced the country to 4 millions of inhabitants, and commanded himself more than 50 millions even after his defeat of 1812, and, nevertheless, it was that little Prussia which destroyed his power or, more exactly spoken, decided the issue of the war, begun 1813.
For English politicians it is now too late to destroy Germany. Therefore, only the second of the Machiavellian possibilities remains, that is, an essential part of the English Government must be removed to Germany and the Germans must be treated on and equal footing with the English subjects. Every other measure means the third possibility of Machiavelli, that is, destruction of the English power with the help of Germany. The help may be forced - - as it certainly will be - - but it will be no less effective. Remember the role of Czecho-Slovakia in the last war. Her factories worked against England and the workers sympathised with England and daily heard the BBC. The latter was quite unimportant.
What the English politicians do now, is simply craziness. The dismantling of German factories will not prevent one English town from being destroyed once the Russians (the Soviet regime! - J.Z.) begins the next war and will not even retard the occupation for one hour. But the dismantling will diminish the resistance of German workers if the Kremlin transports the to Russia or Siberia. There the German workers will make guns, V2 rockets etc., not to talk of atomic bombs.
(On a gut level, the former workers of the dismantled factories will see this as depriving them of their jobs, i.e., their means to survive. Even a cornered rat will tend to fight. - J.Z., 31.1.03.)
Stephen King-Hall, in his "National News-Letter" of 11.8.1949 says quite rightly, that the 100, 000 English soldiers now in Germany are as good as nothing. - If there are not at least 1 million of English soldiers, 1 million of Americans and some 100,000 of Germans, then there is no real power to stop the Russian attack. These numbers may seem fantastic but the real number of Russian soldiers immediately behind the "Iron Curtain", is hardly less than 3 millions, which the English politicians should know as well as others know it. The German part of the newly created army must be treated so that it is not tempted to play the role of the Prussian Army under Yorck, who concluded the celebrated Convention of Tauroggen with the Russian general Diebitsch, on the 30th of December 1812.
I do admit that it is useless to talk about this. English politics is made by people like Vansittard and Bevin, who know as much of history as of monetary theory, that is: Nothing.
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I forgot the name of the German professor (a Jew), who fled at the Nazi-Time to England. He was one of the best atomic-theorists. In the England of the year 1939 he was considered as a "German", and, really, the "German" authorities had taxed him, his language was German and his passport announced him as a German citizen. The English - - quite logical and applying the old biblical principle of collective responsibility (The subjects account for the acts of the government that taxed them and gives them passports) - - would lock him up in a concentration camp. The professor must be a "German". But, unluckily, the professor did not share the English views on collective responsibility, fled to the Russians and was very well accepted there. He built up the factories for Russian atomic bombs and some weeks ago the seismographs in the whole world announced that he had been quite successful. (I attach a clipping which Rittershausen sent me.) The earthquake that came from the Kirghizian steppe announced the beginning of a new epoch of history or - - perhaps - - the end of history itself. That was the practice of the theory of collective responsibility.
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Victor Gollancz is no adherent of the collective responsibility principle. That places him very high above his contemporaries. Their greatest part is unable to emancipate themselves from that principle. Maybe V.C. was born as a Jew. I think that now he is no longer a Jew but belongs to the little community of men where nobody is asked: "Where do you come from?" but "Where do you go?" - to quote Nietzsche.
What V. G. says is quite right: "… time is desperately short - a matter not of years or months but of weeks and days."
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Stuart R. de la Mahotiere is one of those, who cannot see and therefore cannot judge the real situation. He says: "… Suffice it to say that if full national sovereignty is restored - - as one day it obviously must be - - …
"Stuart R. de la Mahotiere (his name lets conjecture that his ancestors belonged to the people who, under William the Conqueror played the role which the Russians will play with the help of 20,000 aeroplanes in one of the next years) is very much mistaken if he thinks that one day national sovereignty (as the word is now understood by average politicians) must be restored. On the contrary, that restoration must be prevented by all means. What now must be restored that is the old national unity of the emigrated Saxons (Hengist and Horsa - - the story seems to be true) and the Saxons who had remained in Germany. If that aim will not be attained, then Machiavelli will be in the right and England is lost (in any case as a State, but, perhaps, also as a society) and it will be a bad consolation that Germany will be lost too.
She will be lost with dismantling and without.
St. R. de la M. says: "In seeking to adopt a Christian solution to the German problem, Mr. Gollancz does, apparently, overlook the necessity of doing elementary justice to the victims of German aggression".
He does not perceive that nations are no persons but notions. What a nation is, depends upon military successes of people forgotten today, on marriages of kings, on literature or religions. If Clovis would not have defeated Syagrius, then married the Burgundian princess Clotilda, then become (by the influence of this princess) a Christian, then defeated Alaric II of the Visigoths, there would never have existed a French nation. If Egbert of Wessex would not have conquered the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, there would never have been an English nation, and Stuart R. de la M. would be executed for his opinion, that a man of Northumberland should
consider a man of Kent as his countryman. If that is admitted, then there never was a German aggression. There was a Hitlerian aggression. And there was never an English attack on Berlin, on the 22.11.1943, by which my house, my library and some other things were destroyed, but there was the obedience of some unlucky pilots, who were no more responsible than the soldiers at Jerusalem, who crucified Jesus Christ and of whom one can only say:
"Father - - if you exist - - forgive them, they do not know what they are doing."
Yes - - if we had the right religion, the Germans, who followed Hitler, would have killed him before he could do harm and the English soldiers, who were ordered to destroy Berlin, would have refused to obey and then both would have founded a new order of things and everyone who demanded a continuation of the war would have been sacrificed on the altar of the goddess Pax. This edifying scene would have been filmed and reproduced every year for the great pleasure of the newly created nation of Pacifists. But this religion is still to be created. (Please - - the idea is not mine - - I talked about it 50 years ago with revolutionaries who sought for such a religion.) Let me here remark, that if I had studied for many years the philosophies of Kant and of Schopenhauer, it was because the seemed to contain elements of such a useful religion.
But - - the religious side set apart - - it is sufficient to consider humanity as one nation to whom its real unity is concealed by the nationalists. If this consideration becomes universal, than reparations by any "nation" would seem as "reasonable" as if the Germans would demand reparations from the Mongol republic for the aggression of the Mongols and the burning of Breslau in the year 1241. The Mongols of today are proud to be the real and worthy successors of Genghis Khan, may they pay for that dignity! Or - - if they decline - - they may tell us, at what age the children of conquerors are no more responsible for the crimes of their fathers (or, if the mothers worked in ammunition factories, of the mothers too).
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I read with interest the article of Eric Blumenfeld, too. He is a German nationalist, but good-natured. I - - an
anti-nationalist must decline his arguments.
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That's all "theory" - - well, well! But the next attack of Russia on Western Europe is no theory; it would be impossible without the "practice" of experts like Stuart R. de la Mahotiere, of Lord Vansittard and such people. (There are Germans enough of the same rank - - you know them as well as I do.)
(J.Z.: Really only: One false notion attacking another false notion, not directly, because that is impossible, but by means of people who are foolish enough to believe in the reality and the worth of such abstract notions and who align themselves accordingly, to slaughter, suppress or exploit each other. - J.Z., 1.2.03.
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You took the trouble to copy my letter, reproduced in your letter of 8.8.1949 to the editor of the Times. I am quite touched. But the situation is now such, that the course of history (or the end of history) cannot any more be stopped.
"Fate show thy force: Ourselves we do not owe,
"What is decreed must be, and be this so." - Shakespeare, 'Twelfth Night", Act I, end.
(J.Z.: How fast could alternative sound ideas actually be spread and unsound ideas be effectively refuted - IF we made the fullest possible use of all affordable and efficient as well as lasting alternative media? - J.Z., 1.2.03.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
I hope to write, in my next letter, some words about the "Jew-question".
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U. v. Beckerath, … 7.9.1949. My letter of 6. 9. 49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
you will have read in English papers about what happened in Berlin when the Film "Oliver Twist" was to be shown. A number of well-armed (Polish) Jews closed the theatre, treated the visitors pretty badly and hurt a number of policemen. Their courage must be acknowledged, and if, under the influence of old antisemitic propaganda, there were, still people who believed the Jews to be cowards, they were disappointed in a very disagreeable manner. Since these days the Jewish activity has much increased.
(J.Z.: The last sentence is literally B.'s English. I do not know what he referred to here. Probably militant and well organised young Jewish activists, sensitive to over-sensitive to any real or imagined slur upon their good reputation. When I arrived in Australia in 1959, I found them very active e.g. on the open air speaking centre in Sydney's "The Domain", on Sunday afternoons. Later, they did not bother anymore, possibly because they had run out of opponents. Among some under-educated Germans, the Jewish in Israel people earned respect more for their military victories over Arab forces than for their immense cultural achievements all over the world and especially in Germany. - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
I enclose here a cutting from the "Tagesspiegel", from which you may see, that it became really dangerous to utter in the streets anything that may be interpreted by the "activists" among the Jews (most Polish) as antisemitic. It is the same with literature. Books or other literature, considered to be antisemitic by the activists, cannot be sold in Berlin.
(J.Z.: Perhaps it is good that the memory of past atrocities is kept alive even in this form and by laws like the Berlin one, which imposed a prison sentence of up to 2 years upon any mere antisemitic remark in public. I cannot blame these activists and such legislation. However, they neither enlightens these activists and their sympathisers and the antisemitic or other racist offenders, sufficiently, e.g., about the wrongfulness and absurdities of collective responsibility and of territorial absolutism or majoritarianism, whether practised by Nazis, Jews, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, Red Indians, Japanese or any other racial, ethnic, national religious or ideological group. - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
I had an opportunity to talk about these matters with two Jewish families I know. They are still more terrified than their German friends are and assured me - - what needs no proof - - that the greatest part of the Jewish community (about 7,000 people - - before 1933 about 300,000 ) would prevent it if they could. But they cannot. They see as clearly as we do, that the effect must be:
1.) Many people, who until now were friends of the Jews or were indifferent, now become antisemites. I say: Friends of the Jews. It must not be forgotten, that many thousands of Germans were brought to the concentration camps simply because they did not stop their intercourse with Jews or helped them as far as possible. My impression is that the number was greater than the number of the imprisoned Jews. But here I may be mistaken and a statistic about the two numbers is impossible.
(J.Z.: That was in the early stages. Later there were mass arrests and deportations of Jews into the concentration and extermination camps. But the first few hundred thousand inmates of Nazi concentration camps were not Jews but other opponents of the regime. I read in a Berlin paper that about 5,000 Jews survived in Berlin, hidden by their friends. Personally, I know only about one of them, his Christian wife and their son, who was for a while my friend - and introduced me to cigarettes and the black market. That Jewish husband and father was hidden, under extreme and efficient precautions, for many years in their flat. My mother, formally a Nazi party member, and working as a lowly secretary in a Nazi propaganda department "Reichsamt fuer Schrifttum, was its official name, I believe, also hid some of them, and other illegals, temporarily. All visitors staying for more than 3 days had to be reported to the police - or were reported by other informants. - Those, who hid them, did risk not only their liberty but their lives and those of their families, if found out by the regime. - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
I speak here of average people. The opinion of others will not be altered, neither by any antisemitic propaganda, nor the acts of the last weeks.
2.) As soon as the foreign military police in withdrawn, the Jews will be hit as at the Nazi time. (A few hours later, the Russians will have occupied whole of Berlin and will have a good moral reason to do so. But the Berlin people prefers an occupation by the Western Allies. I do hope, that the military police will not be withdrawn as long as I live. The new attacks will be executed by no more people than those Jewish people, who attacked the cinemas some months before. But the first impression - - of course - - will be that the whole of Berlin organised a pogrom. The situation will be the same as in September 1792 in Paris, when a few hundred fanatics began the "September-murders". The first impression was, that the whole of Paris was engaged in them and in some books it is still described in this way. But at last Péthion stopped the murders, with very much snap (energy? - J.Z.), some suitable words and a few National Guards.
(J.Z.: Now I wonder, whether this whole affair was not organized by the Soviets in order to achieve what they failed to achieve through the blockade. I vaguely heard of a similar plan later on, before the Berlin Wall went up. They wanted to send many agents and provocateurs to West Berlin - - to organise something that would seem to be an uprising of Nazis, with the intention to publicise that as if it were a popular uprising and then to march in, "to restore order". If well managed, this kind of show could have been successful and deceived world opinion and would have, seemingly, justified their occupation of West Berlin, whose few liberties were very felt like thorns in their skins. - Maybe it will take still further decades before the full truths on these affairs will be revealed, to the extent that they are still recorded somewhere. The appeal of Neo-Nazis to West Berliners was so low that, when my girlfriend, of Jewish descent, and I, with all our sympathies on the Jewish side and that of other opponents of the Nazis, just out of curiosity, once went to a well advertised propaganda meeting for them. We found, in a large hall rented for this purpose, just the advertised speaker and we two were the only ones, quite temporarily in attendance! We had a few words with him, noticed his ignorance and prejudices and left him to meditate by himself. - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
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It is said - - and I think, rightly so - - that some Americans protect these (intolerant and violent - J.Z.) Jews. They do not know what they do.
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The lesson is: Nationalism is the same, whether Nazi or Jewish or any other.
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Western papers state that German nationalism - - apart from the Jewish-Problem - - is growing. That is also my impression. But this growth was inevitable.
Before 1945 Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism were wide-spread in Germany. I estimate that about 1 % of the people were more Internationalists than Nationalists. 1 % may seem very few, but in other countries the percentage was certainly much lower.
Already in the year 1793 the German philosopher J. G. Fichte demanded from the then existing States the permission for Non-Etatists to create their own social organisations, not subject to national military laws, and said, that the by then existing Jewish communities could serve as a model. (Fichte, "Considerations about the French Revolution".)
In the year 1913 the movement had already considerable influence and the "Syndicalist" Trade Unions (with about 20,000 members) supported it. After 1918 the movement still grew. Its history is still to be written.
But what does the average man say now, if he hears talk about Internationalism? He says
Internationalism is swindle. The swindle began with Wilson's "17 Points". (He does not know that the German Chancellor, Michaelis, publicly refused to accept these "points" in the Reichstag.) The League of Nations was a continuation of the swindle. It protected not one attacked nation. (He says this, because he does not know the real history of the time 20 years ago. But the impression of Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia was really deep and the indignation about the failures of the League was great.)
Communists pretended to be Internationalists. But what did Soviet-Communism do? It allied itself with Hitler. Later, during the war, the German soldiers were appealed to, by Soviet leaflets, to leave the German army and to come to the Russians, where they would be well treated. Even immediately before the Occupation, Soviet leaflets, thrown down in great quantities by Russian planes) spoke much of internationalism and "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" - No comment is necessary.
And the British Labour Party? Is it not - - the average man says - - a socialist party and, insofar, an internationalist one? And by what government is dismantling mostly carried out?
The average man says still more of the same kind, which I need not report here.
Then one of the few still remaining Cosmopolitans, like myself, may answer: Well - - Internationalism must be created. It is not so, that the failure of the old Internationalism proves the necessity of a new Nationalism. - You may imagine the answer of average people.
Further, it may be mentioned here, that not a few of the old Internationalists thought much of the Jews, precisely for the reason for which the Antisemites attacked the Jews: Their Internationalism. And I knew some Jews who really said: For us Internationalism is a national task, and consequently they rejected Zionism.
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That's all over. For an average German and, especially a German youth, who learnt nothing about history, all warnings by National-Socialism about Internationalism now become true!!
Cosmopolitans - - like me - - are now really in the position in which Bismarck placed them: In the position of a race among the Germans, the Slavs, the Roman, etc., races. Lost sentinels - - it seems.
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We are "visionaries", and the others are "practitioners" - - of course. Their "practice" has led them to the point where on the one side in the Kirghizian Steppe and on the other side in some suitable place in Nevada, or wherever it may be, on the other side, atomic bombs are waiting to speak their word, which is: Away with these beings, the ones too blocked and the others too cowardly to deserve a better life than they had. Atoms will replace both by their Cosmopolitanism. (B. used, mostly, not always, "cosmopolitism" instead. - J.Z.)
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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Clearing-House-Certificates used In the Currency Famine of 1893 (See: John DeWitt. Warner, "The Currency-Famine of 1893", Sound Currency, years 1895 & 1896, were essentially the same as W. B. Greene's notes, except that these Certificates were not used (very wisely) for long term loans.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Russian Revolutionaries ask: Is there a system that enables us to emancipate ourselves, within an hour from the Soviet Central Bank? Is Free Banking (model 1934) such a system?
Answer: No! It requires some time to be realised and requires conditions not given in the Russia of 1949.
Is the System of Warner suitable?
Answer: Yes, it is quite suitable. In the USA (by far not merely in New York - - much more in small communities - - ) it was realised, sometimes within a few minutes. Use it too!
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Bth. 7.9.19490
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U. v. Beckerath, … 9. 9. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
in "Truth" of August 26, 1949, A. K. Chesterton published an article: "Who Is For Britain?"
My modest reply to your question: "What do you think about this article?" is: This article displeases me very much.
The heading: "Who Is For Britain?" represents the British members of the Strasbourg Assembly as men who are not for Britain. Does Chesterton himself believe that they really are not for Britain? If - - per impossibile - - there would arise a situation, in which Britain's future would depend upon the readiness of every member to sacrifice his life at once for Britain, say: a situation similar to that in which Decius died for Rome, does Chesterton doubt that every member, at once and without hesitating one minute, would sacrifice his life?
(J.Z.: A typical "ad hominem" exaggeration by B. towards M. In Britain, too, there are many who would rather let millions perish than risk their own lives. All too many do hate "their" government or what they believe to be the ruling "society", so much that, for various reasons, that they would be glad about the whole country and all its people perishing. All "nations" contain many such "Catiline existences" and will go on producing them, as long as they try to continue as territorial nations, with their inherently numerous dissenters, who would rather like to drop out and to their own things to and for themselves. - We live in a world in which numerous terrorists strive to get their hands on mass murder devices and many of them, those officials in power in all too many States, have already succeeded in this. But they deny their terrorist practice - and all too many believe them, in spite of e.g., the practice of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) policies carried out for decades and multiple "over-kill" stocks of anti-people "weapons" or mass murder devices. - - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
Chesterton says: " Never before has there been a betrayal at one and the same time so well intentioned and so grievously damaging to our national interests as that which has led to the Strasbourg Assembly."
It is Chesterton's good right to assert and try to prove that the aims of the Strasbourg Assembly damages Britain's interests. But he has no right to speak of betrayal.
Chesterton quotes the words of Livy: "That State alone is free which rests on its own strength and does not depend upon the will of another."
Livy is quite right, but does Chesterton really believe that the British members of the Strasbourg Assembly did not know - - I will not says old Livy - - but the truth he stated ?
The members took into consideration what Chesterton ignores (does he really ignore it? He seems no blockhead) and that is:
England has 50 millions inhabitants (thanks to Malthus - - she could have 100 millions at least) of whom a part sympathises with the Kremlin.
The Kremlin commands 200 millions of Russians (J.Z.: and over 100 other ethnic groups, not to speak of others! - J.Z.) (thanks to her anti-Malthusian mentality), 100 millions of Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Bulgarians etc. + 300 millions of Chinese today and 500 millions tomorrow. In such a situation England is no more free. The question is only to keep as much freedom as possible in this situation. It may be that the Strasbourg program was not the best to keep as much freedom as possible for every member of the to be created anti- soviet organisation. But, certainly, it was a good start. Reform, if necessary are possible, and if Chesterton will be so kind as to propose such reforms, he certainly will be heard.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 14.9.1949. Your letter of 8.9. received yesterday.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
my letters to you in August were dated from: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (5 bis), 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 28, 29, those sent to you in September: 3, 4, 5, 7. I forget to send the time to read all that. Your letters were of 11.8., and 25.8. In September I received the above-mentioned of 8.9. I confirmed the receipt of your latter of 25.8. in my letters of 3.9., 4.9., and 5.9. I do hope that you received all of them in the meantime.
----------------
I thank you very much for your kindness in giving me an opportunity of publishing an article about Malthusianism in "The Individualist". But you will have the trouble to translate it from my pigeon-English into real English. I will try to write the article as soon an possible."
(J.Z.: Why couldn't Meulen, as editor, simply have extracted enough paragraphs from this extensive correspondence and edited it sufficiently, to eliminate B.'s English mistakes? He would certainly have done a better job of this than I have tried to offer with my "improvements". - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
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I share your opinion that profit-sharing is to be rejected. Your reasons are quite right. Profit-sharing is far less than an "Ersatz" for Cooperation, it is bad in itself. Most workers refuse it and rightly so.
(J.Z.: B. and M., apparently, did not distinguish here between "profit-sharing" as a result of the purchase of shares of the enterprise and "profit-sharing" as either a gift or a compulsory sharing of profits of an enterprise, nor between "profit-sharing" of insignificant amounts of profits and of very significant ones. Experience has shown, that from the moment that rightful incomes from profit-sharing, through rightly acquired shares, exceeds ca. 20% to 30 % of the income of a worker or clerk, then and only then does their "employee-mentality" begin to disappear and they begin to act rather as responsible partners or cooperators or co-owners or partners. - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
You write: "You may say that there is no hope of Free Banking before a Communist Revolution makes slaves of us all."
My opinion is, that if Western Europe, too is overwhelmed by a Communist Revolution, then the ideas of Free Banking will for be forgotten many centuries, just like Aristarch's heliocentric system was forgotten for centuries, when the economic interest of the priesthood seemed endangered by this system.
On the contrary: I doubt whether the revolution can be avoided if not at one place in the world, and may it be ever so small, Free Banking is practised (or Mutual Banking - - which in my opinion does not essentially differ from Free Banking). The world, and especially the workers, must see what Free Banking can perform and interested parties must get the opportunity to investigate the details of a Free Bank. If I would live in England, I would try to start a Mutual Bank, which is - - as you found out - - permitted by the English laws.
(Here, too, Meulen seems to have been misinformed! - J.Z., 1.2.03.)
I would also try induce unemployed to lease shut down firms. I would counsel them to pay the rent with "purchasing certificates" such as:
"This ticket is taken for 5 shillings at the shop XYZ if goods or services are paid with them."
I would also counsel them to pay with such tickets for their victuals, clothing. etc.
In the first days the tickets, of course, would be at a very considerable discount, and a ticket of the nominal value of 5 s. would be accepted only as 3 s. or less. But once people become aware that for these tickets goods can really be bought, which, in other shops do cost 5 s. cash, then they would exert a demand for these tickets and, after a week or so, the tickets would be bought for 4 s. 11 p. The loss of the first week must be considered, by the workers (founders, rather? - J.Z., 1.2.03.) as "first establishment costs", which every new enterprise must bear.
There is - - of course - - still something to be said about the provision of raw materials.
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To English workers applies the Spanish proverb:
"God gives almonds to those who cannot crack them."
(The liberty of issuing purchasing certificates not redeemable into gold being, in this case, the almond.)
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The "Observer" of 17.7.49. publishes an article which the paper "Die Brücke" translates under the heading: "Das Recht zu streiken. "(The Right to Strike"- J.Z.) ("Die Brücke" is the paper of the British Information Centre and very well edited.) The "Observer" states: In cases as the dispute of the dock-workers there is, socially, no right of striking. On the other side: How to settle the dispute so, that both cases get the impression: The settling was
just? The solution is simple: There is no right to strike.
But if it is necessary to dispossess the workers of the right to strike, then there must be for a right for them to take over the shop (or whatever it may be) as a co-operative.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Does Nature think??? Certainly it does not.
Does nature act in many respects as if it thinks? Obviously! Better philosophers than I have said here what one could say.
Is nature conscious of the presence of man? Perhaps it is conscious, like we are of - - sit venia verbo - - a flea,
even in deepest sleep. (Perhaps it is not - - what do we know!?) In no case (or in almost no case) is nature conscious of individuals. But it cares - - we do not know how - - for the race as all naturalists state.
Some of the blunders of nature in creating men are:
1.) Nature did not endow man with the faculty that every ant possesses: If there appear enemies of the race then ant attack the enemy and does not care for its life. Every ant acts so and without hesitation. But man does act so. If there appear Hitlers, Genghis Khans and such people, men do not rush at him but behave as cowards. Baboons display much more courage. - Why did not Nature equip man with as much courage as baboons possess? Their example proves that it was in the power of Nature. That Nature failed here, I consider as a blunder.
2.) Man's faculty to compare present evils with future advantages is too feeble. Always man overestimates present evils or - - if future evils are to be compared - - he underestimates these evils and overestimates present goods or states. Also man's notion of probability is not sufficient.
If people like Hitler declare: I hang everybody who dares to speak about my person otherwise than in expressions of highest esteem, they will do so, even if they clearly see that the "leader" will sacrifice much more than 3/4 of them for his purposes. Everybody thinks: Oh - - there is still some possibility that I will be saved. I continue to glorify my butcher. It would be easy to enumerate animals with a better mentality, whose existence proves that such a mentality war not without the limitations of Nature's Power. The lack of the right mentality
(which jackals possess ) is the true reason for which the majority of men always lives under tyrants. That Nature did not endow man with that mentality, I consider as a blunder of Nature.
(B. often used to say that even the usually so obedient dogs tend to run away if they are frequently beaten. - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
There are still other blunders of Nature as it created men.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed : U. v. Beckerath
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U. v. Beckerath, … 15.9.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
yesterday I received the "New Generation", August 1949 edition, which you had announced in your letter of 8. 9. 49, the "National News-Letter of 25. 8.1949, "Truth" of 2.9.1949 and the "Economist" of 27. 8. 49. Thank you very much.
The Economist's article "National Enterprise in Spain" is interesting. Remarkable the tendency to transform State enterprises into private ones. It reminds me of the same tendency in Tschiang Kai Shek's China, where also, not a principle led the government but the simple fact that the officials, instead of producing goods, produced nothing than corruption and deficits.
(J.Z.: There were, possibly, some happy exceptions. I heard a story of an aircraft factory set up by Goering in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. It was well supplied with all the raw materials required and plans for the planes, machines and skilled labour - and, nevertheless, did not produce a single plane for the Nazis during the war. Instead, it supplied the black market, e.g. with pots and pants. I do not know whether this was true or false. Anyhow, Goering was sufficiently disliked for such stories to be gleefully heard and passed on. - Naturally, Nazis would have classed this as corruption and a great crime and loss, but others? - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
A rich man should invite China's scholars to collect the known facts in Chinas history where officials, endowed, with much power (not postmen and such people) did not misuse their power but, on the contrary, governed well. For the best collection - - indicating the sources from which the facts were drawn - - he should promise a reward. I am convinced that the book so crowned would be a very small volume.
At the time of the emperors it was not unusual - - I read - - for the guilds to pay the officials, sent from Peking,
so that they would not govern, but remain in their Yamen, amuse themselves and smoke opium. This pension ceased with the first act of administration fulfilled by the official. And then the guilds governed themselves.
(J.Z.: If such officials were ever caught, they could have excused themselves as having acted in the sense of Laotse's traditional "Taoism", namely, by "non-action", or, as we would say now, by a consistent "laissez faire" or hands-off policy to promote progress and wealth. - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
The article "Imports into the United States" deals with the American advice (to England - J.Z.) to export more to Europe, to "fill the Dollar gap". Free Traders, who conceived the last and best consequence of Free Trade, present a much better advice:
1.) May the Americans puzzle their own brains in their own affairs. They want export and know very well what unemployment means politically. England is ready to admit exports from America. It is not England's worry to care about the kind of payment.
2.) May the English decrees, as well as the American ones, which compel the English to pay in Dollars be repealed. (Then the monopoly of the Bank of England to provide the means of payment for external trade is to be broken. No pity!)
3.) May England offer, as means of payment, English money and purchasing certificates which are made good in commodities and services (Milhaud System). Such certificates can also be drawn in Dollars, provided an absolutely free market in Dollars exists.
This system having been introduced, the next day a strong pressure group arises in the USA and anywhere else, to reduce import duties as much as possible. Why? Simply so that the value of English means of payments in
the hands of Americans may become as great as possible. American consumers will join the American importers, and in some years - - I estimate 20 or so - - American import duties will be abolished.
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Very faithfully yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 16. 9. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
the New Generation reproduced at page 59 an excellent article of the Daily Telegraph of 1. 8. 49.
"In the July issue of the County Clarion, the official organ of the Surrey Federation of Labour Parties, Mr. Tom Braddock, M.P., writes: 'The workers of this country have agreed that they want for themselves all that they produce, all the wealth of the country, all the food, all the housing, all the clothing. Their legitimate needs can only be satisfied by all; there is no surplus for the cultured few, for the royal and noble few, for the wealthy few. All these must be stripped of their rents, of their interest, of their profits and of their inflated salaries and expense accounts.' "
The Daily Telegraphs answer is very good. But something may be added:
1.) Braddock's standpoint is that of John Cade in Shakespeare's "Henry Vl." It was never the point of view of scientific socialism - - the word taken in its original sense, not in the sense of "State socialism".
2.) In Russia - - with which Braddock seems to sympathise - - brain work is highly esteemed and very well paid. Much can be said about the Soviets which must diminish the sympathy for them in the world, but they are not crazy. They have been able to learn from experience and still learn from it every day. The West must not underestimate them. So the Soviet theorists acknowledge labour whose exchange into goods is delayed (in other
words: savings) as labour. It is, on principle, acknowledged, that the share of that labour, in the products it helped produce, should be just. Consequently, interest of Soviet savings institutions is surprisingly high, now, at many institutions, 6 % p.a. or so, as I read. Some years ago it was 10 % in some districts; where the yield of "saved" labour was high enough to make such an interest possible.
The brain work of factory managers in Russia, as many observers believe - - is better paid than the corresponding income of factory owners in the West. Here one must take the payment of an average worker as a measure, not the standard of living of the managers, although this standard is now no longer far from great luxury.
But the Russian manager - - it is true - - cannot buy diamonds, gold watches and such things. Also his lodging is not so well equipped as an English lodging of an average employee. But the Russian manager eats very well, sits every evening in excellent theatres and often works no more than 10 months in a year.
3.) A mentality like that of Braddock can only arise under the wage system. If the national labour would be organised in a cooperative form, then brain labour would at once appear as what it is. A cooperative, which does not engage good managers and, correspondingly pays them well, loses a multiple of that what it saves by paying the manager like an average "hand". Such experiences must be gained.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 17.9.1949. Your letter of 12. 9. 49, received today.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I thank you very much for the clipping from the "Times", headed: "Some technical terms in common use". I will return it in two weeks or so and attach a German translation of the terms.
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Collective responsibility. If there should exist a logically and philosophically well founded apology for this principle, I am ready to accept it. Until now I found no apology; everywhere it's validity is supposed as self- evident - - in the Bible (one exception, 5 Mos. 24, 16). In the whole modern political literature of all nations (very few authors excepted), and in daily talks of educated and of not educated people. If the principle is morally well founded and its application to the ci-devant subjects of Hitler is morally possible, then those, who oppose the extermination of these subjects are still too moderate. He, who really is an accomplice of a murderer, must be killed, as well as the murderer himself.
If I should get a book that defends the principle of collective responsibility, I will set aside all other occupations and do nothing than to study the book. I would expect from such a book inter alia:
1.) A clear definition of the notion "collective" in its moral application.
Are only subjects of governments collectively responsible?
Does there also exist such a thing as a class collective responsibility?
And how long must a man have been a subject of a government or a member of a class or group, so that he must share the collective responsibility?
Are the children collectively responsible? (Marat said: Yes! and demanded the killing of Lewis XVI. children, "the young wolves of tyranny".)
If not, at what age shall their collective responsibility begin?
Class or group collective responsibility deserves special attention. (Example, where ever experts of the principle were in doubt: The subjects of the Saar territory asserted: We are not collectively responsible. We were only governed for a few years by Hitler. It seems that this standpoint is now internationally acknowledged, although the Saar elections were for Hitler.)
You will remember the trial of Tatiana Leontieff at Luzern, where she shot a Swiss "bourgeois". (She was the daughter of a Russian general, if my bad memory does not deceive me.) Tatiana was a student at a Swiss university and adherent of a revolutionary group. Before the jury she declared: The man I shot is here unimportant. I do not know him personally. But he is a member of the ruling classes and insofar he shares the responsibility for the misery of the proletariat. He did nothing to change its economic conditions. It was my intention to show the proletariat what to do with its rulers. I do not care for my life, worthless in such an economic order. In the canton Luzern capital punishment is (or was) abolished. She was imprisoned for life. (She died, in madness, in prison.)
A short time before or after, another young student, Sinaida Konnopliennikowa, shot the Russian general Min, whom she accused of being responsible for the military suppression of a strike.
But the most remarkable example for the application of the principle of collective responsibility is, perhaps, the murder of the empress Elisabeth of Austria, certainly one of the noblest women of her time. The anarchist
Lucchesini, who stabbed her, declared at his trial, that he knew nothing of the empress except her rank and name. But, he said, she is a member of the ruling class and, therefore, deserves death. It is my intention, he added, to give the proletarians an example. If every proletarian would do as I did and kill the members of the ruling class that he can reach, then our slavery would cease. He, too, declared that his life was worthless under the present conditions.
There are many points of view from which such actions must be condemned. One of these, for me - - some decades ago and long before the first world war - - was my strong opposition against the principle of collective responsibility - - so far spread among men of all classes in the people and always considered as self-evident.
Are you quite sure that the mentality which produces the application of the principle to classes or groups does not exist among English proletarians and not only among proletarians???????
In any case, the adherents of the principle should publish their opinion about the application of the principle to groups or classes and should do so for their personal safety. It may be that some new John Cade will be convinced that the principle is not applicable to social groups but to subjects of governments only. (If that is the meaning of the principle, which I shall learn from the book, which may exist, but which I did not yet find, in which the principle is explained.) (As far as I remember, M. never discussed that principle in those numbers of THE INDIVIDUALIST which I have seen and read. - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
I do hope to find in that book the explanation of a technique by which an unarmed group of subjects is able to remove dictators or tyrants, whom those, who are armed, do obey. Already Gibbon demonstrated that, in great States, it is sufficient for the government to have an army of about 1 % of the population. That was 150 years or more ago. With such an obedient army, says Gibbon, the subjects are a defenceless prey of the government.
Today dictators arm, generally, more than 1% of the population, although - - in the time of aeroplanes - - much less than 1 % would be sufficient.
Or, if the author does not know the effective technique, he will explain why even in the case where the dictator is almighty, the subdued are collectively responsible for his acts. That will be - - I think - - very difficult, but it may be that a David Hume of the principle has already written the book, so that a logical and philosophical reader must be converted by it if, before, he was an opponent of the principle.
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You say: "Had enough Germans been outraged by his anti-Semitism, they could have prevented his coming to
power."
Perhaps your are right. But if the army (or the leaders, whom the army obeys) places its arms at the disposal of the dictator, then the dictator is able to subdue 99 % of the population by an army consisting of 1 %. Adam Smith says the same in the 4th book of his "The Wealth of Nations". There Adam Smith explains that a population without a militia will at last be the slave of its government, which is not the least of the many truths revealed by Adam Smith.
America's liberty reposes on her militia, presently more than 15 million of men. The arms of every man are ready in the militia-regiment's armoury and, in the case of political danger, in less than two hours several millions of resolute and well armed men are ready to oppose every dictatorship.
(J.Z.: Alas, American governments have recognized this danger for them long ago - and have thus placed the militia and its training and armament and motivation under their own controls! Thus they have little awareness of their individual rights and liberties and of how dictatorial their "democratic" and "republican" governments have already become. - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
You say: "The Germans acquiesced it, and I think they must all share the blame."
If you would have said: "Those Germans, who acquiesced it etc.", then I would agree, but here we are again on the principle of collective responsibility and its ramifications.
Do the adherents of the principle of collective responsibility also condemn the Russians for the acts of the Kremlin and Spaniards for the acts of Franco (not to speak of Tschiang Kai Shek's atrocities, which perhaps exceed those of the Nazis and for which the world, until now, did not hold his unfortunate subjects responsible?
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Dismantling. You say: "… is quite certain that what punishment is being imposed on Germany, for the terrific suffering that Hitler brought on Europe, is a form of Christian brotherly love compared with what Hitler would have done to us."
I quite agree and sans reserve.
You add: " ... with the full approval, I am sure, of the majority of Germans, had he won the war."
Here I must say: Probably you are also right here. The English were represented as a nation of monsters and very
many Germans firmly believed that they lived, essentially, from the money they extorted from India etc. But I am not quite sure.
It was my intention to show merely the political consequence of the continued dismantling, so as Machiavelli would - - I think - - have done. That has nothing, to do with revenge or forgiveness or morality or punishment or rewards.
Ethics. It seems, you take me for a Christian. Oh, oh!!! Why??? I think it probable that the proper doctrines of Christ are lost and that the four evangelists - - did not quite understand him. In the gospel of St. John there are several passages where Christ's answers have nothing to do with what he was asked. Obviously, the passages were simply cut from the copy whose text became the official one and the so mutilated copy was again copied. I cannot be an adherent of a man, whose doctrines are so incompletely conserved as those of Christ. But I do esteem his personality and there are reports enough - - I think - - to justify my esteem and that of others.
Many think that Christ distinguished between people simply sympathising with him and his disciples. Prescriptions as about the "other cheek" were probably meant only for the disciples.
You also take me for an altruist. The contrary of egoism (the word taken in its popular sense) is not simply altruism. Several isms may be the contrary to egoism.
But I am a 90 % Kantian. Kant's doctrines are very difficult to understand. To those, who want to learn the essentials in a few minutes, I recommend Louse Saxe Eby's "The Quest for Moral Law", Columbia University Press, New York, 1944, page 136 - 159, to be read in less than one hour. It's excellent.
I do admit that altruism is (inter alia) a pleasure, if not exaggerated.
In my former letters, I spoke less of altruism as of the sense of duty, which does not always lead to pleasure, the word taken in its usual sense.
But here you are right and your sentence is important enough: "If everybody were strong enough to do what he thought was right, even though it would lead to his death, living in society would be impossible, since society has no stronger deterrent to actions, that it thinks to be wrong, than death." Very true! But:
1.) Society (that is a mass of average men) seldom knows what is right;
2.) Society should give men, who do not wish to live in it, an opportunity to live in monasteries, as in the Middle Ages, or today in the Buddhist East, or to live in solitude as in old times the monks in Egypt. Also, society should give men who think that life, both in society or without, is not worthwhile, an opportunity to end their lives by hunger, so as it is in Tibet and in many parts of India.
(J.Z.: Here he did not mention exterritorially autonomous communities of volunteers as an alternative lifestyle option to which all individuals are entitled, as a basic right and liberty, which begins to be realized by the right of individuals to secede and thus to assert their individual sovereignty. How they combine that individual sovereignty with that of other volunteers should be quite up to them. - J.Z., 2.2.03.)
3.) Of 100 men, who think that they know what is right and wish to live correspondingly, there is hardly one who is likely to sacrifice merely a few shillings to get the possibility to do so. The market-quotation of rights is low.
But the Roman officials reproach towards the Christians was exactly like yours: Men, who do not fear death in any situation, cannot be governed.
If the State claims to govern all men, also those, whose pleasure it is by no means to be governed (always a very small minority) and who propose practical possibilities to "ignore the State" (Herbert Spencer, "Social Statics", first edition and some later editions, chapter XIX.), then the State must bear the consequences and may, by experience come to learn that it is not almighty.
Lao Tse, in the "Tao Te King" says too: "If people do not take death as an important thing, social life ceases."
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Cooperation. You say: "I do not believe ... that any business that is run by a committee, can, on the average, be as efficiently run, or with as much initiative and enterprise as that run by a private employer, who makes his own decisions ... ".
I agree. But in Germany the cooperatives are very seldom guided by committees. They have a manager and it is a general complaint that these managers exercise more power than owners of concerns. (Sometimes exaggerated, but by no means always, as I know from personal experience in Hamburg.) What you say of initiative is very true. But I think (or more exactly spoken: I hope) that within a society organised, essentially, in cooperatives, there still will be employers, the word taken in its present sense. If the employer pays his employees a little more than they earn in cooperatives - - which will be no difficulty for him and will be rewarded for higher efforts by the employed - - then there will be no resentment against such an employer. Even in Russia private employment is not quite abolished. But it is taxed very severely. Nevertheless, there are people who find means to pay the taxes, to pay their employees very well and still win enough for themselves. The present wage system must lead to a social revolution, even if employers are resolved to take less than an average employee. Under the wage system the employee must feel to be exploited. It should be the task of social reformers to discard arrangements that cause such feelings.
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Free Banking and social justice. We agree that Free Banking will more and more reduce unduly high profits of employers and bring wages to an economically justified level.
Yes - - in Germany, too - - workers are not likely to become more than wage-earners (soon. - J.Z.). The resistance to "cooperative-socialism" is greater among the workers than by the government or employers. Nevertheless, a sufficiently great number of cooperatives must be established to enable the workers to make comparisons. If they find, that employees do not earn less than members of cooperatives do, then their present mentality: "We are exploited!" will disappear and the John Cades will become comic figures. They are not under the present system. (And if they should find that, in most cases, they could earn more as cooperators, then they will become receptive for proposals on such transformations. - J.Z., 3.2.03.)
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Gold Standard in Germany in 1932. If in the year 1913 a shopkeeper would have declared: This commodity costs x marks in paper and x - y marks in gold coins, everybody would have brought him gold coins and thought: Such a sheep!! But if the shopkeeper would have done the same in the year 1932, under Bruening, he probably would have been imprisoned and his shop closed; in every case the discrimination would have been immediately stopped. Can that possibly be a country which is really on a gold-standard, the latter word taken in the sense of 1913??????
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The Colour Bar. The coloured are now considered as a competition for the white. Under a system of Free Banking or Mutual Banking the coloured would not any more be a competition (or considered as such - J.Z., 3.2.03.). The whole aspect of the question would be quite changed. I am convinced, that under a system, which knows no "exclusive currency", the coloured's mind and behaviour will display quite unexpected acts, works and successes.
The sculptures found in the jungles of Cambodia are not inferior to the best Greek sculptures and the few inscriptions found let us assume a very high standard of literature.
Old Egypt's culture seems to have been a Negro culture.
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The Babylonian god Beelzebub was a reality insofar as the priests had the power to achieve the death of anybody who did not believe in his existence. This put aside, he was a product of the imagination.
What are nations - - the modern gods????
In "Truth" of 2.9.49, I find an article "Racial Origins" (page 258), by A. R. Davis (Lt.-Col., Ret.). He speaks of the new or old "nations" in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. Quite rightly he says: "Today every evil force, from every direction, is concentrated on the destruction of England." But there is only one help: Resolutely turning away from the old ideology of (territorial - J.Z., 3.2.02.) nationalism, together with nation-wide collective responsibility and replace it by - - well, by what?? You know my opinion.
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Latin word "Veni". The German pronunciation of the "V" is like the English V. Only in words of German origin is the V pronounced like F. Some uneducated Germans (not all) pronounce the V in "Vagabond" (= tramp), "Vampire", "Vanilla", "Vaseline", Violin", "vivat" like F because they do not know that these words are not of German origin.
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In one of my next letters I hope to say something about the very interesting articles in "Truth", "Economist" and others.
Many good observations about the German elections.
I am a sympathiser of Proudhon's "Principe fédératif" and regret that there has been created a central power with so many rights, including the rights to inflate and deflate, also to devaluate.
In the article "Currency Unions" (Ec. 20.8.49.), the author takes it as self-evident, that there must be a power to make the paper money a legal tender. But that is not so self-evident. On the contrary. He takes it also as self-evident, that wars are impossible without the issue of additional legal tender paper money. There he is very much in error. (Not regarding unpopular and prolonged aggressive wars! - J.Z., 3.2.03.) He takes it also as self-evident, that a "full employment policy" requires such an additional issue. Great error!
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Very Faithfully yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 30.9.1949. Your letter of 27. 9. 49, received today.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I hope to answer more fully next week than today.
I could hardly get any worse news than that your health suffered another setback.
My impression is: Two men in a boat and looking out for land. One of the two gets seriously sick. The boat (our "movement") wants help not less than the sick man.
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That there are intimate connections between stomach and brain is certain. I thought that these connections were performed by the nerve that is, in German, called nervus sympathicus, but it may be that the connection between stomach and the thalamus is not less close. When I was a child of about 10 years, I saw a brick dropping and hurting a mason, who was wounded and bleeding. I felt a violent attack in my stomach. I still see before me the mason and his comrades, who came at once from the new building to him.
The procedure with the sheep thalamus seems to be unknown in Germany. I will communicate it to a physician I know.
To the numerous advice that you will now receive, let me contribute one: You should less read and write more. What average economists (Marx calls them "Vulgär-Ökonomisten") and politicians write is not so important, is also very quickly forgotten. What you have to say is much more important and will also not be so quickly forgotten, at least not by others than average readers. Also writing corresponds more to your nature than reading, which - - I think - - has for you no other value than to give you occasions to write. It is an old observation that writing reduces the "vita propria" of the cells and compels them to subordinate their vita propria to the vita cerebralis, which - - I think - - is the real human vita.
(J.Z.: Reading about one disaster, stupidity and prejudice after the other can make you desperate, hopeless and resigned. It puts you down. It is depressing and stresses you, day after day. I have long given up reading the dailies regularly or listening to all the radio and TV news. So very rarely something positive and right is found there. Writing down and permanently recording and duplicating, at least in affordable alternative media, the best ideas that you encountered about alternative actions and possibilities, gives you at least some hope and strength that all your thoughts, opinions, ideas and efforts might not be quite in vain, although not read or heard by others, immediately, and will, at least, be on record and, some day, retrieved by those able and willing to make some use of them. B. had mostly no other means available than his typewriter, with which he could make a few carbon copies of his correspondence. - J.Z., 3.2.03.)
You say, it is a pleasure to lie in bed - - for you it is a duty!!! Don't get up too soon!
For a year or so in Berlin a new kind of fountain pen is sold, which in German is called a (ball point pen). It is filled with ink paste instead of with ink. (B. here actually wrote "powder" instead of paste. Later he corrected himself and wrote "cream" instead, which I changed into "paste". - J.Z., 3.2.03.) It is easy to make copies with that "Kugelschreiber". For sick people it is excellent because it avoids stains, and yet offers all advantages of fountain pens. I use a carbon paper to make copies.
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I return here - enclosed - the cutting from the "Telegraph" of 26.9.: "If Devaluation is to succeed." Since you have written at note to it in "The Individualist", it may be desirable for you to have the article.
Johnstone says: "In the second place, what is mean by "freeing the pound?" Does it mean, for example, freedom for British tourists abroad to spend what they like; or for British investors to buy and sell in Wall Street ad libitum? If so, it means freedom for the pound to commit suicide". J. is very much mistaken. If today British tourists would spend in Switzerland, in the USA, in Sweden, etc. 100 millions of Pounds (in notes of the Bank of England), what could the new owners do with these Pounds? They can do nothing else with them - - whether they are friends or enemies - - than use them, as means of payment vis-à-vis England. A few days later, these Pounds would have returned to England and would there buy anything. And one may be sure, that the owners, or those people, who bought them from the owners, will find something worth buying, although economists prove exactly and irrefutably that there is no possibility to buy in England, because all is much too dear. They find out the right commodities. (Especially, if the exchange rate is free and a strong outflow of Pounds has, seemingly, turned the exchange rate "against" England, i.e., made Pounds and thereby English goods cheap for foreigners to buy. - J.Z., 3.2.03.)
4 weeks later an additional export 100 millions L is recorded by the statistics. (To speak more exactly: recorded are perhaps only 50 millions. The exporters are not so stupid as to reveal to people, whose intentions they know, the true value of what they export.) But these things you will know at least as well as I know them.)
Spending English money abroad or letting imports come in, quite freely, enforces an export of same amount, if the importers accept British money. (Zander gave a lecture, held at Geneva about this theme. He will tell you if you phone him.)
State socialists will reply that if such freedom will be admitted, then the British Government's exchange control system will be overrun. I say: One of both must die, Britain or her exchange control system, however good that system may be. (Read the Archarnians of old Aristophanes. If the Acharnians were to choose between their baskets or their existence, they were not able to sacrifice their baskets.)
Johnstone speaks of the "excessive costs of living in England." Let him estimate the costs in gold, sold at a free bullion market. (1 ounce = 60 paper dollars, if sold in small quantities, 100 ounces in a tin = 40 dollars.).
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You will have read in your papers that the atomic explosion in Russia meant the blowing-up of the town where the bombs were fabricated. In Berlin they say: If the Russian bombs would really exist, the Russians would never have admitted that one of the bombs exploded. Butt if they would have contested the explosion, then the situation would be dangerous.
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I return here the text of "Notes from Berlin" with your comment.
I could accept the text if you would replace the three words
"… for their purchases." (line 6 from the bottom) by
" … their taxes".
I am convinced that for all other purposes the customers of the Mutual Bank will accept the notes (or certificates - - if one prefers this name) of the Bank.
The Bank could be started by a single merchant as well as by a co-operative. I spoke of a Mutual Bank because I do not expect that a merchant will have courage enough to start a bank on W. B. Greene's principles.
I do not believe that W. B. Greene (or Tucker, his adherent) would consider the mutual form as essential. Stephen Pearl Andrews (Instead of a Book, page 276) in his treatise about "The Science of Society" - - I had only a German translation - - burnt - - ) considered only the case where a merchant (in a little town or village) began the system. He had the practice on his side. Then, i.e., before the pernicious American law of 1863 many merchants - - - without knowing Andrews - - issued notes, redeemable only in their good or services.
During the great inflation in the years 1921 - 1923 (While it became rapid. It began, I believe, with WW I. - J.Z., 3.2.03.) a Berlin firm, Meinl, originally from Vienna, issued also irredeemable certificates, accepted as money in the shops of Meinl. The success was excellent. Meinl paid all its expenses in these certificates, which were well accepted everywhere.
So much for today and in haste.
Very faithfully yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 1. X. 1949. Your letter of 27. IX.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
that in England there has been n o unemployment for a long time is an astonishing thing. Quite frankly: I do not find an explanation. In general, "dirigism" (a good new word, which the French invented) increases unemployment, although the increase may not appear in unemployment statistics. Example: When Mussolini began to govern, he placed the unemployed into his Black-Shirt-Army and let them march throughout the country. Statistically, unemployment disappeared at once. Economically it was as large as before. In Germany it was about the same. Hitler said: You unemployed: Make guns and other war materials, and they did.
(J.Z.: Sales of that product to the government was assured and the government could pay for this product, even if it merely used the note printing presses to produce fiat money. A large stock of unsold consumer goods and services was available and it could be thus "invested". Prices were depressed through deflation and additional fiat money, at first, merely helped to restore as normal prices as one can achieve under normal despotism, i.e. prices normal for it. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
But in England, obviously, the high degree of employment is due neither to artifices as those of Mussolini nor to increasing armament (which may contribute a little) but to other causes.
But, certainly, the high degree of employment is in some connection with the relatively low standard of life in England. The standard is - - it seems - - not lower than it was before the war, also its costs - - counted in gold - - are not - - I think - - higher. But the productivity of labour is increased. That increase, together with the high degree of employment, should, under normal conditions, increase the standard of living and in this case very considerably. It does not. Why?
(J.Z.: Later in "The Individualist" M. brought some figures which indicated that the increased productivity since about 1900 had been taxed away and turned into welfare State services to the bureaucracy and its favourites, those supposedly helped by welfarism. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
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Collective responsibility. Your example with the ten men is confirmed by history in a remarkable case, which Franklin reports in his memories. Many of the Mennonites of his time would not fight against the Indians, although they had begun a war with the honest intention to exterminate the whites and their warfare was the usual Indian one. The Mennonites were no cowards but their religion held them back. Their mentality changed completely and quickly when they did not only hear about the Indians, but saw the burnt villages and the remnants of tortured men. Then they fought as all others did.
I agree with you: War does creates moments which do not admit a satisfactory solution of the problem.
Let me report some experiences with collective responsibility from the last war and due to the German army on one side and the Balkan volunteers on the other. It was a simple matter for the volunteers to compel a village to join the volunteers. They captured a German soldier, killed him, mutilated the corpse and announced it to the military police. At the same time, they said to the peasants: The German police is informed - - you know what will happen now. Join our companies and do so very quickly. What could the peasants do? They had to choose between the burning of the village by Germans, the shooting of all men, the abduction of the rest of the inhabitants - - on the
one side - - and joining the partisans on the other side. Of course, they did the latter, which, which still offered some chance to keep alive many of the inhabitants. In less than an hour the villagers left their homes and retreated into the forests.
When the Germans came, they applied the rules of collective responsibility for the killing of the soldier to the houses and those inhabitants who had not fled quickly enough.
This method of the partisans became, at last and of course known to the German officers and they well realised that the application of the principle of collective responsibility had no other effect than to strengthen the partisans. But the average soldier, when he saw the dead and mutilated comrade before him, demanded that "something must be done". If the officers would not have shot some civilians, then the soldiers would have done it themselves and the officers would have lost all confidence of their men and would no longer be obeyed in actions. Sometimes, it was possible to save the village from being burnt by saying to the soldiers: The houses must be spared. They are quarters for our comrades behind us. - - I heard all that from several persons, who were all engaged in the Balkan campaigns.
The experience of all wars teaches that similar things happen in every war on every side.
In the war of 1870/71 - - where the role of the "Franc-tireurs" was considerable - - Moltke ordered, that the real murderers should be found out and that, if they could at all be found out, then the inhabitants of the district must pay a very high contribution. The greatest part of the contribution was distributed at the battalion or regiment to which the murdered soldier belonged. That simple means soothed the fury of the comrades and made it possible to spare many towns and villages which, otherwise, would have been destroyed. It was the least of the possible evils.
(Moltke was a human character and tried to diminish, as much as possible, the atrocities of war. He strongly opposed the bombardment of Paris and declared: It the many thousands of shells, that will now shoot, indiscriminately, into Paris, were all are directed to one point, then we would make a breach to the enceinte (walls? - J.Z.) and perhaps get Paris in a few days. But Bismarck and his followers thought, that they knew better and convinced King William.)
But the inevitable arising of the practice of the principle of collective responsibility (J.Z.: Inevitable is this practice only as long as these wrong ideas, premises and definitions remain unruffled in all too many heads! - J.Z., 4.2.03.) and in every war or civil war, has nothing to do with the critics of philosophy. Philosophy cannot help but confirm the standpoint of Duprat, whom I quoted in one of my last letters. (5.9.49. - J.Z.)
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Certainly, a great number of Germans voted for Hitler in the years 1932 and 1933. They were asses. But to say: Those, who did not vote for Hitler, or who, after they had voted for him, noticed what simpletons they had been, were outvoted and overwhelmed and, therefore, are not any less guilty than if they had, still 1945, voted for Hitler - - this standpoint seems to require philosophy's justification and, certainly, is far from being self-evident.
(J.Z.: Other false assumptions were: 1.) These elections were "honest elections", which they were not. 2.) It would have been easy for dissenting Germans to resist and overthrow the regime. 3.) That this could be done without arms, military organisation and training and 4.) That the means of protest and enlightenment still existing in genuine democracies would have been at their disposal. Already during the Weimar Republic the armed gangs or communists and Nazis largely ruled the streets and public meetings. - Moreover, up to 8 million unemployed and their family members and friends did believe the promises of Hitler that he could provide them with employment, while under the Weimar Republic Germany's greatest inflation and greatest deflation ever happened and was ascribed to the "weak" leaders of this Republic, rather than to the same ignorance on monetary and financial matters which characterised all governments. When I came to Australia, in 1959 the "leadership principle" was still more popular here then it was in Germany when I left. It still prevails. At most the voters want other leaders! Ever hopefully, voters vote in a new political machine and its leader, no matter how often they were disappointed by all previous ones. And the journalists are more interested in leadership struggles than in the "ideas" of the "leaders". - Once a dictator has established his power, he is not easily shifted out of it, even if the majority of his subjects feels rather like his victims than his followers. Have libertarians so far offered and published a good enough programme for an easy and truly liberating and peace-promoting libertarian revolution? Do they believe that non-libertarians are more enlightened on this subject than they are themselves? Where is the evidence for this in their present peace-movement on the occasion of the planned war "against Iraq", rather than a police action against its dictator, Saddam Hussein, and his secret mass murder weapons stores only? I have still to hear a clear-cut and attractive war-aims, peace-aims and liberation programme in this case. Ignorance and prejudices, including collective responsibility notions, continue on both sides, at all levels, among all the ideologues. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
If Heaven would apply to humanity the principle of collective responsibility (he does - - if the Bible is right), that is: Punish the subjects for the actions of their government or the whole of a county for the actions of a part of it (majority or minority) then, for many centuries not a single human being would have existed.
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The technique for opposing a tyrannical government is an important thing. Until now such a technique has not
been invented. (Did anyone come closer to it than I did in my two peace books? - J.Z. 4.2.03.) The tyrannical governments in the 17th to 20th centuries have been overthrown
1.) by "palace-revolutions", including such an the 27th of Thermidor (1794),
2.) by wars, as the government of Napoleon I and Hitler,
3.) by the timely death of the government's chief, as in the case of Cromwell. (Nobody can deny his greatness;
but as Roscher explains, Cromwell's financial policy was so bad or unsuccessful that he stood, immediately.
before the same situation as Louis VVI did, 140 years later. But his good luck let him die in high glory.
4.) By voluntary concessions of the chief, whose intention was to rule and not enforce his opinion on every trifle.
Such cases were the great administrative reforms by Queen Elizabeth and the reforms by Napoleon III (a ruler
and man often underestimated, in the last years of his reign.
Investigations about the subject are difficult because to-day some governments are considered as quite tolerable, which at their time seemed to be the summit of tyranny, as those of 1789, 1830, 1848 and some others, perhaps Tsarism not excluded.
The subjects of modern Totalitarianism would gladly change with the French of 1789 or the Prussians of 1848. David Hume taught, for instance, that a government like that of Louis XIV. was certainly better and granted more real freedom than that of Athens or Rome at their "best" time.
As long as the technique of overcoming tyrannical governments is not yet invented or not in the power of the subdued, there can be no moral responsibility of subjects for acts of their government. The world recognises this simple truth in the case of modern Russia, Czechoslovakia, Spain and others. (Not by its "nuclear strength" policy! - J.Z., 4.2.03.) Why not in all cases?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
But that man in general - - from China to South-America and from Moscow to Calcutta - - displays always the same degree of weakness against anyone, who likes to subdue him, does prove to me that nature neglected him -when he was only half finished. And, insofar, I consider him as a blunder of nature. The capacity to revolt and to find out the best means to revolt is, for men, no less important than the capacity to make nice poems, ice-cream, music, aeroplanes and radios. But nature equipped him only with the capacity of obedience.
(J.Z.: On other occasions he pointed out, that we were, largely, bred by slaves. Rebellious spirits were almost automatically exterminated, for a very long time, and thus had far less offspring. At the same time, the masters, by their numerous legal or illegal children, spread their domineering spirit widely enough to make the persistence of this negative selection process possible for a long time. We have to thank the institution of territorial governments for this kind of negative evolutionary process, which still leaves most people as life-long statists. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
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Ethics. I understand well that many people do not believe in the existence of a man named Christ, of whom so many miracles and other incredible things are reported. But there were also reported some details which were certainly neither invented nor derived from star-movements nor from the older mythology. Such details are, inter alia:
1.) His relations to his family were bad. The family tried to arrest him and confine him for madness. Markus 3, verse 21.)
2.) He never recommended good relations to family members, except in case the members were of the same religious opinion (the word "religion" taken in a moral sense. He even recommended separation from one's family for religious reasons. (According to the wife of Prof. Rittershausen, B. once felt even compelled to conduct a court case against his own father. I do not know his reasons for this. To my knowledge, he engaged in correspondence only with one surviving family member, Erich von Beckerath, who was an economist of the conventional statist type. - So he had, possibly, his own personal reasons for sympathising with J.C. in this respect. - J.Z., 4.3.02.
There are many passages in the Evangiles, inter alia, Matth. 19, 29. Jesus went so far as to demand, that a man should not hesitate to follow him and leave his father unburied.(Math. 8, 21.)
3.) In Ev. John 7, 10, is reported a detail where he seems to have simply not spoken the truth, with the intention to deceive his brethren. The passage is not quite clear in this respect, but Schopenhauer's conjecture, that he did not speak the truth, seems pretty well founded. His bad relations to hid brethren are also reported in this chapter. (Verse 7.)
I could add very many other details which make it very probable that Jesus was neither an invention nor a myth, but a man like you and I and even - - as far as I am discern - - with a much better character and more courage to express his opinions, even vis-à-vis death.
The somewhat dark passage, John 3, 18, I interpret thus:
He who does not share this spirit of truth and confessing recognised truths (John, 14,17) is in his own opinion a contemptible being, so that he feels himself judged.
But truth and love of it do not depend on the Evangelists and their reports. Our own reason leads to them, if connected with a character who does not, at every occasion, deliberate: Does it pay???
From Buddha still more miracles or impossibilities are reported than from Christ. Also, there are great contradictions in his doctrines (which I am inclined to ascribe to an improvement in Buddha's views in the last period of his life), much as the doctrine, that there are former existences for every being and the other doctrine that the thing, which everybody calls "I " (self), does not exist but is an innate error". Many, therefore, have believed that the whole story of Buddha was a myth. But in the year 1898 a scholar by the name of W. C. Peppé found, at Piprava, in the district Tarai, a grave with inscriptions in the Maghadi-language and in old Brahmi-Letters, from which it became certain, that it was the grave of Buddha. (R. Pischel, "Leben und Lehre des Buddha", Leipzig-Berlin, 1921, Editor Teubner.)
(The sphere of religions is so full of lies and deceptions, especially on its founders, and to the financial advantage of the priesthood, monks and nuns, that I take this information with a great deal of "salt". - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
The true teachings or Christ - - of course - - were in contradiction to the doctrines of the churches, and most sects. It is my opinion - - but here I may be in the wrong - - that before Kant explained the matter in his book about religion the true teachings of Christ were unknown. Also, I am convinced that the greatest part of his teachings is lost, probably during the persecutions under Diocletian, Decius and others; the Evangiles were written by people who did not understand the main point. That there are great differences in the opinions of the Evangelists is clear by the fact, that the word father, in the sense of "father in heaven", is relatively seldom used by Markus and Luke (about a dozen times) but very often by Matthäus and John. (A fact which I discovered a short time ago.)
The Christian ethics is represented in a new and interesting manner - - quite impartially - - I think - - by Louise Saxe Eby, in "The Quest for Moral Law", a book which I mentioned sometimes in my letters. The chapter "Jesus and the Jewish-Christian Ethical Heritage" (pages 73-92) is interesting and remarkable.
I held - - quite like you - - the Chinese Ethics in high esteem. I possessed Kong Fu Tse, Lao Tse, Meng Tse and some others. One of the best elements of Chinese Ethics is that it recognises the people's right to chase tyrants. (Chastise? kill? execute? - J.Z., 4.2.03.) For a reason I do not know, the influence of the Chinese Ethics on practical life is trifling.
From Islamic Ethics I accepted - - before I had read the Koran - - the abstaining from "all what makes drunk". In my 18th year I became an abstainer. Today I feel a real aversion towards wine, beer, etc. Concerning the rest of Islamic Ethics I am, probably, not enough instructed to judge about it. My impression (which may be wrong) was that it looses itself in details and is not enough elevated to general principles.
Your remark about the Ethic of Epikuros is probably well founded, although a rascal like the emperor Konstantine (and his successors) would have misused Epikuros not less than he did with Christ's Ethics. Kant, who calls Epikuros a noble heart, says - - and certainly with justification - - that such an ethics is open to many misunderstandings. I agree with him and for that reason I am glad, that Konstantine did not accept it. It would have been - - I think - - a "pearl thrown to a swine".
(J.Z.: Are the other religions really less liable to be misunderstood and misinterpreted? The sheer number of them, ca. 7,000 to 8,000, speaks against this. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
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Spencer. Perhaps your opinion about chapter XIX of "Social Statics" would be more favourable if, in the year 1914 or in the year 1939 some millions of German soldiers would have declared: It is our right to ignore that State and he, who wants to compel us to fight in his battles - - may he come on! I think it is not improbable that in 100 years or so some millions of German soldiers will really take this stand.
(J.Z.: For me that chapter is something like an intelligence test: Whoever fails to see its logic and its implications does not pass that intelligence test. He is not intelligent enough to realize the possibilities of the new and exterritorialist politics, which is, in many respects, the opposite of territorial politics. - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
Cooperation. If you found in 1931 by personal inspection that in this year it was prohibited in Russia to employ others, then it probably will still be so. My information was from the year 1928.
Gold standard. Your remark is true.
English payments in Sterling to USA and others. Compelling the English to use Dollars for the payment of imports is applying the principle of exclusive currency to England's external trade. Greene said more and better, what there is to say about this principle, than I can. But I would understand and agree if the New York exporters would demand a Dollar-Basis for the means of payment for cotton, wheat etc. The certificates, bills of exchange, etc. would then contain the passage:
"We, the firm XYZ, accept in our business this bill as we would accept the amount of .... Cash-Dollars."
The sound working of such a clause provides an absolutely free exchange market and the abolition of every kind of government control of it. Such bills, as are here hinted at, return to England as well as Sterling Notes of the Bank of England and can buy, indirectly, anything in England. They would be much less likely to be hoarded, in a foreign central bank, as "foreign exchange". - J.Z., 4.2.03.) Every import, paid with such bills, enforces an export of the same amount. Every import paid with Dollars of American origin, diminishes England's purchasing power. (Only if it confines itself to buying for imports only with US dollars! - J.Z., 4.3.03.) Dollars of American origin are now only at the disposition of the Bank of England, and, insofar, are a monopoly of that Bank, as far as English subjects are concerned. Dollar-bills of English origin can by signed by every fruit dealer - without any help from the Bank of England. That, very probably, will be (given as a - J.Z., 4.2.03.) reason for which such bills will be prohibited.
(The monopoly of the Central Banks, now in all legislation, is the most important paragraph. I regret that I am not able to procure the text of the English and the American exchange regulations. If I could, I would be able to tell you: That and that paragraph is it.
Cataract. Whether bathing the eyes in hot water is good, I cannot say. My own impression is that water of about 55 degrees F. is best. Schopenhauer recommends, to open the eyes under (cold) water. He did so and his eyes were those of a lynx during his whole life. I tried to do the same, but it felt disagreeable to me and since that time I prefer to close the eyes when bathing them.
A suitable diet is - - and here I agree with many physicians - - of the greatest influence. In Berlin, and for some month now, sugar, flour, oats and fruits (tomatoes, too) are sold freely. I use the good opportunity and my eyes improved surprisingly. In May I earnestly feared to become blind, at least on the right eye.
Observer-Article. I beg to delay my answer to one of my next letters. At the moment my free time is very short.
Hitler and his voters. My impression is, that the German army's role is quite unknown abroad, also that of Hindenburg, the old traitor. In one of my next letters I beg to say some words about them.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 2. X. 1949. Your letter of 27.9.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
there is a "school" of scientists, which still distinguishes - - as Aristotle did - - the "dominant" of an organism and its "sub-dominants". Aristotle called the Dominant "Entelechy". A German botanist, Reinke (who still lived in 1900), invented the name "Dominant" (in this connection - J.Z.), which now has been accepted by several others; I think the term is well chosen.
Dominants may be or become sub-dominants and vice versa. Example: There is a Dominant in nature which men call worm. Very many other Dominants use this worm-Dominant as their "servant" and the bowels of animals and men are a system of worms dominated by the superior force of nature: Dog, bird, man or whatever it may be. So
the "Dominant" worm is a "sub-Dominant" of all animals which nature gifted with bowels.
All Dominants, used by other organisms as sub-Dominants, tend restore their original independence. Sickness is nothing but a victory of a sub-Dominant over its Dominant, and healing is restoring the Domination.
(Nature does not favour - - as it seems - - anarchism. It should read the writings of Tucker.) This restoring appears as "vis medicatrix", and it in the matter of medicine to help the vis medicatrix and remove its obstacles.
In Kant's and Schopenhauer's philosophy the doctrine of dominants plays an important role. In honour of Plato, who seems to have been the first who discovered dominants in nature, they called the dominants "the ideas of Plato" (Platonische Ideen). The name was not well chosen and produced many misunderstandings.
Plato's "Eidolon" = form, figure, is toto genera different from what by now, in all languages, the word "idea" ("Idee", "idée") means. The new word "dominant" is much better.
The existence of dominants in nature has been discovered independently by several by several people. Aristotle - - I think - - discovered it independently of Plato, although he was a scholar of Plato. But A. distinguished clearly between idolon = notions and idolon = forces, which Plato did not distinguish clearly enough. The "good" for him was an "eidolon", although it obviously is no more than a notion.
Van Helmont, a forgotten but eminent scientist and physician, called the dominant of an organism its "Archaeus". Buffon called it its "moule intérieur". Both said interesting things about it and found new aspects of the operating of dominants.
Your dominant is: "Teacher of others" and all parts or cells of your organism are in the service of this dominant, except, at the moment, some cells of your stomach. Let your dominant operate against your sub-dominants, with cruelty and recklessness, as rulers are in the habit of doing. Write as much as you can and you will perceive that from such a violence against your sub-Dominants will results a restoration of your dominant's original superiority
Do not take it merely as a joke. (Epicurus' opinion was: That science also has an amusing side. He was right. The humour arises if things offer a new side, which in science is the normal course.)
(Mind over matter aspects in healing have often been observed but never sufficiently explained, to my knowledge. To call them "psychosomatic effects" is just giving them a name but does not explain them. - J.Z., 4.2.02.
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Jesus. About 100 years ago an author, whose name I forgot, published a book: "Proof that Napoleon never lived". In this book he demonstrated that all details from Napoleon's life may easily be derived from the movements of the sun and the stars, so that Napoleon's life may be considered as a sun-myth. The book was meant - - I think - - as an
attack on Niehbuhr's destructive criticism of old Roman history. N. tried to reduce all the old stories to myths or inventions. He went too far, although Livy certainly told many myths, which he honestly took to be facts.
"Omnium in omnia" said the old scholastics. All things in the world, nature, history and our life resemble one another, because it is the same (unknown) principle which underlies them. The events in heaven resemble the events on earth (which astrologers know how to utilise) and molecules are models of the milky way. So it is
easy to derive many details of Christ's life (or yours or any other's) from the movements of the sun and the stars or from cards or coffee-grounds or what experts of mantic may prefer. But there are details which it is impossible - - I think - - to bring into any connection with heavenly occurrences. An example: The development of Christ from a Jewish nationalist to a cosmopolitan. In Marc. 7, 27 is reported that Christ declined to heal a Syro-Phoenician girl, simply because she was no Jew. I need not report the many passages where Christ had given up such a narrow standpoint, natural for young men. The story John 4, 4 etc. shows that Christ at some time had already given up his primitive nationalism but still preferred Jews to other nations. (Verse 22.) At last he became an Antisemite.
(J.Z.: I.e., he opposed the narrow nationalism and ritual-ridden religion of the then existing Jews, not an "antisemite" in the modern meaning! - J.Z., 4.2.03.)
Here the development is clearly visible. Such things cannot be invented, all the more because cosmopolitanism was far from the mentality of his time and - - it seems - - of his pupils. (Luke 24, 21.)
Goethe says: The world's history must be re-written from time to time. That applies also to the history of Jesus.
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Some conjecture (the modern theologian Dibelius is one of them) that at the time of Jesus there lived other miracle-workers (Acts 8, 9) and one of them may have been named Jesus, too, a name that, very probably, was not rare at this time. The story with the wine at Kana (John 2, 2) may concern - - says Dibelius - - this other Jesus. The story is of quite another character than all others. Only at Kana did Jesus contribute to the amusement of others. In all other cases, he tried to mitigate their sufferings. Therefore, I too believe that the Jesus of Kana has not been the reformer who was, at last, crucified.
Some other stories are, perhaps, to be attributed to other persons with the name Jesus, if they are not invented. But here also, one must not go too far with the theory that all extraordinary and reported stories are invented. We know now, what auto-suggestion can perform. Probably you too have seen at some "séance" how men or women took rain worms for oysters and dogs for elephants. If one has seen such things, one understands at once a great part of religious and other history, one understands how - - e.g. - - devaluation is taken for a social reform, Free Banking is considered as unimportant and average politicians are taken for honest men.
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Your bees. Very interesting that you are a bee-keeper. And you give sugar - - such a precious and rationed thing - - to bees and other be-ings (of which I got a personal experience) in cases of emergency. That surpasses even Christ's demand to share things with others, when one has either too much or has it double. (Luke 3, 11.)
Some assert that a bee-hive is not merely a group of insects, but an animal, whose cells are the bees. You may judge this theory by your own observations
If men get too much food as in the case of the record-crops of 1920, 1931 and others, there is no other help for them - - at their present state of their mind and organization - - than to destroy the food, in wars, in civil-wars or (already a great progress) simply by burning, it without a war. Bees do not do so, because - - I assume - - economical theories lie far behind (J.Z.: If you consider them, jokingly, in advance of us and "beyond them", if you consider them as backwards in their development. Take your pick. - J.Z., 5.2.03.) them in their development. But, what are bees doing with a surplus of food?
(J.Z.: They are "intelligent" enough to conserve it rather than burn it. Honey can last for decades, although it will crystallise. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
Some theorists think it possible, that insects will continue life on earth, once men have killed one another off by atomic bombs or in good, old classical manner, by mutually eating each other up. (Are there examples of any bee eating another bee????) May well be.
Certainly you know bee stories from own experience, Care about publishing them?
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Article of the Observer of 17.7.1949. (On strikes. - J.Z.) One must distinguished the legal side of the problem from the social side, as did the Observer. Legally the dock-workers (wharfies in Australia, long-shore-men in the US. - J.Z.) worked for employers. Socially they worked for the whole community.
A dock-worker himself would find out the true reasons if, e.g.,
l.) the fire-men would begin a strike just at the moment when the dock-worker's house would be on fire, or
2.) the physicians of a hospital would begin a strike just at the moment when he is brought to the hospital with
wounds that require an immediate treatment.
In the year 1919 I experienced such strikes (not firemen but restaurants, some physicians, some midwives, all shops and a part of the police) at Brunswick, It was the citizen's answer to the worker's general strike. In every case the citizens won.
Language subsumes the two kinds of strike under the same word, but the things are very different, so that two different words for the two should be invented. A general strike of dock-workers is morally and socially (though not legally) the same as a strike of physicians and midwives.
In Brunswick it was spoken of as a "Counter-strike" (Gegenstreik) or "Citizen's strike" (Bürgerstreik).
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Braddock. Are his voters collectively responsible?
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English payments to USA in Sterling. When I spoke of Sterling that was not exact enough. I should have spoken of means of payment to be exchanged in goods or services or for receipts only England. It may be, that after the evil treatment of good old sterling by the present government, one day the English people declare: We will have nothing more to do with the sterling! We pass on to another kind of standard, that is a fixed weight of freely traded gold, say, a penny-weight of fine gold or so, which we will call (what would be a suitable name??), and every one who tries to prevent us shall get smashes (blows? - J.Z.) of genuine British origin. Every British subject shall have the right, from now onwards, to pay with standardised certificates whose face value is expressed in Gold-pennyweights, which are made good in his business, which the worker accepts in being paid for his work and the shopkeeper for commodities. We claim the right to unite for facilitating the system or to transfer our rights (repeal reserved) to a merchant, who may issue the certificates for us. USA-Exporters get no other kind of payment, and if they are not content with that, then they may, in the name of three devils, keep their cotton for themselves. (They will certainly beg to sell their cottons for our certificates)
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Neither barricades nor paving-stones are the right instruments of revolution but the "issue of their own money,
in defiance of legal prohibitions, is such an instrument. (Tucker, page 415, second line from the bottom.) The creation of the instrument today in not any more as simple and relatively without danger as it was at the time of Tucker. Nevertheless!
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Medical treatment. Your doctor must publish his methods That is his duty and should also be, for him, a pleasure. Kant says in his essay "Was heisst: Sich im Denken orientieren?" ("What Does it Mean: To Orient one's Thinking?"):
" … wieviel und mit welcher Richtigkeit würden wir wohl denken, wenn wir nicht gleichsam in Gesellschaft mit andern dächten, denen wir unsere und die uns ihre Gedanken mitteilen!"
(" … how much and with what accuracy would we think, if we would not think, so to speak, socially, with others, with whom we share our thoughts and whose thoughts we share!")
That means, in this case: Your doctor should publish his methods, receive criticism and reply to it. Then he can be sure that he is on the right track. (Lecturing is not sufficient.)
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Yesterday I received the October-issue of The Individualist. I congratulate you! You did not promise too much when you wrote: "I hope, the next 'Individualist" will show the benefit of my increased leisure."
What you say of currency unions is quite right. Free issuing of notes will be impossible in a currency union guided by "experts" as at present. (They play with the people the same game as, in the Middle Ages, the torturers did with their prisoners. They let them hunger for a week or more and then cut a piece of flesh from the prisoner's body and fried it in his presence. The prisoner ate it with eagerness. - - Is man a blunder of nature or not ???? (The piece of flesh cut by the experts is the devaluated part of the money.)
"Scrimshanking" is a word not (or not yet) contained in Webster, edition of 1880. In Thieme-Preusser's Dictionary of 1903 the word: "scrimshaw (= work) - "Arbeit eines Matrosen in Mussestunden" is contained. From your article I understand (of course) completely what the new word means. All languages in the world have changed during the last 30 years. Your article is of importance for practice of insurance. I am considering its publication in a German Insurance paper. (S = shirking, according to my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. - J.Z.)
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Important ideas often arise at the same time in several heads. The idea reported in the Readers' Digest (article: "Invention", page 37 of The Individualist) came also to P. Clavel Blount and an acquaintance of mine, and editor, Kurt Zube (he edited some things belonging to Tucker's anarchism), who sent me his pamphlet 2 or 3 weeks ago.
(J.Z.: If that refers to Kurt Zube's "Ideas Archive" proposal, I would like to point that it occurred to him about 10 years before, but he could not seriously try to realize it during the war or shortly after it. However, similar ideas can already be found in Thomas Morus' Utopia and in the essay Atlantis by Francis Bacon. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
I seldom read a news more consoling than your notice about British youth. Do try to live still some more years for them. They are worthy! They seek their teacher! Rittershausen told me one day: Au fond Free Banking is such a simple idea that it must be possible to invent a game for children representing the idea. "Free Banking for Young People", that would be a thing. Our generation is too blocked.
(I noticed not difference, in this respect and many others, between young and old, English, German, Australian and American people. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
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Moab and Edom - - you set the main point into the right light.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte, "Die Bestimmung des Menschen", 1800. (The vocation of mankind.)
"Kein freier Staat kann Verfassungen, deren Oberherren Vorteile davon haben, wenn sie benachbarte Völker unterjochen, und sie daher durch ihr blosses Dasein die Ruhe der Nachbarn unaufhörlich bedrohen, vernünftigerweise neben sich dulden; die Sorge für ihre eigne Sicherheit nötigt alle freien Staaten, alles um sich herum gleichfalls in freie Staaten umzuschaffen, und so um ihres eignen Wohles willen das Reich der Kultur über die Wilden, das der Freiheit über die Sklavenvölker rund um sich her zu verbreiten."
("Reasonably no free State can tolerate constitutions of his neighbours, if these constitutions offer advantages for the neighbours' rulers from subduing other peoples. The mere existence of such constitutions is a perpetual menace for the free State. The care for their own safety induces all free States to transform all States in their neighbourhood also into free States, and thus, for their own welfare, the free States must compel savages into culture and slaves into freedom.")
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These principles, quite new in the year 1800 and published (at Berlin) not without danger for the author and the printer, are now pretty generally acknowledged. In the year 1933 these principles were as just as they were after the second world. If the rulers of England, France, Belgium, etc. would have mobilised, 14 days after Hitler's revolution and occupied Germany, the loss of lives would certainly have been less than 10,000. It was their duty, and they are truly responsible for the second world war. Now they do try to hold responsible ignorant, blocked and unarmed voters, who saw already in February 1933 what rhinoceroses they had been and looked out for help from other countries.
------------------ Bth., 2. X. 1949.
(J.Z.: Alas, the other States were not free societies, either. The very notion of a "Free State" is a contradiction in terms, if it refers to a territorial State. From territorial governments nothing better could be expected than what they did offer, belatedly, in huge costs in lives, health and wealth. Even libertarians and anarchists have not yet, as a rule, pondered sufficiently about libertarian revolution, resistance and liberation options and share all too many prejudices with the territorial statists. Meulen's book, pamphlets and articles are full of them and he could not, lastingly, be steered away from them, although B. tried to do this for a long time, very persistently. - Every somewhat rational adult, who can read and write and, nevertheless, still subscribes to territorial statism, of whatever kind, is an accessory to the crimes which it commits, by its very nature, in peace times as well as during wars, civil wars and revolutions. But since they form, everywhere, the vast majority, they can hardly be held collectively responsible by the tiny minority that does not share their prejudices, errors and myths. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
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11. X. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
the protection of the people against inflation - - is the right of every man to agree with others on a standard of value which the contracting parties themselves believe to be stable - - gold, which more than 9/10 will accept, if permitted, silver (not the worst), grain (some new sects demand it for religious reasons) or any other. In practice that means the application of gold-value-clauses in the whole economic sphere.
The word "inflation" is here understood in the sense of 1913, when it meant an over-emission of fiat-paper-money.
The increase of the price level is a consequence of inflation and not inflation itself. Even Truman confounds that regularly.
The protection of the people against deflation is the right of every man to offer his property - - goods, labour, claims - - to others for exchange, with the help of standardised scrip in the denominations of money and to be made good by him, in his own business, by acceptance or by clearing. This right includes the right to associate with others, in any suitable legal form, to give the system optimal efficiency.
The word "deflation" is here also understood in the sense of 1913, when it meant the reduction of circulating means of payments.
Decrease of the price level, unemployment, etc. are consequences of deflation, not the deflation itself. That is something which our economic "know-nothings" should learn.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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12. X. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I reported the matter concerning your stomach to my friend Mary Blösz and she told me:
Let Mr. Meulen ask the lady of his household for a raw potato. It must be peeled. If Mr. M. gives his lady some good words, she will do it for him. Then the potato must be grated with a grater. Then the grated potato must be squeezed out. The juice is to be drunk.
The potato should be of average size, in no case too small.
Mr. M. should thus use a potato every day until the stomach is all right.
Mary Blösz added:
This prescription was published one year or two years ago in a German journal. The journal reported that in hospitals this simple means was frequently used and with good success. The physicians were led to the means by the observation that in case of burns the juice of raw potatoes has a good effect. It is also known that women and girls of the people often use the juice of raw potatoes for cosmetic purposes. The human skin reacts well to it and quickly closes small wounds, which often occur in household work. If the means would not be so cheap it would be used more used.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 13. X. 1949. Your letter of 4. X. received 8. X. 49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I beg to answer only "provisionally". My lack of time in now very great, every minute is occupied. I don't know myself how the 1,000 things came to me with which I am concerned.
I return with the same "The Scots Independent" of October 1949. The leading article seems of greatest importance. If the idea of a money standard not subject to any devaluation gets connected with any national idea, then the idea of a non-statist money standard gets a power which no other power can resist. (*) You write to me that the editor is an adherent of Free Banking. Is here the link which brings the Free Banking Idea in connection with realty????
(*) (J.Z.: In theory and by law every new nation's new central bank is supposed to provide a stable value standard. In reality they all use the same forced and exclusive currency system and it is abused by governments most of the time, with the system, the law and its administrators not being held responsible for the results. Those, who see solutions in territorial nations, large or small, usually subscribe also to "central banking", its monopoly, fraud and coercion. Territorial nationalism and monetary despotism are closely linked in most "minds". - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
For some days now I feel something which the Germans express with: "Ich wittere Morgenluft". (I smell the fresh air of a morning. - J.Z.) (May be a quotation from a forgotten poem.)
The editor is afraid to destroy the unity of his movement. But certainly the movement cannot be weakened by adopting the Free Banking Principle. (The editor is not afraid to defend Henry George and his ideas, which are 100 times more likely to destroy the movement's unity than are the Free Banking Ideas. There is a good element in Henry George's doctrine but he never took into consideration what is now of the greatest importance: That is the raising of prices, including that of land, as a consequence of devaluation. Will the Single Taxers pretend that the increase of nominal value to be expected is due to the activities of the community? It is due to the blunder of a single man or of a few men, but certainly not to the community in the sense in which Henry George meant it. One day that will be found out - - by such a logical and educated nation as that of the Scots - - and then the unity is in danger, if the editor insists on making land confiscation a programme point of the movement.)
(J.Z.: George-ists say that this is not their aim and method. But, mostly, they do treat private land owners as if they were serfs of the feudal lord: the government, and the Georgist government confiscates what it considers as an "unearned" income from land: the added value not due to improvements by the owner but due to market forces, among them an increased population or increased local density of population. - Its "single tax". According to them the community alone would have created this additional value and would thus be entitled to tax it away. They stress that, otherwise, they would respect private land ownership and that their reform would make it more widely spread and would put a pressure on to use land economically. Thus their doctrine is different from those who want to nationalise or municipalise land outright. Only a few George-ists have considered realising their dreams of land reform voluntarily, privately and cooperatively, e.g. by "proprietary communities" and through other private land reform attempts. Fewer still have considered free competition among all the land reform systems, at the expense of their supporters, which means the acquisition of land for this purpose is to be by donation or by purchase. At least Henry George was a Free Trader and Anti-Malthusian and generally for a free market economy. But he had his hang-ups, too, apart from the "single-tax", with his aversion against free migration. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
Free Banking does - - in contrast to all other "plans" - - not demand that it be imposed. It merely demands not to be prohibited.
If in Gibson's (apparently the editor of "The Scots Independent" - J.Z.) there were only landlords and tenants and they considered: If there is again an English Financial Dictator, who likes to debase England's money, then, should that be the authoritative means of payment for our leases? At least the majority of tenants, outnumbering the landlords, would say: Why not? It's not Scotland's trouble but that of the landlords. Only the landlords might strongly object.
(I took great liberties with B.'s English version here but believe that B. would have said something like that, if he had revised the following passage. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
(B.: "If in Gibson's Scotland will be - - say landlords and tenants who like to agree: If again an English Financial Dictator likes to debase England's money that shall be authoritative for our lease - - well - - why not? It's not Scotland's pity but that of the landlord.")
But Gibson demanded something more, namely, that everybody in Scotland shall have the right to agree with others on a stable value basis for all their contracts and that is a fair demand. Once it is sufficiently published, it will not fail to supported by many people in England as well.
Gibson's independence ideas and your Free Banking ideas together are like carbon and nitre, together. One spark and it explodes. (Sulphur is useful but not absolutely necessary - - believe an old anarchist - - and if not, refer to the chemistry books.)
(They need considerable processing to explode like gun powder, rather than merely burn fast! - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
Gibson may remember that Scotland is the only country in the whole world whose money system was an essential element of its nationality. To revive that nationality without reviving the old money principles is like galvanising a corpse.
I do hope that Gibson will lead his movement without arousing any hatred against England as a nation. Firstly, that would not be fair, and secondly - - in politics more important - - it would be impossible. There may be serious differences between the nations, but certainly there is no hate on any side.
It is another thing with monetary independence. It may be demanded without any national antagonism. I remember the days, in October 1923, when Hamburg declared herself monetarily independent from Berlin. The Hamburgers remained good Germans and were far from hating the Berliners. But the workers had built barricades to prop up their demand for a wage-money constant in value. On the same day the Senate ceded (with pleasure - - some other time I will report to you the dramatic scenes), founded a bank for gold-based notes and, on the same afternoon, the first wage-payments were made with the new money. (The Minister of Finance, Luther, went the next day to the Mayor Petersen and threatened to arrest him. But Petersen was the right man in the right place and told the Minister, that if he would say still another word against the brilliant Hamburg Gold-mark, then he would arrest him. "Be sure", he added, "the Hamburg police obeys me and the only thing, which here is still in doubt is, whether the Berliners will want you to continue the inflation. Probably, they will sent us a wire: 'Keep the old note-printer" (Luther - J.Z.) at Hamburg but send us, at our expense, the man who, so rapidly, introduced a gold bank.' And now, old chap, cease to cheat your countrymen, become honest and imitate us."
Luther returned to Berlin and founded - - not quite so quickly as the Hamburgers - - his "Rentenbank", and issued some 100 millions of "Rentenbankscheine".
(J.Z.: B. told me that Petersen threatened to secede if the Hamburg Gold-mark bank would be suppressed. Here one should remember, that Hitler made his first putsch a few days later in Munich, 8/9 November 1923 and similar attempts were to be expected elsewhere. Moreover, printing costs of the paper Reichsmark came already, at the end, Nov. 23rd 1923, to 48 % of the purchasing power of the fresh notes. Thus the inflation could not have been continued much longer. Almost all printing shops were printing notes and could not keep up with the demand for them, because prices raced ahead of the printing presses. Many other more stable emergency monies were already issued then, by officials or privately. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
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May Gibson proclaim as an essential aim of his movement:
Everybody in Scotland shall have the right to conclude contracts on a value basis which the contracting parties themselves prefer,
but the old monetary system of Scotland must be restored.
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The opportunity to do so is as favourable as it never was before and, perhaps, for many years it will not come again.
And you - - prepare a new edition of Free Banking. It Gibson follows the hint, the rest of the present edition is sold in less than four weeks. Where can anyone - - today - - get any information about the old Scotch System but in your book????? And thousands will, if Gibson has published his monetary program.
It Gibson is an adherent, then it is simply his duty to state this openly, so that his followers may know what a man he is.
I prophesy to him, that he will not only have the pleasure of having fulfilled his duty but a great additional pleasure. He will be considered as the monetary saviour of Scotland and not only of Scotland.
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These few words in great haste. I hope to continue, in a few days.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
(I do not know what kept him as busy in these days. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, … 14. X. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
Rittershausen sent me a clipping, dated Canton, 5th of July, from which I learn that the new
Silver-Yüan of China's "National"-Government shall have the relations:
1 USA - Doll. = 1.75 Yüan,
1 Engl. Pound = 3.72 "
1 Hongkong-D.= 0.24 "
The "security" shall consist of
1.) Gold (for an honest Silver-Yüan certainly a cheat),
2.) Silver (they are prudent enough not to say how much silver) and
3.) "marketable bonds", which seems to be the thing here in question.
Of course, the bonds are government bonds, probably a simple sheet of paper, on which is written, that the government is willing to pay so and so much Yüan at such and such a time. We know that from Germany, where Governments, Corporations, etc. often created "guaranties" in that manner. The bond is insofar marketable as it will be handed over to the fool, who comes to the government, brings silver (or whatever the government can use and demands the "security". (Not very different from the American system, where the government pays 35 paper-dollars for 1 ounce of fine gold but is intelligent enough not to deliver 1 ounce of fine gold for 35 paper-dollars, but heartily delivers other "securities", that is: government bonds.)
Printing the bonds is not necessary, when in the whole of China there is not one man so foolish as to demand that security. For a bond that remains in the Finance Clown's drawer a simple sheet of paper is sufficient.
(We know all that all from Germany, whose secret financial history is still to be written.)
One may say: The Chinese Government abuses a systems which, by itself, is quite sound. And here lies a very serious error and it is exactly that error which has produced 3/4 of China's misery in the last decades, and not only China's misery.
The system is not sound. It leads, inevitably, to inflation (the word taken in the sense of 1913, where it meant over-emission of fiat money). If the system seemed to work well, it was because a very different principle that was operating at the same time.
This principle was that, which formerly in Austria and later in the whole realm of the German language was called the "Steuerfundation" (tax foundation - J.Z.). (Security by readiness of the government to accept the paper money so as if would accept rare metal coins of the same nominal value, the sum of the due but not yet paid taxes on one side and the sum of the outstanding notes, on the other side, being equal. - - I do not know, whether a special word for that kind of security exists in the English language).
Lorenz von Stein, a great Austrian Economist, was - - as far as I know - - the last who examined the "Steuerfundation". (He demonstrated that if a government issues not more than 1/4 or 1/3 of its annual receipts in notes, then the notes remain at par or - - if there would be a discount, then it cannot be for more than a few hours or days.
But Steuart, long before him, demonstrated more: If coins do not circulate in a sufficient quantity, the government must issue so much paper money (not fiat money) that the means of payment for due taxes are not lacking.)
While I write these lines, I remember that Steuart was - - although very young - - the Scottish Minister of Finance at the revolution of 1745. Steuart fled with the other heads of the revolution, if my bad memory does, not deceive me, to Paris. There he meditated:
1.) What blunders have I made myself?
2.) How must the revolution, and after the revolution's victory, the country be organised to maintain the victory?
His intention was to write a kind of reference book, so that a statesman - - in first line a Scottish statesman - - regarding difficult questions, would have to do no more than look them up in this book and would find there what he would have to do, in a few lines. Never before was there born such a man as Steuart and, perhaps, never later. What a great time, that 18th century!!
If Gibson does not read Steuart, then every Scotchman who does read him with care will be a better
Scotchman than he is. (Yes, he will be!) Goethe says:
"Was du ererbt von deinen Vaetern hast, (What you have inherited from your fathers,
"erwirb es, um es zu besitzen. (Faust.) you have still to study in order to really own it.)
By his protest against the English devaluation from a Scotch standpoint, at the moment Gibson is in the focus of the world's history. (Not of the written, but of the real history.) It depends upon him, to remain there, as long as is necessary, until he has made his movement irresistible. And then the end will, quite inevitably, be the (peaceful) conquest of England by Scotland, in a similar honourable way as in the year 1603, when Scotland gave a king to England (not the best, unluckily, but perhaps not the worst, either.)
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The principle: Value by acceptance, so as coins are accepted" (called by Rittershausen "Annahme-Prinzip") (Readiness-to-accept-principle - J.Z.) and its special application to taxes and State-issued paper-money was quite
known to W. B. Greene. In "Mutual Banking", chapter VI, he says:
"We are told that there is no instance of a government paper that did not depreciate. In reply I affirm that there is none assuming the form I propose (notes receivable by government in payment of dues) that ever did depreciate."
But one thing was not distinguished with absolute clarity and the here necessary fanatic obstinacy, by Steuart, Greene and Proudhon (but well by Lorenz von Stein):
The present possibility to utilise the paper money in payments to whoever issued it and the future possibility.
The present possibility is the only one which monetary science can admit as proper to secure the par value of paper money. The trust of the note bearers, that this possibility always exists, does enables the paper-money to circulate. Even bad governments, which do not pay their debts, may be trusted to levy taxes and so - - sometimes against their own desire - - create an opportunity to realise the paper money they issued.
Besides: From this simple statement follows, that a paper money, issued on the acceptance principle, is no debt
of the government: It is a cheque drawn on the amount which the taxpayer owes the government. The taxpayer, who did not yet pay his due taxes, is the debtor, not the government, and for a statesman, the difference is of fundamental importance.
The trust of the public that a government will, some time in the future create an opportunity to realise or utilise the paper money, is another kind of trust than the trust that the government holds always open such an opportunity, as long as notes are outstanding.
Modern note issuers - - Chinese, but no less, Americans and English confound these two very different kinds of trust. They try to create a future possibility to utilise notes - - generally by a promise to convert the notes in the future (and think: Aprés nous le déluge!), which is an impossible thing - - and imagine that this kind of utilisation is also sufficient to achieve the same trust that is obtained by getting the notes realized, on demand, now. Consequently, they do care to bring into balance the always given but only relatively small amount that can presently be utilised at par with the total quantity of notes issued.
The practical consequence is:
1.) all due taxes are paid, and yet a quantity of notes remains in circulation which - - if the unlucky note bearers should desire it - - cannot be utilised,
2.) shopkeepers, artisans, landlords and, practically, all creditors, who are concerned with paying taxes, do not accept the notes at par, if they do accept them at all,
3.) the not tax-paying people, workers, those who already have paid their taxes and average women become angry - - not at the government - - at least not for this reason - - but at those who, will not accept the notes at par and who price differently, according to payment in metal or in paper,
(The average human brain is not so constructed that it is able to conceive a logical connection between two circumstances. if more than two logical links are to be taken into consideration. So the average man or woman demands that the shopkeeper to be hanged, whom he or she sees retaining the needed commodities, and not the government, whose officials he or she does not see besides the commodities. But economists and statesmen should have better constructed brains.)
4.) The government feels personally offended by the lack of trust. It forbids all utterances that may be interpreted as a distrust in the circulating money. (That happened frequently in the Middle-Ages, when the "Beschreien der Münzen" (decrying of coins? Throwing suspicion on the coins? - J.Z.) was considered to be one of the most evil crimes.)
5.) Price regulations are introduced with all their terrors known to historians for centuries but unknown to average people, deputies, ministers, etc.
6.) Men are killed for violating the price controls, as happened during the French Revolution (most of those guillotined were "price sinners") and now in China.
And that all originates from the failure to distinguish between the two kinds of trust:
a.) the trust of a creditor to be paid at the promised date and
b.) the trust of a note bearer that there will always be an opportunity to utilise his notes. (Especially right now, if he
wants to. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
The note bearer is not a creditor (although generally thought to be a creditor) and not a debtor of the State, except in the few cases where the note bearer is paying taxes by notes.
What is the note bearer ????? Here, and in all languages, a fitting word in missing. (To call the note bearer a claimant or an entitled person would not be sufficiently distinct - - I think.)
In the USA, where the minutemen of 1774 are not yet forgotten and this expression is still frequently used, the
term "monetary minutemen" could become a slogan, which the man in the street will not fail to abbreviate into something like "momime", by which he means a claimant, whose claim must be satisfied within a minute.
(My great respect for Webster prevents me from offering more details about the etymological side of the problem.
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A government must distinguish
a.) the means of its subsistence which it can raise by taxes and
b.) those means which it must raise by a loan.
The government is able to issue notes at par, notes that are not fiat money, for the amount of due taxes. If the government wants more liquid means, than the due and not yet paid taxes amount to, then it must borrow and pay interest.
If it tries to get these means, also, simply by note-issues, it debases
a) in the case that the notes are a fiat money, by a general increase in prices, and a discount at foreign markets,
b) in the case that the notes are not fiat money, by a discount at the open market, foreign and domestic.
all outstanding notes and, as the very able German (Jewish) author Lansburgh - - for many years editor of "Die Bank" - - an internationally recognised monthly - - seriously demanded, deserves death. Landsburgh demanded a standard which he proposed to call a "Galgenwaehrung" ("gibbet-standard") (gallows currency - J.Z., 6.2.03.). The present Minister of Finance (Treasurer - J.Z.) should at once be hanged, if at the open and free market his notes would get a discount for more than a very small amount and this for more than a very short time. Landsburgh was quite right and in the Four Bills his proposal is contained, although the authors would not talk of a gibbet in their Bills.
(J.Z.: Free market rating also for governmental and central bank notes, the right to refuse them altogether and the right to issue, accept and pay with alternative means of payment and clearing and to utilise for these purposes alternative value standards, in other words, full monetary freedom, would be a more humane approach and would end the inhuman conditions that result when anyone, even the best of characters, is entrusted with all the powers and temptations of monetary despotism. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, in this sphere as well. Can and will Alan Greenspan act like a libertarian and monetary freedom practitioner when he is in charge of the Federal Reserve System? There he is largely reduced to increasing or lowering his interest rate and to make seemingly profound sounding statements on that. He has became part of that totalitarian machine. - J.Z., 6.2.03 & 23.5.03..)
Neither China nor any other country in the world - - and the Scotch may believe it - - can get a stable economy and avoid the planners, if the people do not comprehend the above stated principles. The people must come to understand these principles so well, that the government would immediately encounter resistance if it tries to misuse the country's monetary system for getting an additional income.
(J.Z.: Better, still, it must come to tolerate the establishment, maintenance and growth of voluntaristic monetary systems, that would make such abuses, among their participants, quite impossible! From these private and voluntary payment communities or experiments the most honest and efficient systems would spread, even while most of their new members would still not comprehend why they do work, while the forced and exclusive currency systems of governments do not. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
It is sufficient if in o n e country of the world the people display such a degree of true culture. It seems that only Scotland can be that country, seeing that only Scotland can boast of a good currency system as a national tradition (one suppressed by brute force, but not yet forgotten).
Some years ago, I wrongly believed that the Jews were able to blend an honest monetary system with national traditions. From Zander I had received, as a most valuable present (also burnt) (Who can provide me with a copy, at least for microfilming? - J.Z., 6.2.03.) an extract, compiled by a Rabbi of Wilna, from the Talmud, in which all monetary prescriptions of the Talmud concerning good and debased money were combined. The Talmud states that monetary honesty is an essential element of the Jewish character, so that an orthodox Jew never will win by paying his creditors with debased money, even when the Caesar has permitted this.
(J.Z.: B. told me, that the only exception granted was when the debtor had himself been paid with debased money. How can such a rare tradition in monetary matters remain as widely unknown and unpublished, at least among non-Jewish people, and also as unappreciated among Jewish people? - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
That impressed me strongly, and I was very clad to hear from Zander that he would do what he could to revive the old Talmud traditions in a monetary program of Zionism to be framed. He did nothing (or could do nothing) and the monetary policy of Israel is so tyrannical and dishonest as that of the goyim and not very far from that of China. In my mind I cancelled all sympathies for the State Israel (which has nothing to do with my esteem for the aristocratic part of the Jews) and my hope now is Scotland.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
(J.Z.: He should not have been surprised that the old religious traditions of Jews were not realized in the territorial State of Israel, where more or less orthodox Jewish people form only a minority and their orthodoxies are more concerned with other matters than monetary justice and efficiency. For precisely those groups of Jews did settle there, who shared, all too much, the territorialist prejudices, errors and myths of the other people, among whom they had lived and who were almost religiously determined to realized these prejudices, errors and myths in their own national territory. This they did, with the results to be expected. The other Jews in the world, given the choice, rather stayed were they lived, making use of whatever limited rights and liberties they still enjoyed there, or moved to countries which had some liberties and some security left, while somewhat sympathising with and supporting their fellow-Jews who had settled in Israel. They never came to agree that it would be their religious duty to settle in Israel. To that extent they remained cosmopolitans, which had formed, as such, a more honourable tradition than their territorial and national ancient and new tradition. That the State of Israel is more democratic than the other territorial States around it, does not yet sufficiently distinguish it from the territorialism of the other States around it, nor from that of the "freedom fighters" or terrorists of among the Palestinians and other Arab fanatics & fundamentalists. By upholding monetary despotism, with its inevitable consequences: Inflation, mass unemployment, hatred of foreigners, persistent financial difficulties, they perpetuated their own difficulties and insecurity. Many of those Jews, who did not emigrate - or were deported! - to Israel, might even have realised that concentrating all Jews in that small territory would, in essence, amount to voluntarily establishing a form of "concentration camp", however militarily armed and prepared for defence, one that could, one day, be very rapidly turned into an "extermination camp" by a few ABC mass murder devices in the hands of their racist, national, ethnic etc. fanatic enemies. Nor did they realize, being also territorial nationalists, to a large extent, despite many of their cosmopolitan views and connections, that precisely only their limited exterritorial autonomy traditions, and those of the Arabs, as opposed to their territorialist traditions, offered them repeatable and extendable opportunities to dissolve these ancient and continuing collective hatreds. Or they might merely consider Israel as a refuge option once antisemitism in those countries in which they had stayed, would have flared up, all too much, without any rational foundation, once again, usually as a result of a crisis that can also be traced back - but would not be, by them and most others - to monetary despotism. - I would not go as far as some, very few, Jews have gone, in their criticism of Israel, namely to call those, who settled there, as if this were the only or the best and most rightful solution for them, the "Jewish Nazis", in spite of many differences between them and the real Nazis, but, nevertheless, there are some traits of Israeli nationalism which it does have in common with the extreme and racist nationalism of the German Nazis: Their stress of the "blood and soil", which I call "territorialism", its extensive economic interventionism, coming in some respects all too close to national or State socialism, their stress of the religions, national, ethnic and racial nature of Jewish people - in spite of the fact that there are "Jewish" people of most races, and their sharing, with all too many other people, what has been called "the myth of the chosen people", God's very own people. So I do not expect our "salvation" to come from these statist circles, either. - J.Z., 5.2.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, … 15. X. 1949. Your letters of 4th and 5th of October.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
your old shrewd Scotsman, with his remark about the use of the word but is quite right. But: It is natural that in a discussion the participants first state the items about which their opinion is the same and then add a new item, whose consideration must enlarge or restrict the other's opinion.
The word "but" is an excellent invention. I would like to know whether other languages, like Asiatic, African or American ones, provided an equivalent word to "but". Civilisation and culture depend first of all upon language. Congo pygmies, Papuans and Australian Aborigines probably - - I think - - have no expression like "but" in their languages.
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Your own handwriting proves that the thicker down strokes are not essential to make handwriting look very nice. I read your handwriting as if the text were printed. And the characteristics of your handwriting is well enough preserved by your Biro-Pen to distinguish it from all others. Therefore, I cannot accept your arguments against Biro-Pens and will buy such a useful thing at the next opportunity. The old Berlin proverb does also apply: "Alles Gute ist nie beisammen!" (Everything that is good does never come together. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
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I have learnt by now that Biro-Pens are filled with a kind of cream. (Paste - before he had said: "powder". - J.Z.)
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You are quite right to say: "When our tourists take our currency abroad, it is equivalent to a gift of our goods to foreigners. (As if they did not get the wanted tourist services in return! - J.Z., 6.2.03.) But - - I think - - to give English goods to foreigners is the very purpose of the kind of export which Sir David so urgently demands. Essential is that Englishmen receive something of equal value for the English goods. That condition is fulfilled, when Englishmen, for their pleasure abroad do pay with English notes, and then the notes find their way back to England, buy there what the note-holders think to be useful or pleasurable and then the bought goods go abroad.
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Gold prices. Do you know the gold prices drawn from the edict of emperor Diocletian about maximum-prices? The German mathematician, economist and great Professor Lexis reduced the old Roman gold prices to Kilograms, Litres and gold-marks - - about 40 years ago - - and, at once, it was to be seen, that the prices in old Rome were not very different from those of the 19th century in Italy. I think that some English economist will have reduced the prices to English measures and English money. If not, and if you are interested, I will try to get the former edition of the "Handwoerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften", where Lexis's table is copied, and make, an extract.
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I mentioned to you Louise Saxe Eby's splendid book "The Quest for Moral Law". I could not resist the temptation to write her some words about her chapter on Kant's ethics and that of Buddha. Then, last week, I dreamt, immediately before awakening, that I lost a tooth, but without a toothache. Artemidoros teaches that such a dream means the death of a good friend but not of a relative. Some minutes later the post girl hands me over my letter to Miss Eby, with the stamp: "Décédé".
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Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity. I do hope to be impartial here, seeing that I am searching for a new religion (whose elements, perhaps may lie in Kant's and in Schopenhauer's philosophy) and am convinced that Christianity, which plunged the world in bloodshed and terror, for more than 1,000 years, is not a good religion. But: Nietzsche is - - I think - - not right. Nietzsche did not live among Christians and, therefore, lacked an essential element to criticise it. Also Nietzsche did not take, sufficiently, into consideration, that there are several kinds of Christianity. To some applies - - I admit it - - Nietzsche's criticism, e.g., to that kind of Christianity which the emperor Constantine introduced, certainly because it was a religion for slaves. Other kinds of Christianity are no slave religion, although philosophy must reject them as well.
Take Cromwell's Christianity. Certainly, he was a Christian. But had he the mentality of a slave? Had his Ironsides such a mentality?
Take the Christianity of Haiti. Before the French Revolution the slaves were Christians and, perhaps, their religion was a slave religion. But one day some Negroes of superior piety told their comrades: Listen, brethren, the Whites murdered Christ, let us kill the Whites! And at once the Negroes displayed the kind of Christianity, which resembled more the doctrines of Torquemada than those of Christ. The let the whites pass through the sugar-mills and used other killing methods, newly invented, to transport the souls of the white to the places to which they belonged. I will neither defend nor blame the religion of the Negroes, which led them to such procedures, but when they practised them, they were slaves no more, they were rebels. And their religion, certainly, was still a kind of Christianity.
It is well known how the Haiti-religion developed. It is now what the Negroes themselves call a Vaudoux-Religion, whose head is a "Papa-Loi", a kind of pope, and a "Mama-Loi", the female pope, which seems not unlogical.
The old spirit of independence still prevails in Haiti, as travellers report, and from that I conclude, that there must be something good in their religion, Well - - from to time there occurs a little cannibalism - - before 1914 I considered that as a serious defect. But since I have seen what the whites did, in their wars, I must change my views and now I consider the cannibalism at the Vaudoux-Festivals as a little "beauty-defect" (Schönheitsfehler). It costs the life of one man a year and of one woman, and the victims are proud to have been selected for such a holy purpose. They die - - I think - - wishing good appetite to their fellows and these esteem them as holy beings, who, in heaven, proclaim the high moral standard of the Haiti-people, while their corpse is eaten.("To eat from the black, hairless swine" is the technical term for the anthropophagic part of the great annual festival.)
Christ himself certainly was no slave-nature, if the evangelist-stories are true (and I think, many are true). Christ was a revolutionary. I join the critics, who assert that he had prepared a general strike of the taxpayers, insofar as temple-taxes were concerned. The movement was a secret one. Some passages get a quite reasonable meaning if one supposes such an intention for Christ. (Matth. 23, 39, John 16, 16, Luk. 24,21 is reported the word of a disappointed adherent after Christ's death. Many critics said: How is it possible that an adherent could be disappointed about the political failure of Christ, when he had so often repeated: My kingdom is not of this world! The explanation is simple: The aims of Christ were also of political nature, if one can call a refusal of church taxes a political action. That there must have been some quarrels between Christ and the tax-gatherers is revealed in Matth. 17, 24. The true story is falsified, as can be seen from verse. 27.
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The papers report that in the Ukraine there was a battle between rebels and Stalin's troops. 1600 rebels were taken prisoner - - it is said. If the rebels have no plan on how to finance their rebellion, then they must fail. I refer to my letter of 7. 9. 49.
A plan on how to finance an insurrectionist army was drawn up by my friend Dr. Holzhauer, in his book: "Barzahlung in militaerisch besetzten Gebieten" ("Cash payments by occupying armies"). The book was published in 1939, some months before the war. Nobody of the leading Nazis - - of course - - noticed that Holzhauer had described a plan to finance an army fighting against the Nazis and that this was the real intention of the book. The censors recommended the book as valuable and worth printing. We - - Holzhauer, Rittershausen (who wrote an introduction), I and 2 or 3 friends - - were seldom in our lives so amused as by this decision. It is in the nature of the principle introduced by Holzhauer - - identical with that of Greene - - that it can be abused by any army which taxes a conquered territory. The Japanese constructed their military notes for the Chinese conquered territory quite
in the manner proposed by Holzhauer, that is, without cours forcé. Certainly they had read his book, and so one can say: Holzhauer's principle was proven by practice. (Since Stalingrad I heard nothing from Holzhauer.)
(J.Z.: His parents or siblings might have preserved the complete manuscript! Georg Holzhauer was his full name. J.Z., 6.2.03.) (I reproduced the printed book in PEACE PLANS, also a manuscript version and some relevant articles, but, alas, the manuscript version, which seems to be identical with the printed version, did not contain what I expected, according to a remark by B.: an appendix on financing revolutions. Maybe that was not submitted to the publishers, who were, like all other German publishers then, supervised by the Gestapo. If his parents kept that appendix, then it might have got lost with them. They lived in East Germany, I do not know for how long and whether Georg Holzhauer had brothers or sisters. Books still do have their fates. Worse is, naturally, the loss of B.'s book manuscript on financing revolutions, in the air raid on Berlin on 22nd of November 1943. - If the Western Allies had, instead, concentrated their air raids on military targets, then all totalitarian regimes and dictatorships might have been overthrown long ago and the Nazi regime would have been defeated much earlier. Thus did "Western civilisation" "save" it self! - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
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Some years before the war I had a book in which were described the payment customs in the Eastern parts of Germany. Among others were mentioned the Kassubes, a small people dwelling in the Prussian Province "Westpreussen" (At least some Zubes lived nearby! - J.Z., 6.2.03. - Recent website research by my granddaughter, Amanda, revealed that the Zube-named people seem to have come from Switzerland. - J.Z., 23.5.03. ), in the East of Pommerania. They speak their own language, which resembles the Polish but which only Kassubes understand. The author reported that Kassubes possess a special mentality for clearing. In their transactions they seldom use cash and demand also from the peasants seldom cash. From time to time the Kassube merchants meet at an inn (always the same for decades) and there they clear, exactly like the merchants did in the Middle Ages, at Lyon, Cahors, etc., at the fairs. The only difference is, that they use few papers and notes but keep the greatest part in their memory and clear verbally. (That would certainly have tax advantages! - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
Nobody but a Kassube merchant understands how they do that. If only it would be possible to send your book to a Kassube! All people who try to make the economy independent from the quantity of State money should know of one another. (J.Z.: Did the Kassubes have an early connection with Switzerland? Your guess is as good as mine. - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
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The true Supermen are those who possess the following faculties:
1.) The Superman conceives that an economic crisis concerns every man, the philosopher in his solitude, like Nietzsche's Sils Maria, as well as the poet in Rilke's garret (I do not like Rilke much), the average worker as well as the high official. The average man takes an economic crisis, if it comes to him, like a personal misfortune.
2. ) The superman is so intelligent that he perceives
a.) if on one side there are un-saleable products while, on the other side, there are men in need of these very
products, then there must be a simple means to achieve clearing. The average man, when he looks at the
starving men, says: We have an overpopulation. If he sees the unsold products, he says: the merchants
have speculated and, besides, he is convinced that the standard of living has been much too high.
b.) that the solution needs no sacrifice, no additional taxes and no "harder work" - - especially not of the
unemployed - - but that the people must be provided with means of payment to buy with. (He does not
fear inflation because he knows - - as superman - - that without a cours forcé no inflation is possible and
thus he rejects the cours forcé.) The average man says: We are in difficulties, and difficulties must be
overcome by extra efforts.
3.) The superman finds words to communicate his ideas and counsels his fellows, finds out the secret to make
them listen, knows how to escape being crucified, and he is present at every place where new obstacles arise
(How? He knows that.), speaks to men in the right way, so that they take up their work instead of mutually
cutting their throats, which, for average men is the next and the given way-out.
4.) If an earthworm, by a blunder of fate, becomes a regent, begins a war, the superman finds the words and the
means to communicate the words to others, and so convinces the men not to obey the earthworm but, instead,
to put it into a box, where such beings can be conserved, until they can be used as bait for fishing, which is the
best purpose to which they can be put. Then the superman says to the men: Now, stop for some minutes all
your everyday talking, your card-playing and Schnapps drinking; here is a Magna Charta, which you must
sign and which prevents future wars. You have signed? Well, now go home and continue everyday talking,
card-playing and drinking. He finds the means to produce a (new? - J.Z.) He finds out the means to get the
Magna Charta read, understood and even a subject of interest. A mere man cannot do that. If a man frames
such a Magna Charta, he will probably be burnt alive and publicly.
The superman knows how to avoid such inconveniences - - how??? I do not know, but then I am no superman.
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It has often been remarked, that Nietzsche never said what his superman should do in this world; he did not even say whether his superman will e a single man, a couple, a group, a new race or whatever may be possible. I suspect that Nietzsche himself did not know it.
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I must thank you very much for the new mailing of printed matter, which I received yesterday at the family Blösz.
In his National News Letter of 6. X. 49, Stephen King Hall - - certainly not an average writer - - says:
"The opposition … had no idea in their heads (at least none that they were prepared to let out of their mouths) about the concrete measures necessary to save us from threatening disaster."
He is right - - it is an astonishing thing, considering that among some 100 well-educated and interested men, there has been not a single one to propose positive measures. I would have expected, that at least one of them would ask: Men, is that really necessary, that England must pay for her imports from the USA with Dollars originating in the USA?? Have we not ourselves enacted such a prescription, which now shows that it cannot be fulfilled? Or has anyone - - the Board of Trade, or the Bank of England or Cripps or any other - - abused the plenary powers entrusted to him?? And who has forbidden USA exporters to accept other means of payments from us than USA Dollars? Obviously, here lies the rub! Let us talk about it! We must investigate that! Is it not self-evident that a buyer must pay with the money of the seller! For centuries such a condition has not existed.
And then another would have stated, that there do exist some other possibilities, e.g. those which were investigated in the circle of Professor Edgard Milhaud at Geneva. Should we not talk about the possibility - - he would have said - - to pay with clearing certificates like the following bond:
"This bond we, the concern XYZ, accept in our business at the value of 100 dollars,
at the quotation of the exchange at ABC."
And that firm is an English one.
Did the Americans already refuse such a payment?
Would not such a kind of payment provide the same services as the present one - but without the latter's inconveniences?
Gentlemen - - this thing is important - - let us at least state why it should be impossible, if it is impossible.
But, not a single MP talked thus!
(J.Z.: Note also, that none of the secret services and none of the government's famous economic advisors did. In these respects they know no more and show not higher interest than the average man in the street. No "supermen" among them, either. And so immense misery continues, trade wars and finally bloody wars happen, again and again, also dictatorships, revolutions, civil wars, mutual slaughters, which could all have been avoided by really
freeing all exchange options. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
In the edition of 8 September 1949 he says:
"The root of the world's troubles is that man's progress in the technical business of existence has not been paralleled by a corresponding in the art of living. Our technology is 20th century but our modes of political thought are medieval."
Here are some errors.
The technique is not sufficiently developed. The art to bring wanted products into the hands of the consumer belongs to the technology of production no less than the care for the health of the workers and the oiling of machines. That has nothing to do with art of living. The latter is the art to use products in the best possible way, but the transmission of products to consumers belongs to production no less so than any other commercial action belongs to it. Stephen King Hall should read your book and the publications of Milhaud's "Annals" - - still to be bought at Williams and Norgate, Great Russell Street.
The technique of payment was better developed in medieval times than it is today. In Cantor's splendid "Geschichte der Mathematik" (History of Mathematics - J.Z.)I found medieval specimens for clearing far superior to the specimens reported by Jevons in his book "Money", where he describes the manner of clearing at the London Clearing House.
The medieval merchants were not forced to pay all debts in cash but only those for which a clearing was impossible.
(Many years ago I possessed the rules of the Leipzig Guild of merchants, where that was explained. Burnt.)
Stephen King Hall is in error if he thinks that our methods of political thinking are medieval. In the 12th century it happened, at many places in Europe, that when the serfs heard, once again, that Christ died for all men, thus also for them, but that men must make himself worthy of it, finally, the serfs agreed, and, secretly - - they needed months and years - - they prepared in a forest but (if it could be) near a river, a camp. The camp was well provided with victuals, stakes, the then new invention of the cross-bow (the pope had forbidden its application against "Christians", that meant against the nobility, because a bolt penetrated an armour at a distance of 60 paces) and ballistas. The latter were of wood and could be constructed by skilled carpenters. Then, one night, the serfs of a great nobleman and those of his neighbours would escape and assemble at the camp, which, in a few hours, was made unassailable. The serfs were well provided with water and kept everything in the camp wet, so that fire-arrows were of no use.
And then they spoke: Here we are worthy to be redeemed by Christ's death. We declare God to be our father, as Christ taught us, and we hope that he will help us to maintain our freedom. Christ spoke always with contempt of servants, well - - here we are no longer servants. The nobility with its heavy armoured horses was quite helpless vis-à-vis these camps. If rider and horses came too near to the walls, then they were shot by cross-bows and the ballistas. And if the knights preferred to fight as foot-soldiers, they met the long pikes of the serfs. Regularly there was a treaty agreed upon, by which the new community paid a little redemption to the noblemen and then the nobles kept peace. That seems to have been the beginning of the Hansa, later powerful and celebrated.
(J.Z.: Probably many of the medieval towns were founded in this way. But I doubt that many of these events were ever fully documented in writing. The legend of "Robin Hood" describes something similar for England. The Swiss republic probably largely originated in this way. For me there was a somewhat related small experience in the forest of Tegel, a suburb of Berlin. A group of nudists, sunbathers and open air exercise people could not get permission for a place of their own or could not afford to hire or buy one. So they simply cleared an area in the State forest for themselves and used it for their purposes. It was not very far from roads or settlements. Nevertheless, they got away with this, for many years, although they had, obviously, broken many laws and stepped on the toes of many bureaucrats, especially those of the forestry department. My uncle Erich was one of them. I saw the place myself, as a young child. Few outsiders ever reached that place. One had to know the small paths leading to it and most forest visitors stayed on the main tracks. As far as I know, not one of these activists was ever caught, convicted and punished. When medieval serfs struck for their freedom, they had much larger forests to hide their preparatory activities in. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
Modern thinking of people does not surpass wage-slavery. (Rather: The employer-employee relationship. - J.Z.)
The worker thinks never of being more than a wage-slave. He wants more pay and less working hours: That's all. the most revolutionary among them demand to become wage-slaves of the State.
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With pleasure I read your contribution to the issue of Truth, No. 3809 of 23. 9. 1949, page 334: "Proudhon and Property".
I had some works by Proudhon, also his project for a mutual bank. For many years it has been my aim to translate it into German and supply a commentary. When I received, through your kindness, shortly before the war, W. B. Greene's "Mutual Banking", I thought, that the two books must be combined, in their translations and I was under the great error: Perhaps the unknown power, which compels us to live in this … has charged me with that task, and it may be that in Germany a translation of these books would act like Hercules' clearing of the Augean stables, by directing the rivers Penäus and Alphäus to the stables.
I did not translate the books, having only at the evenings and on Sundays a little time.
The error of Proudhon was to treat mortgages like present goods. But everywhere the time element plays a
role. The exchange of goods, separated by time must be done by credit instruments and the paying of interest is unavoidable. The bank cannot simply mortgage a block of land by handing its notes to the proprietor.
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I have still much to write and hope to do it later.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 17. X. 1949. Your letter of 9. X 49., received to-day, (London Post stamp: 13. X.)
Dear Mr. Meulen,
the London saying you quote is amusing; it reminds me of the word of Voltaire:
"Every government possesses fortitude enough to bear its subjects' troubles."
The saying seems to be of possible practical application in times of war. Then there constantly occur cases of retaliation: "10 English prisoners will be ill-treated for every German one ill-treated!" "10 German towns destroyed for one destroyed English town!" etc. Its very seldom that governments mind such retaliations, least of all governments like the Nazi or the Soviet one. (The Tsarist one, on this point, was no better than the Bolshevist one. I could tell you stories of prisoners, German and Russians!)
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My personal finances. You are a good-hearted anarchist - - most of them were. (I cannot say: are.) We and a dozen others are the last surviving. The goodness of anarchists was so striking to those, who first came to know such people, that Zola pointed it out as an example. In his Germinal - - a pity if you should not have read it - - one of the main characters is an anarchist, by the name Suwarine. He worked with the miners of a great French mine near Lens. Every evening he was in an Estaminet, whose owner was a socialist, not in order to drink there, but to talk with the miners. A rabbit came to him every evening and slept on his knees. One day, he missed his rabbit and asked for it. "The rabbit, he was told, is on the plate before you. You are eating it!" Suvarine had to stop eating it. Nevertheless, the same man tried to kill several hundred workers - because they had given in to the employer and ended a strike. He had invented a device by which the mine would be destroyed. Only by chance was it discovered in time.
The story of my personal finance is less bloody. I get the legal assistance for unemployed, which is paid for 1/2 year. (We do hope that by a new law that duration will be extended to 39 weeks). In my case it comes to 24.90 West-marks a week. For me it has been sufficient. And more: I have been able to buy a book from time to time, especially in the Eastern sector. Among the books is a wonderful 10-place table of logarithms, which I bought for 48 East-marks. (1 West-mark = 5.60 East-marks.) Some days ago, I saw the same table for 48 West-marks in a bookshop in the Western sector.
I do not smoke, drink no alcohol in any form, do not visit theatres, for all of which I did not care for my whole life, and victuals are cheap at present in Berlin-West, much cheaper - - counted in gold - - than they were before the war.
An example: 500 grams of oats cost 0.60 - 0.70 West-marks and 500 g is enough for several days. At the time of the blockade and before - - one can say from 1939 to 1949 - - they were generally considered a delicacy and rightly so.
Spinoza lived on oats, for which he daily spent about three old gold pence. This frugality enabled him to be quite independent and gave him leisure to write books which are still read and, perhaps, more today than at his time.
Formerly, I over-estimated Spinoza's frugality. Today I know from my own experience that he was a gourmand
- - oats - - a good thing - - also for bourgeois with rubber shares and other such instruments extorting proletarian sweat.
(The invention of shares increased the income of proletarians in the ration of 1 : 7 between about 1800 and 1900 - - as a statistic of an economist of Basil seems to demonstrate. The news of dividends is in the papers, c'est ce que l'on voit. The real economic role of shares, c'est ce que l'on ne voit pas.)
I do hope to get an old age pension once the unemployment assistance ceases. (He was 67 then and was already entitled to an old age pension from his 65th year. - J.Z.)
Concerning your shares you remind me of Thales. His fellow-citizens mocked him, because he was merely a philosopher and earned no money. One day that annoyed him. As a scientist he knew, that in the next year there would be an unusually good oil crop. With the help of his friends he bought all oil mills that he could get. When the olives got ripe, the fellow-citizens had to give him good words, so that he kindly permitted them to use the oil mills. He was as kind, but his kindness cost them what it was worth. And now Thales came to be highly esteemed and later, when he had succeeded in calculating a solar eclipse, they took him for a being from the celestial spheres.
I would like to know how he foresaw the weather of the good oil year. Our meteorologists are not so advanced.
Interesting what you say about the habit of your Jewish friends. It is a very good habit, one of the good Jewish habits. (I knew and old Jew, a very learned man and of the best character. He was quite orthodox and ate nothing of what the Talmud does not permit. In a special case - - I forgot what it was about - - I asked him, why he was so orthodox, and what real advantage it had for him to preserve, so carefully, the old prescriptions. He answered: I do not know why our wise forefathers framed these prescriptions. But I think it probably that they contributed in some way to the superiority of our race - - of which he was fully convinced - - although I cannot see to what extent. So it may be with many habits of the Jews.)
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Your doctor Gerson. If the number of his successes is considerable (20 cases would already by considerable, I think) then the basis of a statistic is given. 3 years are a lot of time.
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Christianity. Although I am unemployed, every minute of my day is occupied. I do not know myself how that is possible, but time is going on for me much quicker than formerly, when I went daily to the office. And, nevertheless, there are 3 authors whose works I read nearly daily, even if that means only three lines a day:
The first is the author of Free Banking, the second is Benjamin R. Tucker, the third is Montaigne. They are always before me.
If it is your opinion that the book of J. M. Robertson, M.P., "Pagan Christs", is worth more than one of the three - - especially for a man with my interest sphere - - I will be much obliged to you, if you will be so kind as to send me the book. But really: I could read it only at the expense of the three authors.
In Montaigne I found a passage, important for you, who probably reads much more than I do:
"Les livres ont beaucoup de qualitez agréables à ceulx qui les sçavent choisir, mais, aulcun bien sans peine; c'est un plaisir qui n'est pas net et pur; non plus que les aultres; il a ses incommoditez, et bien poisantes; l'âme s'y exerce; mais le corps, ducuel je n'ay plus oublié le soing, demeure cependant sans action, s'atterre, et s'attiste. Je ne sçache excez plus dommageable pour moy, ny plus à éviter, en cette declinaison d'aage."
About Christian Ethics let me remark, that there are several Christian Ethics, which perhaps must all be rejected by philosophy; but not all in toto. There is, e.g., the ethics of the Jesuits. Some of them - - not all - - taught that very often in life there is no quite certain decision to arrive at. We must be content with probabilities. If a man acts so as that he is probably right, then he does what he can. I think that this doctrine has been followed for many centuries, but recognised it was first by the Jesuits. ("Probabilismus") I think that here Alphons of Liguori and others really added a new element to the theory of ethics.
Vis-à-vis some ethical systems, which are represented by their authors as Christian ones, I get the impression that the authors well knew the paganism in the systems, but relied upon the lack of intelligence of average censorship. The authors imitated Spinoza's example, who often used the word "god" where he meant "nature" (Just like Rousseau used the word "Souverain" and meant the people, in his Contrat Social.)
When Spinoza was dead, the deception was detected. (He died at 45, when others begin to write.)
Baltasar Gracián (I would regret it if you would not have read him in an English translation - - or if you understand Spanish, then the original of the Oraculo Manual - - I possess Schopenhauer's translation), who lived at the time of Spinoza, became a Jesuit and did that - - I am convinced - - only to cheat censorship. Authors like him inserted some kind words about the virgin Mary (why not?), other saints, and some were even impudent enough to dedicate their books to the pope. From the book of Louise Saxe Eby (The Quest for Moral Law) I got the impression that the Saint Thomas of Aquino was also such a "Christian". Certainly, many Scholastics were, as appears from F. A. Lange's "Geschichte des Materialismus".
And what do we know of Christ's Ethics? Little! Today some believe that he taught two kinds of ethics, the one for his apostles, like John. It was an ethics fit for wandering preachers. Social feelings and interests, as well as family feelings and interests were not taken into consideration in this ethics. It seems that he even denied for such adherents the duty of taking care for the burial of dead family members. (Matth. 8, 22, Luke 9, 60.)
For the people he gave prescriptions of another kind, among them such as not to keep the Sabbath-Prescriptions of the priests, not to wash themselves for mere religious purposes, not to sacrifice beasts at the temple and similar, which obviously were the real cause for which he was crucified. Remarkable is his mild judgement of adultery, although he admitted, that it might be a reason for divorce.
The ethics for his disciples seems not to have been a secret. (Compare the different rules for priests, monks and nuns, compared with ordinary believers. - J.Z., 6.2.03.) Belief in a future life was an essential element of his ethics. An impartial although sympathic statement is given in the chapter "Jesus", in the book of the dead Louise Saxe Eby. It is worth reading. (Dead! "Was schön und gut und gross auf Erden, nimmt ein schlechtes Ende." - Heine.
(Whatever is beautiful, good and great on Earth - comes to a bad end.)
The real ethics of Christ's has not much in common with that what today is represented, in many books, as Christian Ethics.
(Peter is in the Evangiles named as "one of the twelve". But he cannot have been in Christ's company always, because he continued to win his subsistence by fishing. Moreover, he was married and, therefore, cannot have belonged to those, who left their families for Christ's sake. Peter's wife, some years later, accompanied him in his missionary voyages. I. Corinthians 9, 5.)
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18. X. 49.
I wrote the foregoing lines with many interruptions. Meanwhile I received:
I. Three cuttings from the "Times", about which I beg to write still some words,
II.) The "Times" of 29.9.49, "City Press" of 7. 10., "Truth" (which I always read with special pleasure) of 7.10. and "analysis" of September.
In "analysis" you marked the passage: "Why all this pother (bother? - J.Z) about unification of the armed forces? The matter was handled with dispatch by Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler. Their way is ultimately the only way."
Let me here try to translate what Kant said about the subject in his book "Zum ewigen Frieden" (pages 68/69 of the first edition.)
(J.Z.: Since I have on hand a probably better translation by Prof. Carl J. Friedrich (The Philosophy of Kant, The Modern Library, N.Y., Random House, 1949, page 458, I will give B.'s translation unchanged, as an example of his best English translation efforts - he loved that passage - without attempting to introduce my own "improvements". Anyhow, he copied the German original paragraph below. - J.Z., 6.2.03.)
"The will of all single men to live under a constitution founded on liberal principles (the distributive unity of the will of all) is not sufficient for that purpose (he means: eternal peace). Required is an additional moment, that is, that all together will this state (collective unity of the united wills). That admitted there must be added a special cause which overwhelms the differences in the wills of the individuals, so that a common will is formed which creates a whole, namely the society of citizens. The solution of this task is difficult, and a single will is not able to solve it. This consideration lets assume that in practice the realization of the idea will not be without force. It's compulsion will create the beginning. On this foundation will be erected the building of a new public right. One must not expect that the force which gives the new laws will be lead by moral feelings, one must also not expect that the force, after the crowd is united to a people, will it leave to the people to create a new constitution by their united will. All that lets expect great deviations of real experience from the idea (theory) to be realized."
(Prof. Friedrich's translation:
"Of course the will of all individual men to live under a lawful constitution in accordance with the principles of liberty (which constitutes the distributive unity of the will of all) is not sufficient for this end. In addition it is necessary that all jointly will this state (which constitutes the collective unity of the united [general] will) which is the solution of a difficult problem. Only thus can the totality of a civil society be created. Since therefore there must come into existence, over and above the variety of the particular will of all, such a uniting cause of a civil society in order to bring forth a common will - something which no one of all of them can do - the execution of the idea [of an eternal peace] in practice and the beginning of a lawful state cannot be counted upon except by force upon the compulsion of which the public law is afterwards based. This fact would lead one to expect beforehand in practical experience great deviations from the original idea of the theory, since one can count little anyway upon the moral conviction of the legislator so that he would after he has united a wild multitude into a people leave it to them to establish a lawful constitution by their common will.")
German text:
"Freilich ist das Wollen aller einzelnen Menschen, in einer gesetzlichen Verfassung nach Freiheitsprinzipien zu leben (die distributive Einheit des Willens aller), zu diesem Zweck nicht hinreichend, sondern dass alle zusammen diesen Zustand wollen (die kollektive Einheit des vereinigten Willens), diese Auflösung einer schweren Aufgabe, wird noch dazu erfordert, damit ein Ganzes der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft werde, und, da also über diese Verschiedenheit des partikularen Wollens aller, noch eine vereinigende Ursache desselben hinzukommen muss, um einen gemeinschaftlichen Willen herauszubringen, welches keiner von allen vermag: so ist in der Ausführung jener Idee (in der Praxis) auf keinen andern Anfang des rechtlichen Zustandes zu rechnen, als den durch Gewalt, auf deren Zwang nachher das öffentliche Recht gegründet wird; welches dann freilich (da man ohnedem des Gesetzgebers moralische Gesinnung hierbei wenig in Anschlag bringen kann, er werde, nach gesche-hener Vereinigung der wüsten Menge in ein Volk, diesem es nun überlassen, eine rechtliche Verfassung durch ihren gemeinsamen Willen zustande zu bringen) grosse Abweichungen jener Idee (der Theorie) in der wirklichen Erfahrung schon zum voraus erwarten lässt."
You see the difference of that what is meant by "analysis" and that what Kant meant. Kant says (although not expressly): There must be, in the minds of the individuals, an earnest will, that a power may be created to prevent wars. If this will exists, then this will must be realized by a power, be it a despot or a group. If only the despot acts
or the group, without having behind them the serious will of the individuals, then their work will soon be destroyed. The fate of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler confirms Kant's meaning.
It was the opinion of Kant, that the felt terrors of war will, at last, create a wish and then a will for an organisation to maintain peace. At the time of the named leaders, this wish was extant only in very few individuals
and, unluckily, merely in such men whom nature had not endowed with the faculty to speak or to write impressively and convincingly enough.
19. X. 49.
Let me still add some words about ethics.
Kong Fu Tse reports that the old king Wen had invented a just social system. This system greatly impressed his contemporaries. Kong says that the king received messages, from all peoples known at that time, which begged him to conquer them. An soon as Wen's troops passed the frontiers the people - - says Tong - - ceased to obey their former governments and submitted to Wen. I do not know whether a king named Wen ever existed, but from Kong's writings it is certain that his ideas were not so far from those of Kant. That's also a remark of the parson Wilhelm, whose translation I had. Wilhelm says that Kong Fu Tse's ideas are best understood by continually comparing them to those Kant. Wilhelm spent several years at the cloisters of Shantung to learn the philosophical and religious language of Old China and to read all preserved commentaries on Kong. From his translation may be seen that Kong's counsel is of practical value for a statesman not less than for a department chief of a great store.
Concerning metaphysics Kong told a disciple, who asked him about metaphysical questions: If you would be really interested in important things, that is, social affairs and problems, you would not have the time to meditate about such questions. But here Kong was wrong.
Buddha, on the other side, underestimated the importance of social and economic questions, favouring metaphysics instead. (Against such a stand, Proudhon said: "L'économie politique c'est la métaphysique en action.") Or are his political and economic speeches altogether lost? At the time of Mohammed, Buddhism was prosecuted in India and at last exterminated, because the monks admonished the people not to obey the rajas if they demanded war services from their subjects, but to keep peace. It seems not improbable that such an attitude traces back to Buddha himself. It is estimated that more than 80,000 works about Buddhist thought were destroyed during the persecutions.
(J.Z.: B. remarked elsewhere that one thing good about Buddhism is that it has no record of initiating book burnings, not even of the writings of its opponents. On the contrary, Buddha himself advised his followers to study other systems of thought, in order to become all the more convinced of the value of Buddhism. But I do doubt that any man's thoughts are so numerous, valuable and condensed that they would really require 80,000 books or essays as explanations. An encyclopaedic commentary would appear to be much more sensible to me, especially seeing that no one, in a normal life span, has the time to read more than about 20,000 books. Nevertheless, I would also oppose the burning of any one of them. Perhaps some of them did contain some pearls of wisdom not yet contained in the thoughts of Buddha and other pioneers. - J.Z., 7.2.03. - To make my personal bias against all traditional holy and religious books and for the writings of Ulrich von Beckerath quite clear: I assert that this correspondence and his other writings contain more sound ethics and good ideas and advice than all the traditional holy books combined. Can you prove me wrong? - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
The trouble is that people like Buddha and Jesus did not write. Kong Fu Tee wrote. Thus we have an ethics of Kong Fu Tse but what lies before us, under the denominations of Christian and of Buddhist ethics, contains quite heterogeneous elements.
At the times of the crusades a good Christian had to be a good warrior, too. That was also the standpoint of Cromwell, of his Ironsides and also that of the Prussian soldiers of 1813. But Tolstoy, the Dochuborzes, the Mennonites (to which my forefathers belonged) are certainly Christians as well.
An essential part of the older Christian ethics are the mortifications and in some Catholic monasteries & cloisters monks and nuns still use girdles with points and hooks and such things. All authors assert that these people are good Christians. But Christ himself rejected that, ate and drunk with people of all kinds (women of doubtful reputation not excluded) and was merry with them. (A strong argument, that he is not an invention or a myth or a generalisation of star movements but a real man.)
What the different Christian ethics have in common is that what is also to be found in heathen ethics. From that I am inclined to conclude that such a thing as a general Christian ethics does not exist.
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Different from all other ethical systems is that of Kant. Unluckily, Kant as well had to consider censorship.
Therefore he spoke more of God than would be necessary today, but he always used the word in a way that an attentive reader had to realise: he did not mean the Jewish Jehovah.
Kant departs from facts and tries to explain them. He does not give prescriptions - - the word taken in its general sense - - but tries to explain how a man may be disposed (? become inclined? - J.Z.) to fulfil his duty, and he tries that with the same impartiality as today criminalists try to explain what may be the causes that a man does
not fulfil his duty.
Kant says: Look at that man, whom King Henry VIII would compel to bear false witness against Anne Boleyn. His life and even that of his family are in danger. By one word he can protect his own life and win much pleasure, too. He declines that and, although - - he is by no means a hero - - he trembles fear of the king's revenge, he fulfils his duty, contemptuous of all pleasures which he could. win by subservience. (I do not know the story and Kant does not mention the name. In England he will be well known.) "Kritik der praktischen Vernunft", II. part. (Thomas Moore. - J.Z.) Then Kant asks: How is it possible that the sympathy of all men and even of children are on the side of the persecuted man and not on the side of the king? Why do men not say: "What a fool he was, to. reject to such a degree pleasure and risk death, torture, etc.? Maybe, that of 100,000 not one could have resisted as he did, and, nevertheless, their sympathy is on his side!
Kant remembers also the French Revolution. ("Der Streit der Fakultäten.") He remembers what very many average men expressed as their opinion at that time, with astonishing courage, at Paris towards the Jacobeans and their government and in Germany towards the feudal governments or their adherents, in both cases with great personal danger. Were all these men also crazy to ignore, to such a degree, personal danger and the pleasures which they could continue to enjoy merely by keeping silent? Or, if they consciously risked the danger, was it really a great positive balance of pleasures which induced them?
Kant said: One must not abuse or misunderstand language and simply call that a pleasure induces a which a man to act as if he acted by his own will or by a balance of pleasures, when he risks and endures suffering. Here two moral elements are in action, contempt and esteem, which should not be subsumed under such heterogeneous notions as pleasure or displeasure.
Scientists like Spencer, Bentley, etc. seem to depart from facts, but they do not. They depart from the theory
(which deserves the name of a prejudice more than it rests upon a lack of experience) that men - - average and others - - always tend to gain as much pleasure as possible and to avoid as much displeasure as possible. While such a theory holds true for a great part of economic and social life, it does not explain the whole of history and of daily life. Such an expert as Adam Smith said enough about it in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" and said it better than I could.
Schiller, in his Wallenstein represents a politician of pretty noble character, who suffers from the great error, that all men are guided merely by their advantages. He tries to defeat the emperor by winning over the general of his army with much money, presents and the promise of more future honours and the expectation of an honourable peace with Sweden. He proved to be a bad judge of the mentality of humans and of soldiers. The same generals, who had plundered and murdered, for the lowest of motives, would not betray their emperor simply because they could not violate their duty. (J.Z.: Or, what they considered to be their duty. In this case, disobedience may have been their real duty! - J.Z., 7.2.03.) This small remnant of a sense for duty, which remains also in such men as the generals of the 30-years-war, was not perceived by Wallenstein, and for this reason he failed.
The average man is to 80 % a rascal, but not to 100 %. Science and practice must not overlook the difference of 20 %.
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You say under "Unemployment": "… our workers do not work so hard, especially in coal mining ...". Are English workers really becoming more lazy?? The Output of coal mining and in English industry decreased - - yes - - but is this the fault of the workers? I do think that in general it is still true what Thomas Brassey, M.P., in his book "On Work and Wages", London, 1872, 3rd edition, page 81, said, where he gives a typical example. (Typical at least for that time.) This book was written with rare impartiality and Brassey himself seems a first rate e expert. He owned one of the greatest railway construction firms, which flourished already under the management of his father. Brassey says:
"I will now give an interesting example, derived from my father's early experience in France, in the construction of the Paris and Rouen Railway in 1842 … At one time there were five hundred Englishmen living in the village of Rollebois, most of them were employed in the adjacent tunnel. Although these English navvies earned 5 s. a day, yet it was found, on comparing the costs of two adjacent cuttings, in precisely the same circumstances, that the excavation was made at a lower cost per cubic yard by the English navvies than by the French labourers."
Brassey mentions numerous examples of this kind. I assume that the type of average English worker I still unchanged. But circumstances do not remain the same.
(J.Z.: Among the circumstances to be mentioned here is the growth of the trade union mentality, which expects continuously growing wages and better working conditions regardless of productivity and at the expense of the employer, investors and the community of consumers. Within the employer-employee relationship and in an insufficiently free market, e.g., one without free banking, there is actually no accurate enough guide to allocate the shares of workers, investors, managers etc. in the total product. Thus anti-industrial and class warfare results, leading to low productivity and ever more government intervention. H. Dubreuil {"A Chance for Everybody"} described this relationship as an "organised antagonism". The workers want more pay for less work and the owners or managers more work for less pay. The consequences of this relationship are widely seen but not this relationship, as one of the main causal factors. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
The coalmines are now much deeper and some of them are the deepest in the world. Their depth seems to have reached the limit where a miner can work at all. (Heat, air pressure, dust, not yet investigated influences of the interior of the earth.).
The output of industry depends essentially upon the continuous investment of a part of the product in repairing and replacing old tools and machines by new ones, etc. If an employer must fear that his factory or shop will be "socialised" (a bad word, seeing that the worst way, one to depreciate a factory's value for society, is to hand it over to the government) or submitted to such restraints, that it is, in practice the same as if the factory would be confiscated, or if the employer is so heavily taxed, that he cannot any more spend, for the said purposes, as much as he did before, then the output must decline.
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English payments in Sterling. England wants wheat. Admitted. But does England want exactly USA - wheat? I am convinced that, if England were to offer, as a means of payment, scrip as I have described in my letters and in my dissertations on Milhaud's system, to Australian exporters or to Indians or the Egyptians or even to the Export Organisation of Romania, then they would at once accept.
You say: We cannot get it from anywhere else. I see no reason for that, and from the printed matter, that I do get by your kindness, I see, that the Milhaud system is quite unknown in England (and abroad) and was never offered by an English firm. That is the reason why it is not accepted.
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There are still some points to which I did not yet reply. I beg to postpone them to one of my next letters and remain
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
Postscriptum. 21.X. 49.
It could be true, that "Milhaud-bonds", as I described them in my letters and in my dissertation about the application of Milhaud's system are not prohibited, because they are not to be made good in money. I cannot verify that, because it is impossible to get here, in Berlin, the text of the currency laws now valid in England.
(J.Z.: Even now, no one seems to have documented the despotic monetary legislation in all of the major countries, by citing all the relevant laws and their paragraphs. I leave it to those, who assert that it would be easy to do so via the Internet, to actually provide this information. Most people simply ignore the laws of monetary despotism, although all of them do suffer under their consequences. They do not see them, thus do not comprehend them and remain unaware of their causal connections. What they do see, are only the results of these laws and their institutions and practices - and they do ascribe them, usually, not to these laws but to a diversity of other and presumed "causes". The real "arsonist" thus escapes, unnoticed, even by most of those, who consider themselves to be "economists". - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
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Redemption in gold is impossible as long as gold coins are not obtainable. Nuggets, such as are now sold in New York (100 ounces in a tin for 4,000 paper dollars or a little less) are a very bad "Ersatz". (substitute. Single large nuggets do also have a special collector's value, above their metal value. Taxation of such transactions also interferes with free convertibility, even when trade in gold bullion, gold dust or nuggets and in gold coins, as well as private gold coinage, have, otherwise, become free. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
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You were so kind as to send to me the Quest of August 1949. The paper is of great value. The editor is seeking for the truth quite earnestly. It is always a pleasure to state that. At page 7 he quotes 21 lines from "The Individualist" and adds 22 lines of a commentary, from which it can be seen that he tries to understand the I's principles. The passages on page 7 were not marked. If they should have escaped your notice, then I will return the Quest and beg you to send it to me again, occasionally.
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Letters by air-mail from Berlin are only permitted to Western Germany. To send them abroad, they can only be sent it the sender, or another person abroad, sends what here is called "Internationale Antwortscheine".
(J.Z.: IRC's, International Reply Coupons, obtainable at all postal offices and representing one ordinary air mail letter charge. - There and then they were, obviously, used as another bureaucratic and obstructionist practice of the postal monopoly. It may also have been used to force letter writers to expose their letters to perusal by communist authorities, when they were carried by rail or truck through East Germany instead of by air mail over it. - All kinds of obstructionism were associated with the blockade attempts of the Soviets trying to destroy the independence of West Berlin. - In spite of their publicly posted threats: "We will know how you have voted! Beware of the consequence once we take over!" - West Berliners voted overwhelmingly against the communist candidates, giving them even less votes than there were card-carrying members of the Communist Party in West Berlin. Alas, that kind of "action" constituted the limits of their readiness to resist the Communist regime. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
With pleasure I read my letter to you of 1.8.49., printed in the "New Generation", October edition. I thank you very much for the trouble you took "to lick it into shape". (In Schopenhauer I found the expression, used from a book of Hegel, that the later editions were "zurechtgeleckt". Schopenhauer spent some years in England, as a boy, and there forgot his German, so that his mother-tongue was rather English rather than German. Now I know where he got his expression, which in very pleasant.)
In the second section of my letter I said:
"It seems I agree also, with Mr. Kerr, that it is the task of the science of population to determine or to estimate for every country, for a given time, under given or supposed circumstances, the optimal number of inhabitants."
The printer omitted the here underlined words, so that the readers do not know what I had said. Luckily everybody sees that here is merely a misprint. (? - J.Z.)
I will try write a reply to Mr. Drysdale's supplement to the "Malthusian" of October 1949, "The Scientific Path to Peace and Prosperity" because you are so kind as to promise to lick it into shape again. From a logical point of view, D.'s article needs more to be licked into shape than by my article, written in a poor pigeon (pidgin? - J.Z.) English. Not even in one line does D. mention the fact that in all food producing countries - - Germany, before the war, by no means excluded - - the producers complained bitterly of bad markets for food and demanded from their government to do what it could to increase the number of eaters and thus the quantity of the produce that is actually eaten. During the whole of the 6,000 years of known history there was not a single case reported of the people in any country standing in queues before the bakeries, although the crop was normal, peace reigned, money lawn were supportable, Free Trade was admitted and transportation facilities were as they could be. D. says nothing about that.
Bth.
(J.Z.: When you see such endless and mostly fruitless opinion-exchanges, then you become more and more aware of how necessary an encyclopaedia of the best refutations of popular errors, myths and prejudices is. Once it has been compiled and published, people would make themselves ridiculous, in the eyes of all who owned and used such an encyclopaedia, if they did not pay attention to the refutations of their own views in that reference work. And refuting them would become very easy - by simply referring them to some pages in it. Once they got several such short replies, they would finally try to check out their own views, with the aid of that reference work, before trying to spread them. The urge for social esteem is rather strong with most people and they fear ridicule and public exposure of their ignorance and prejudice more than anything else. - Imagine the effect this could have on what is now considered to be the public debate on political, economic and social issues, full of popular "muck", on all sides. By now, such an encyclopaedia could be very rapidly accessed, either online or on a CD-ROM. Alas, like so many other enlightenment options, this one, as well, remains ignored by "freedom lovers" of all kinds. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, … 21 X. 1949.
Your letter of 18.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I was so impressed by Mr. Gibson's splendid article and see its possible economic, political and even historical consequence in such a brilliant light before me, that I simply forgot to answer the question posed by Mr. Gibson: "Who pays the subsidy on devaluation for the exporter?"
Excuse me! But I still feel like Goethe did at the evening of the battle of Valmy, when he said to his companions:
"From here and today a new epoch of world history begins, and you may say: we were present."
(Von hier und heute geht eine neue Epoche der Weltgeschichte aus, und ihr koennt sagen, ihr seid dabei gewesen.) Reported in the "Campaign In France" [Campagne in Frankreich], Chapter: The days from 19. to 22. IX., 1792.)
An increase of export by devaluation is essentially the same what in German is called a "Ramschausverkauf", that is, a selling-off with loss, in the hope to keep the clientele won for later, after the prices are raised, by the low prices offered now. Although economical history offers no example that such a hope was ever fulfilled, if applied to a country's economy, the idea remains in the heads of average merchants, politicians, etc. They generalise shop sales experiences into the world's market. Already Adam Smith observed that and, generalising this observation in the right way, he stated: Merchants never were and never will be good politicians. Equal to merchants are politicians who are impressed by the merchant's counsel and their manner of considering the country's economy as a great riff-raff-handling.
(J.Z.: Here, for once, B. did not consider the need that merchants often have to achieve at least some cash flow by setting emergency sales prices, due to the deflationary consequence of monetary despotism. By fixing, with the help of monetary despotism, the sales price of the own official currency below its market rate, they do also achieve a sell-out of it, at this emergency sales price, which leads to such an additional demand for the own and devalued currency that, as a rule, and at this exchange rate, it can only be satisfied by putting the note-printing presses into operation. The result is the usual fiat paper money inflation (that of forced and exclusive or legal tender paper money), which soon, within 1 - 3 years, depending on the extent of the dependence of internal prices upon the prices of imports, which are raised through the devaluation, leads to an increase in internal prices corresponding to the degree of devaluation and, also, that of the increased and corresponding paper money printing. A further discussion of this aspect can be found in my essay in PEACE PLANS No. 8. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
One has - - I think - - to distinguish between the questions:
I.) who pays for the devaluation and
II.) who bears it's costs.
The latter seems of special interest.
Professor Wagemann an eminent economist and for many years manager of the "Institut für Konjunktur-Forschung", examined, about 15 years ago, the history of devaluations (already at that time offering an immense
material) and found: In about two years - - in the average - - the gold prices before the devaluation are restored in the country's export trade. That's a very important statement, and, if it were generally known, there would be very few devaluations in the future.
(J.Z.: Did Wagemann or others also observe the corresponding gradual increase in the internal monetary circulation and the effect this had of the free market rating of this currency on foreign exchanges or on the black markets? Gold prices would, after this intervention, have come back to the prior ones but paper money prices certainly would not! [Unless the monetary despots arranged a deflation.] That paper money price-inflation is only possible due to additional issues of legal tender paper money, for which the devaluation created an additional and enforced demand. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
Wagemann's statement admitted, one can say: After an elapse of two years - - in the average - - every citizen contributes to the costs of a devaluation, the exporters not excluded.
Pending the two years, there is no other change than an increased export, nobody looses and the exporters win, including the industries depending upon export, their workers, etc. After a few days, in some spheres, the effect of the increased prices for imported goods begins, is passed to consumers, by consumers to employers and so to the whole community. Some are disadvantaged without being able to pass their losses: Those who get pensions, those who were imprudent enough to save with savings institutions, most landlords and the creditors of the State, of corporations etc. In practice, although not in theory, there are also the disadvantaged railways and the post. Others win more than corresponds to the degree of devaluation. The situation may be compared to that of a burning city. The city loses, although there are always some who win by stealing or selling goods that are at the moment precious.
That such a development is quite natural may also be derived from an observation for which Karl Marx did not claim priority and which really can be found in earlier writings, but which he gave in a nice and impressive form. Marx says: If it costs the labour of 10 days to produce an ounce of fine gold, and if there is an some commodity which requires 10 days of labour, too, to be produced, then there arises a tendency, irresistible in the long run, to sell the commodity X at the price of 1 ounce of gold.
This admitted, it is clear that a commodity, whose price is artificially debased by devaluation - - the price expressed in gold - - one day must be sold again at it's original gold price. Wagemann's investigation completed Marx's statement in a very important detail, by finding out the time required to regain the original gold price or, in other words, by measuring the strength of the tendency which, in the long run, brings prices to their labour value, that of gold included.
From Marx's observation follows the inefficiency of every price regulation, although Marxists (who very seldom read their master's writings) do not draw this conclusion, on the contrary.
The labour value of produced things is not constant; even after the very important improvement of it's theory by Jevons ("Theory of political economy") namely, that one must not only consider the really spent labour but the probably to be spent labour in the future, then required to produce something. But in practice these 2 different prices do not differ much.
On the other hand, Jevons' improvement leads to a just distribution of the social product which is quite different from that proposed by Marx and his followers, the latter seeming just, but is, if applied in practice, at once felt as an unsound principle and this by the labourers themselves. That is confirmed by the development of wage-systems in Russia.
For the present discussion it is not necessary to enter into the interesting details of Jevons' improvements of the old labour-value theory.
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In Berlin the effects of the devaluation are already felt. Here are some prices from my own observation at the shops where I buy the few things I want for my subsistence:
Before & after devaluation
Hair cutting 0.80 DM 0.85 DM.
Sugar 1.00 " 1.15 - 1.20 DM.
Cheese
(Romadour) 0.40 " 0.55 (A kind of salmon. - J.Z.)
See-Lachs (a fish
not translated in
my dictionaries) 0.50 0.55. (Salmon. - J.Z.)
Sugar cubes were priced, three days ago, at 1.20 DM per pound (500 grams) and are now 1.30.
An attentive housewife would be able to mention more items.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 22. X. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
the Eastern Magistrate of Berlin - - in many respects much more active than our Western one - - publishes a Statistical Yearbook, which contains some figures for the whole of Berlin. Interesting seems the statement concerning the marriages of the Jews in the years 1946 and 1947.
Then and there were married Jewish
men women
1946 1947 1946 1947
20 24 72 75 to Protestants
11 2 10 17 to Catholics
- - 2 1 to other Christians
66 68 66 68 to Jews
- - - - Other religions
11 17 13 13 Partner not belonging to a church or religious community
- - 3 - Unknown to what religion the other partner belonged
108 111 166 174 Total number of marriages of Jews.
It is known that pious Jews like to marry Jews. But in Berlin the percentage of Non-Jews married by Jews is remarkable. There will not be many towns in the world where this percentage is higher and perhaps it is the highest in Berlin. It may prove that the personal relations of Jews to Non-Jews in Berlin are as good as they can be, and that racial prejudices on both sides are not strong enough to influence marriage statistics.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
(The total number of intermarriages was probably higher, seeing that many of the Jewish survivors or returnees did not want to be registered as Jews or were not registered a such, having past and future prosecutions in mind. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
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U. v. Beckerath, … 23.X.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
(This is the first and possibly only time that even this short address was correctly scanned! - J.Z.)
experience proves that the best and most important truths or aims are overlooked and considered an trifles without a good slogan. (Compare my "Slogans for Liberty" project! - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
Mr Gibson now wants a slogan for connecting Free Banking with his Scottish nationalist aims. No one else than you is able to supply it or them.
For centuries the Scotch had the right to create their currency, if it became scarce for any reason. Scotland claims this right again.
For centuries the Scotch had the right to agree with others, fellow citizens and foreigners, upon any standard of value which they thought to be suitable, gold, silver, grain or any other. Scotland claims this right again.
For centuries the market has been free In Scotland, not only for commodities but also for any kind of exchange. Such a thing as foreign exchange control is considered as tyrannical by Scots who preserved their old sense for freedom, in the economic sphere as well.
Scotch should not forget, that clearing was in full use, when it was still considered as unreliable by the greatest English firms. Scotch should also not forget, that clearing centres are a Scotch invention. (Jevons, "Money")
A nation as advanced in economical and financial science as the Scotch has the right to decline economic and financial plans imposed by others.
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Some points for a programme:
Investments, by which employment in Scotland is created or enlarged, should be free from all taxes for a generation, that is for 25 years. That principle applies to foreign imported capital too.
If cooperatives buy plants, factories, estates and concerns by instalments or in other ways, such transactions shall be free from all taxes and the rights of the former owners, insofar as the not yet paid price is concerned, shall also be free of all taxes, income tax, property tax and estate-duties, provided that the cooperative excludes no Scotchman from Membership.
Scotland imposes upon every Scotch worker, artisan or other man, doing useful work in Scotland, the duty to constantly compare his economic situation with that of similarly situated men in the whole world, whose income is higher.
Scotland imposes upon them the further duty to publish suggestions by which his economic situation can be brought to the same level or a higher one than the best know of others in the same profession, in any part of the world.
It is the aim of Scotland and every good Scotch citizen that Scotland, in all kinds of human labour, culture, science and efficiency of her resources shall be the first country, with Scots leading in all kinds of progress.
Scotland declares that justice shall be the foundation in all relations between citizens, between citizens and the government and between citizens and foreigners. She imposes upon every citizen and official the duty to use the old Scotch freedom of speech, if he believes that in any part of relationships the highest possible degree of justice does not prevail.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
Postscriptum. 23. X. 49.
Scotch have always demanded the right to help themselves if the government is not able or not willing or not competent to help them. Therefore, Scotch have always declined and still decline the mentality still prevailing among some groups abroad, that it must be the privilege of the government to introduce social, economic and
cultural improvements, to plan such improvements and to impose them upon the people. The Scotch refer to the bad experiences, economic, political, cultural and social with such imposed and supposed improvements and do also refer to the fact that never has such a plan failed whenever it was worked out by free Scotch citizens in free associations.
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I beg to remark: No plan, national, social or other has any sense (? - edge 2 letters obscured. - J.Z.) if it does not consider the situation of the workers and does not open to them the possibility of a higher standard of living. Workers consider the present economic system as unjust and are right, although they have not the slightest notion about what is unjust in this system. That private capitalism is not the right thing, capitalists themselves admit. Workers - - and most thinking capitalists - - see no other way out than State capitalism. But now - - in Eastern Germany and Russia - - they see what that means in practice: a single employer with governmental powers, which,
in Russia, has already put 1/10 of the people into concentration camps and in Eastern Germany is not far from achieving this objective.
You will know from the history of socialism what an enormous moral force, ca. 100 years ago that movement was which they call today cooperative socialism (voluntary socialism - J.Z.) (Genossenschafts-Sozialismus).
Here I need not mention such names as Owen, Buchez and so and so many others, which you probably better than I do. In Germany, socialism an a real and organised power began with Lasalle, who won the workers with his
ideas about cooperation.
(He would have financed them by the emission of 100 million Thalers of fiat money; his early death preserved him from a great shame and the movement from a disaster. Jews - - in general - - are able to adapt existing financial or monetary systems to their aims, but are not able to invent new principles. The honourable exceptions - - I mention Zander - - do not refute the rest. The new State Israel, as one of its ministers expressly stated, will surpass all other States in enforcing the State monopoly of money and suppressing the "black market". Not a single Jew - - alas, not even Zander - - protested.)
Here (See above! - J.Z.) is a quite new idea of creating cooperatives. The new plan enforces nothing, does not take a penny from anybody, suppresses nobody, but merely creates new opportunities. The idea that State-favoured cooperatives should be obliged to accept everybody as a member comes from Theodor Hertzka, who, in his two forgotten but excellent works: "Freeland" and "A Visit to Freeland" ("Freiland" und "Eine Reise nach Freiland") (J.Z.: At least their English editions were reproduced in my PEACE PLANS series. - J.Z., 23.5.03.) demanded that check against new monopolies by cooperatives. In my book " Does the Provision of Employment Necessitate Money Expenditure?", sold a Williams and Norgate Ltd., Great Russell Street, 1935, gave some details about the financial part. (The translation is not the best; the translator did not quite understand the subject. But the French translation by Buriot-Dariles is excellent.)
I do not expect that more than about 1/100 of a country's economy will transformed by cooperative action (the word taken in the sense here meant), within 20 years after first being started.
Cause: The mentality of the workers does not yet tend towards self-help, but still expects help from somewhere else. (From the stars, too, as in old Babylonia. The number of astrological Weeklies and Monthlies will not be smaller in England than it is here. I counted at the news-stands five or six magazines treating economic and monetary questions from an astrological point of view. Last week one of them investigated the possible stability of the West-mark from its horoscope. (I would not spend 30 West-Pfennige for the issue.)
But the possibility is held open, and this possibility, to leave the present system at any time, if required, will make the system supportable for many people, whom in other countries, where such possibilities are not given (or not seen) become dangerous revolutionaries.
---------------------
At least two times in Germany have the workers had all power required to change the "capitalist" system, that was 1918 and 1949. In both cases none of the leaders had a programme, and if there arises another situation, where an immediate action is required but no programme is available, then it will be the government
which acts, sometimes by an inflation, which does always, for some time, extinguishes all political interests of the people and replaces them by one interest: How to win the bread for the next day - - so that the government is safe for some time - - or by State capitalism or by sending the masses to battlefields. The latter is the most simple, requires not the least meditating and is, therefore, executed in most cases - - by Napoleon I, Napoleon III, by the Commune, by Chinese Communists, who use both, and others, which a better historian than I will remember.
How different would have been the situation in Germany if it would have been possible to represent to the workers a practicable programme!
(J.Z.: That can be done today, on microfiche, on floppy disks, on CD-ROM and on the Internet. But the former 3 options are not yet sufficiently taken up and on the Internet such offers are drowned in a flood of trash or flawed or incomplete ideas and discussions. - A proper market for all enlightening and liberating ideas has not yet been established by libertarians, not even a comprehensive encyclopaedia, or their own, bibliography, review, abstracts and definition and slogans collection, far less an alphabetical index to all their writings and, in spite of the availability of enormously powerful and cheap alternative media, they have left most of their writings unpublished, un-translated or out of print! Can one truthfully say that the Communists and Christians have been as foolish in the treatment of their writings? - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
-----------------------
Mr. Gibson seems to be the man to learn from history.
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
A devaluated West-mark may be counted as equal to 5 old gold-pence, when at the free bullion-market 48.526 Paper-Dollars buy 1 ounce of fine gold. The latter relation corresponds pretty accurately to the present quotation for small quantities of fine gold.
-------------------
The number 5 may be verified in this way:
1 sovereign = 7.988 grams standard gold.
Standard gold = 11/12 fine.
1 sovereign = 240 pence.
1 ounce = 31.1035 grams.
1 West-mark = 0.238 Paper Dollars after devaluation.
31.1035 x 0.238
48.526
------------------------------ = 5.
7.988 x 11 x 1
12 240 Bth.
23.X.490
__________________________________________________________________________________________
(Transcript of a hand-written and undated note by B. on a slip of paper):
"The Scotch learned from their experiences in these years, that this mentality is the right one also to get reforms of the society as a whole."
(You be the judge where this note is to be inserted, above or below! - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
24.X.49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
I do hope - - no - - I am convinced - - that Mr. Gibson, in the manifesto to be prepared, will declare war towards State-capitalism. It needs courage, but that is a quality, which Scots were never short of.
All scruples are to be overwhelmed by the realisation:
It is 100 times better for Scotland to be governed by a private capitalistic government, with its seat in London, than by a State-capitalistic government with its seat at Edinburgh.
May Mr. Gibson compare Latvia's, Lithuania's, Estonia's situation, social, political, cultural, economic, financial,
at the time of the Tsars with their present situation under "autonomous" governments.
Separatism with no other programme than this very separatism must fail, which may be learned from the history of separatism in the last decades of Germany. (In the Rhineland it failed through strong French military assistance.)
Individual freedom based on national independence may - - and in the long run must - -win.
(J.Z.: I do hold, on the contrary, that any form of rightful national or other group independence can and should, in the short as well as the long run, win only - - if it is fully based on individual freedom, even to the extent of "individual sovereignty", "individual secessionism" and completely voluntary associationism or "voluntaryism". That requires also their full exterritorial autonomy, under personal laws, constitutions and jurisdictions. B.'s version here may be only due to his flawed English or to the hurried writing of a short note. I do not know. But I do know that generally he did share the view that I have here expressed. Matter of fact, he converted me to it, from my general individualist anarchist point of view to a quite tolerant form of panarchism, not only for individualist anarchists and other anarchists but for all kinds of "isms" - that do respect the freely chosen "isms" of others - by not coercively intervening with their practices, however much they may criticise them or even joke about them. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
(Population of England in 1688 - J.Z.)
Extract from a Table
prepared by Gregory King, 1688
from details furnished by a hearth tax statistics..
A.) Number of persons in one household, including servants, (average)
B.) Total number of persons in the indicated class.
Numer of
Households (Blame the crooked lines on Microsoft Word! - J.Z.)
A B
160 Temporal Lords 40 6,400
26 Spiritual Lords 20 520
800 Baronets 16 12,800
600 Knights 13 7,800
3,000 Esquires 10 30,000
12,000 Gentlemen 9 96,000
5,000 Persons in greater offices and places 8 40,000
5,000 Persons in lesser offices and places 6 30,000
2,000 Eminent merchant and traders by sea 8 16,000
8,000 Lesser merchants and traders by sea 6 48,000
10,000 Persons in the law 7 70,000
2,000 Eminent Clergymen 6 12,000
8,000 Lesser Clergymen 5 40,000
40,000 Freeholders of the better sort 7 280,000
120,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort 5.5 660,000
150,000 Farmers 5 750,000
15,000 Persons in liberal arts and sciences 5 75,000
50,000 Shopkeepers and tradesmen 4.5 225,000
50,000 Artisans and handicrafts 4 240,000
5,000 Naval officers 4 20,000
4,000 Military officers 4 16,000
50,000 Common Seamen 3 150,000
364,000 Labouring people and out (? - J.Z.) servants 3.5 1,275,000
400,000 Cottagers and Paupers 3.25 1,300,000
35,000 Common Soldiers 2 70,000
? Vagrants, as gypsies, thieves, beggars, etc. ? 30,000
___________________________________________________________________________________________
5,500,520
Reproduced from "History of the Homeland" by Henry Hamilton, London, 1946.
Bth., 26.X.1949.
(Note by J.Z.: If the 750,000 farmers and their family members and employees had then been the only food producers in England and if all their produce had been for the English population only and If other producers and traders had not also traded for food from other countries, then one could say, that each of the farmers and their hands, including babies, infants, sick, crippled and too old people, had been sufficient to support, each, in the average, 7.33 of the other English people by their food production. When subtracting from the number of farmers those not fully productive, for the above hinted at reasons, then the number of Englishmen supported already then by one food producer would have been even larger still. Moreover, by that time probably only a fraction of the arable land in England was under cultivation and the standard of agriculture was probably not very high. However, many other people kept a vegetable and fruit garden and kept e.g., some chicken, rabbits, ducks, geese, pigs, sheep and a milking cow, without being farmers. I did not include the 160,000 Freeholders, either, not knowing how much they were involved, in the average, in food production. Obviously, lawyers were already then all too numerous and also the clergy. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
___________________________________________________________________________________________
U. v. Beckerath, … 27.X.1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
by your kindness I received some days ago the Liberty issue of January 11, 1896.
54 years ago! It was about the year 1900 when I heard, for the time, of the existence of "Liberty". I was extremely curious, but I saw no possibility to secure a number. I was a very poor boy at that time and could spend, for literature, no more than 50 Pfennige a month. (*) Moreover, I did not know Liberty's address. And now - - nearly 70 years old - - I do get a number, and, more than that, I speak to a friend of Tucker, who 100 times more than Gladstone deserves the name: the grand old man.
(*) (J.Z.: That was 50 Gold-Pfennige [well, copper Pfennige, of which 100 amounted to one gold-mark] more than I had as a school boy, until 1951, when at 18, I began my apprenticeship, earning in the first year only DM 80 a month, from which, after I left home, I had to spend DM 30 for rent. I got no pocket money as a schoolboy. My mother earned very little in cash or was unemployed or on social services. Whatever little I earned, e.g. by delivering newspapers like the "Der Kurier" and "Der Tagesspiegel", went into the family cash to keep us alive. - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
I took the number into my hand with a similar feeling as the man who discovered, some months ago in Palestine, the eldest copy of the prophet's Isaiah's book - - more than 2,000 years old. But I prefer Tucker to Isaiah. There lived many men like Isaiah, but there is only one Tucker.
-----------------
The copy arrived here in no good condition, and at the last page a piece was torn. The German post is ill-famed for it's evil treatment of postings in envelopes greater than the usual 11 x 16 centimetres. (Such mailings are tied together with wire-cord and so compressed, that often the envelopes tear and the contents is damaged.) I tried to repair the number a little with tape.
-----------------
The article "Voluntary Co-operation", author F. D., T., is very interesting. The principles stated are - - in general - - - right and true. Nevertheless, the co-operative movement became a very powerful one, and if F. D. T. would have foreseen it, he would probably have written another article. Now, when in England and in Scotland the co-operative societies became so eminent that - - I read - - before the first world war they owned 6 steamers, at least one of them travelling between Colombo and London, mainly occupied with transporting tea, there must be something good in them not known or not sufficiently appreciated by F. D. T.
F. D. T. takes it for self-evident, that a manager (and I think that now all cooperatives in England and in Scotland are guided by managers, not by committees) will always demand so much salary that for the cooperative it would be more advantageous to dissolve and to hand the shop over to the manager. In practice - - as experience has proven - - such cases are rare. The manager is quite content to do his work for a salary, which seems to many businessmen very low. The salary is low also if it includes a premium (turnover-commission), so that it is always in his interest to extend the cooperative's business. But - - and political economy may have to learn something here - - there are many individuals who perform better, if they get a constant salary instead of being paid like an employer earning his money. Why? Let me remind you that 300 years ago, at the time of the 30-years war (no - - 301 years ago - - it ended 1648 by the intervention of a girl of 18 - - queen Christina of Sweden) it was taken as self-evident that an officer must have a stake in warfare. He got the right to tax the occupied countries, to win booty, and, although plundering was often forbidden in the contracts, the governments let the officers plunder, often even the own subjects. And then came governments like the Dutch and then the Prussian, whose rulers knew human nature better than the a-priori-thinking "experts". They gave the officers a good salary and forbade them to take any stake in wars. Honour should be their only reward. And what was the effect? Officers of a much higher quality than the booty-hunters of the 30-years war.
Whoever knows co-operative work from the own experience knows also the dutiful, modest, diligent and active manager of a quite different character than the average shop-keeper.
Until 100 years ago shop keepers in England - - you know that better than I do - - were considered as second-class people, which in many clubs, unions, etc. were not accepted as members. They were not considered as respectable. Managers of cooperatives were never exposed to such contempt.
F. D. T. speaks of the experience of retailers, their ability, etc. Very many retailers are simply unemployed, who had saved a little money and think: A man of 50 seldom gets a good new job. I buy a shop! In England that will not be otherwise than in Germany. At New York I found the same.
An average shopkeeper does not like improvements in his shop, although they cost the least money. He prefers to squeeze the employees (or employee - - most occupy only one - -) or to cheat the customers. The manager of a co-operative has quite inverse interests. An average shop, 30 years old, will not look much otherwise than at the first day. A cooperative store, after 30 years, will, in general, be very much enlarged and improved and work with several employees.
F. D. T. only considers consumer cooperatives. That is a development whose future will not be sensational. Very much more important are - - I think - - factory cooperatives. Perhaps they will not perform better than the present system. Perhaps. But there are several very important aspects to be considered.
I.) Strikes are practically impossible in a well-organised cooperative. Every associate is his own employer - - against whom will he strike?
II.) The associates are directly confronted by the real economic life, know what price fluctuations mean, bad crops, good crops, what competition means and, after some years, they get a mentality much more like that of an ernployer than that of an employee.
III.) While now technical improvements are difficult - - because the workers fear to lose their job by anything that saves labour - - and often use "sabotage", destroy the improvement, etc. - - in a cooperative association everybody is interested in inventing something to reduce labour-time, diminish pains and troubles. While now no more than about 2 % of all patents are used in practice, under the new system the percentage will be much higher. It is estimated that in England now about 60 "iron slaves" work with every English worker. Under the association system it will soon be much more, in less than 10 years certainly double the number and in 20 years the fourfold one - - uninterrupted peace and a liberal government provided.
There is much to be said against factory cooperatives and Beatrice Potter, married Webb, said it in her book on co-operatives. These grievances can be overcome. Managers like Bata, the great shoemaker, used the cooperative principle in his own factory, divided the whole concern into several hundred associations - and with the known effect.
In Italy after 1900 and more so after the Russian Revolution of 1905, many agrarian cooperatives arose with very good success. They hired the land from the feudal lords, of whom many were unable to conduct their agrarian affairs.
IV.) During the next social revolution the managers of factory-cooperatives are safe, while employers, perhaps, will be killed.
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I return hereby the "Liberty" issue.
------------------
Tucker's pen was very sharp. That was a "défaut de ses vertues". Without such a pen he would probably not have attained much. But that he treated a man like Yarros so badly, I do regret. Yarros (I conclude, from the little that I have read of him) was a sincere truth seeker, no blockhead and of great impartiality.
I get some consolation from the poem on page 7. When I read similar poems in Germany, I was afraid that old
Germany really became crazy, and when I saw that Morgenstern's "poems" won an as wide-spread applause, I had a prevision of what came in 1933. But in the USA similar poems were of no consequence. They are a sound people. Not always does a poetry of that kind announce disasters, but often it really does (no less so than the birth of a child with two heads and such things - as believed by our forefathers).
The poem begins with "Banks". At first sight, I thought the author meant our banks, issuing notes and regretted, that Proudhon could not read it. Proudhon asserted that modern economic thought could not be brought into poems or songs. ("Encore la marsaillaise!") And here the contrary seemed to be performed. But now I guess, J. William Lloyd meant such things as in the evening couples sit upon, seldom pondering the problems of note-issuing.
The way in which Tucker printed "Liberty" deserves imitation. I prefer it to the usual kind of printing. I have myself some trouble to get the lines equal in type writing. If line of unequal length become common, then mine will be found as beautiful as others.
The idea of the Anarchist Letter Writing Corps is a good idea. It should be revived, firstly only with the theme: Free Banking.
-------------------
Is Tucker's memory at Boston maintained? (Is Tucker being remembered in Boston? - J.Z.) ?
-------------------
In the year 1911 a Canadian lawyer, who must have read Tucker, wrote a book of at least 12 pounds, in three languages (burnt). He was named Internoscia, and his book had the title: "International Law". If anybody would have the intention to write a codex to decide quarrels between Tucker's voluntary associations, then he could not have done better.
(J.Z.: Jerome Internoscia, New Code of International Law; Nouveau Code de Droit Internationale; Nuovo Codice di Diritto Internazionale, 1910, 1003 pages, 5657 paragraphs, with alphabetical index. It was reproduced by me on 11 microfiche, in PEACE PLANS 85-95. If there had been sufficient interest in it, then I would have got it re-fiched on a lesser number of microfiche. Alas, most libertarians are interested only in all too little of the total libertarian literature and imagine that all older writings of this kind are quite outdated. B. said later that this volume should be taken as a general guide and if an international arbitration court would wanted to deviate from its rulings then it should have to publish all the reasons for arriving at a different decision. - J.Z., 7.2.03.)
------------------
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
U. v. Beckerath, … 28. X. 1949. Your letter of 26., just received.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
with much Interest I rend the letter of 20. I. 49 of Mr. Gibson. I return it here-enclosed. Many thanks!
Reprinting the discussions in the parliament about devaluation and commenting upon them, from the standpoint of the Free Banking Theory, would furnish a book creating a new departure in economics. You could write the book if you were to read less what average contemporaries said and wrote and what is forgotten the very day when they said and wrote it, but would, instead, devote your precious time to write more and teach your follow citizens.
(J.Z.: For those, who still take the utterances of politicians serious and thus their debates in parliaments, and other public speeches, there should not only be a printed version or extracts but also one, unabbreviated and unedited, on a website. The MP or minister etc. should also be free to add his comments. But, much more important: All interested citizens should there have the opportunity to add their comments to any word, idea, sentence, paragraph or speech - by a link, leading to their own counter-statement. Such a website should be conducted as one of the expenses of a parliamentary democracy or republic. Each speech could thus be open to critical dissection by the public in a widened democratic debate. Also to the few approvals to be expected. One might also insist that once any remark of a politician, thus recorded, from inside or outside of parliament, has led to at least 10 serious and valid corrections there, of real faults in logic, facts, ideas and arguments, then such a statement, with all the corrections added, should also be published in at least one major newspaper, preferably at the expense of the salary or pension claim of that politician himself, who had, obviously, misinformed the public as much and who lives and rules, nevertheless, at the taxpayer's expense. A certain number of objections should also automatically lead either to his censure in parliament or to a recall move. Such a treatment might help to induce them to say less, inform themselves better and to stick closer to the truth, while reducing the mythology surrounding them. The public would then also have easy access to whatever they had said, in public, on any subject, in the past and thus also, indirectly, to the all too much of what they have managed to leave unsaid. That would be brought out in the comments. I can well imagine that a weekly or monthly which published nothing but such corrected statements, perhaps after the first flood of corrections, i.e., a week or a month later, could be a commercial success. I can also imagine that all members of opposition parties would gladly utilise the information thus supplied to them by the public, to attack their opponents. This mutual correction between politicians, with the help of the public, might also prove to be somewhat effective. The public would thus also have a permanent public memory on hand, to catch these professional liers (most of them!) in any contradictions in their statements. And against all their waffling, evasions, false pretences etc., semanticists, genuine political scientists and philosophers could have a field day. What they say in parliament and otherwise in the public, hardly ever educates anybody, i.e., hardly ever conveys any worthwhile truth. But good enough comments to all their utterances, by the public, could. Carlyle even asserted that no one in Parliament every convinced anybody else. That was not quite true, if one remembers the Free Trade movement in England, but came close to the truth. Thus, instead of going on with the pretence that the elected politicians are the best informed and most wise men in a country and do lead and enlighten themselves and the public with their wisdom, let us reverse the role and use the system to enlighten the politicians and at the same time the public by this democratic self-help measure. It might become a popular sport, like the shooting of clay pigeons. Initially, before it has had its beneficial and enlightening effects upon the politicians, it might even be as easy for the objectors as shooting fish in a barrel. Moreover, this material could there be easily sorted out by subjects and periods, names and parties. This approach might lead, temporarily, to the fullest development of parliamentarism, by a parliament of the people, by the people and for the people, and then also to its decline, by demonstrating what jackasses most politicians are and always have been, with their laws, measures and institutions.
The latter would happen, if Herbert Spencer's suggestion on the review of all legislation were finally also realized, in this way, by a review of all laws, on any subject, the reasons for them and the reasons for their repeal as obviously ineffective and then the numerous attempt to legalise and enforce the same nonsense once again and again etc.
The various voice stress analysers, lie detectors etc. that are now available should also be applied to all their public speeches and the results of these tests immediately published together with these speeches, perhaps by also providing corresponding links, as if these results where offered by one of the living objectors or commentators. For a while a rather silent parliament might result. The public should also be able to offer its comments to any proposed new bills, in the same way and with the same medium. Maybe that would lead to a referendum that would demand:
1.) No more than 10 new laws a year.
2.) No law to be longer than 10 pages.
3.) Every law to be worded in a language an average voter can understand.
4.) For every new law enacted at least 10 old laws have to be fully repealed.
5.) Any raise of salaries and expenses etc. to be made dependent upon them having first repealed another additional 100 - 1,000 old laws, without introducing any new one.
6.) Any law to be subject to a veto on the grounds of individual rights, by a public arbitration court set up for this purpose.
7.) No law to be valid for more than 10 years.
8.) Conscientious objection to be allowed to all peaceful, non-criminal dissenters to any law.
9.) Individuals to be free to opt out from any territorial law and contract their own personal law instead - or to do without.
10.) Individuals to be free to opt out of the whole body of legislation, constitution, administration and jurisdiction and to contract their own voluntary protective communities under personal laws.
You add your own wish-list - towards independence from politicians, their ignorance, their prejudices, their flawed ideas, laws, institutions and actions! - J.Z., 8.2.03. - and from their legalised orders and monopolies. - J.Z., 23.5.03.)
The economic theory from which Sir Stafford Cripps and his adversaries both depart (start out - may be more logical, since, obviously, they have not yet separated themselves from it. - J.Z., 8.2.03.) may be compared to the old astronomical epicycles, the foundation of antique and mediaeval astronomy. It was much more complicated than Copernicus' system and required much more mathematics. From a mere geometrical standpoint it explained the stars' movements as well as the heliocentric system; beyond that it had the immense advantage of being in accordance with the popular view, and with Aristotle and the Jewish-Christian religion. Before Newton proved that the Ptolemaic system was dynamically impossible, the other system left still some doubt and had as its main support the old "simplex veritatis sigillum" (Simplicity is the seal of truth? - The older version of "Occam's Razor. - J.Z.), which is by no means always true.
The new system, accepted by you, by Benjamin R. Tucker, by W. B. Greene and some others - - your book being the only one still in print and, therefore, of still greater value than it possesses by its own merits (One can read this in two ways, as a praise or as a camouflaged criticism! - J.Z.) - - introduces some new principles.
Cripps and the others think it to be sufficient to modify, in some way, the economic quantities (prices, wages, exports, imports) and the known quality's intensities (which are a special kind of quantities) such as intensity of labour, improvement of popular morals and such things.
The first of your principles is: The right to divide money-valued claims and to standardise the divided pieces, so as money (coins) is standardised, is a personal right just like the right to marry, to keep one's inherited nose - - may it please others or not - - and to breathe, the denying of such a right being tyrannical and unworthy of Great Britain's dignity. Further, it is a personal right to accept such standardised pieces - - formerly named notes - - and to offer them to any person.
That the principle was recognized as self-evident in the early days of banking, does not diminish your merit, no more so than Copernicus' merits are diminished by the fact that Aristarch and others in antiquity already placed the sun in the middle of the system.
The second of your principles is: Set aside examples like that of a besieged town (An article in THE FREEMAN proved that e.g., price control does do harm even there. - J.Z., 8.2.03) - - in times of peace every imposed restriction of economic freedom, may it be by private monopoly or by a governmental monopoly, produces more harm to the community than advantages. Moreover, it is tyrannical and, if forcefully applied, entitles the coerced to resist.
The first of these principles is expressly denied but never investigated, the second is simply not understood, so that average economists and politicians think capitalism (the word taken in its popular sense) a special application of economic freedom, although it is, obviously, the contrary.
(J.Z.: It is interesting to see how popular perceptions of "capitalism" have changed over long periods. Even now few have realized that a genuine free enterprise and free exchange or free market "capitalism", one in all spheres, is still the "unknown ideal", as Ayn Rand wrote in a book by that title: Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. Moreover, she herself was not sufficiently consistent in applying free choice and free competition to subjects like full monetary freedom and "competing governments" but rather stuck to flawed gold standard and territorialist and limited government notions only, which would not fully realize free enterprise, free exchange, individual rights and liberties in these spheres but also put them into forms of straightjackets. Later B. defined the kind of "capitalism" that now exists as "a condition that inevitably results when most people do not bother to take care of their own economic affairs, not just their jobs, business and personal spending, and are not even interested in them", but rather leave them to politicians, bureaucrats and other supposed experts, whom they more or less trust but, alas, not sufficiently distrust to throw them out, personally and permanently. B. was a kind of voluntary and cooperative socialist and, at the same time, in some respects, more of a radical free marketeer and anarcho-capitalist than are most of the modern libertarians. It is still the common fate of all great pioneers to be all too much misunderstood by their contemporaries - and even by some of their followers. - J.Z., 8.2.03.)
One may say: What has all that to do with exports, imports, Dollar scarcity and the need to supply the country with food?
Our answer: It has very much to do with that, and if the two principles would have been applied at the right time, the present problems would not have arisen.
Further: Anyone, who has constantly before him these two principles, will judge the problems in another way than he who starts from the popular economy, where omnipotence of government is considered to be the most self- evident principle, so that it is never discussed.
All of that may seem of no immediate application to the discussion of the devaluation problems, but it applies to the problems and insofar also to every single problem.
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Mr. Gibson says: "… and how can he pass an increased price to the consumer, who had previously failed to purchase at the price (can't read the next word) before the devaluation?"
If Mr. Gibson's supposition would be right, his conclusion would be right too. But there are imported goods which some English buyers must buy, at any price, such as food, cotton, tobacco and many others. Let me take here the fact, that most smokers would prefer to reduce their meals rather than to reduce their smoking, as an economic fact, so that I need not consider it from a more point, which is here indifferent. (You do know that I don't smoke and am, insofar, not biased for the smoker. But I judge from what I saw in Germany and what every English soldier will confirm from the own experience at numerous occasions during war, when there must be a choice between food and tobacco.) If the existence of such consumers is admitted, then it is also admitted that the passing-on of the price increase is no problem for the. importer.
You, of course, thought of such consumers, who must pay every price still economically possible for them. That point of view regarding imports was insofar justified as a very great part of imports to England consists of goods absolutely necessary to the consumer. I estimate (but here I may be mistaken), that the greatest part of imports consists of such goods.
Let me add here that from 1945 to the first months of 1948 - - before the monetary "reform" - - the price of coffee in Berlin was sometimes RM 600.- or so (per pound - J.Z.) (at the free market), that is 3 times more - - about - - than a monthly income of a worker. I do know of people, who ate nothing for a whole day only to get the money for a single cup of coffee. Relatives of Indian and Chinese students sent them one pound of tea monthly, and, by selling it, the student could easily cover all his expenses and even amuse himself quite well.
Mr. Gibson asks: "… supposing I got 100 Dollars for some article, or its equivalent in Sterling. I now only get 70, Dollars or its equivalent in Sterling - who pays me the 30 Dollars? No one, my Sterling received for the article is 30 Dollars less even if I sell more." - Mr. Gibson is right here, also, if his supposition is right. But: The importer pays 100 Dollars for the imported article, as he did before the devaluation, and then he demands the sterling value of $ 100 Dollars from the consumer (increased by a small loading, in wholesale seldom great) and is certain to get it. The consumer - - of course - - must now renounce many other things that he used to buy before - - some imports of less importance, some of home origin. The first is intended by the government. The latter, it is hoped, will not occur, with what probability you will estimate from the history of devaluations, which you know better than I do.
You know also, that the effect may be, that suddenly so much of the home industry suffers from the confinement of the consumers to necessities, that there arises much unemployment, while imports are not very much reduced, that is: much less than the government and its advisors expected. They should not be surprised if, as a consequence of the devaluation (the people expect now more devaluations) much more imported jewels are bought than before and a corresponding quantity of home-made goods remains unsold at the merchants. There are examples for this.
According to the investigations of Professor Wagemann on the average time required to restore the former gold prices after a devaluation, it may be expected that after 2 years = 52 weeks or so, the present price level in Great Britain will rise in the ratio of 70 to 100, that is about 43%. That is - - as any table of compound interest teaches - - about 1/3 % a week of the preceding week's price level. It requires a very skilled statistician to state that from week to week. The people and the average businessman cannot do that. He is all the more unable to state the price increase as always some goods decrease in price, so that in the case of an increase of the price level of 1/3 % about 10 prices will have decreased and 12 increased. It may also be that 12 prices decrease and less increase but that the amount of increase is greater than the amount of decrease. A good textbook will supply any sceptic with the most interesting examples. The smallness of the increase from week to week eliminates all economic resistance against the increase of prices.
(We see that in Berlin. Every day some commodity becomes dearer, yesterday a half pound of salt 23 Pfennig - - before it was 20 Pfennig, The housewife pays, because the does not need half a pound of salt every day. Peppermint candies - - yesterday 30 Pfg., before the devaluation 15 Pfg. But here the merchants did not take into consideration that the buyers are girls and children, who count the Pfennigs very carefully. I think that in a week or so peppermints will cost 20 Pfg.)
I beg to note down all that here, because my impression is that Mr. Gibson overestimates the difficulty to pass on price increases.
In reality your opinion does not differ all that much from the opinion of Mr. Gibson. You spoke of prices of necessary imported goods and he meant goods that the consumer can dispense with.
Logically your statement, that, eventually the importer must bear the price increase is quite right. But - - I think -- there will not be many cases where the importer is able to bear the difference. The profit margin in wholesale trade is small, in percentages. I learnt from a Manchester Guardian article, about 20 years ago, that the margin for wheat is 2 %. From so small a margin the merchant cannot cede a considerable part.
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In the case of taxes on land-value, the tax will be increased if the value increases. This value regularly increases (if the increase is not forbidden) when the money is devalued and the rents are not limited by law. Is then the so produced nominal increase to be considered as "created by the community", in the sense in which Henry George used the words? I do hope that Scotch friends of land-value-taxation - - in the form of a single tax or others - - consider the problem from that standpoint.
If one has much to do with the practice of mortgages, then one finds: In the case of an increase of land value the proprietor at once takes out a mortgage. For the yield of it he builds. (That provides labour.) But who are the creditors of the mortgage? In many more cases than 50% - - I estimate at least 80% - - they are persons who provide for their old age or institutions - - like insurance companies - - which provide for their customer's old age. So, in practice, the increased land value helps to assist persons in their old age.
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
Here enclosed is Mr. Gibson's letter. I took a copy.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 28. X. 1949. Bis. (? J.Z.) Your letter of 26. cr.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
Coal mines. 20 years ago, Rittershausen was in London. (I hope, he visited you.) When he returned, he told me: Many of England's coal mines are at their end. What had been expected for decades, has now come to pass. The Mines are practically exhausted. With every foot of increased depth the technical difficulties increase in geometrical proportion. There are tendencies to sell the mines to the government. But the government knows the difficulties quite well and is not very willing to buy the mines. Some officials said: Let us wait some years. Then the proprietors are bankrupt and we get these mines gratis. That was 20 years ago.
In Germany the worker is paid for the quantity of coal produced by him. He sells the coal to the proprietor. If he is lazy then this is to his own disadvantage. Under such a system a decrease of the quantity of coal produced, per man-hour, must be caused by purely technical causes, for which the worker is not responsible.
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Wheat. You say: "…no country outside USA can supply it in the quantity we need".
In "The Statesman's Yearbook", edition of 1931, page 59, I find these figures:
In 1930 the United Kingdom imported about 42,261,000 cwt. of wheat from other parts of the Empire and about 62,746,000 cwt. from foreign countries. The greatest wheat sources were: United States, 21,076,000 cwt.; Canada, 26,196,000 cwt.; Argentina, 15,205,000 cwt.; Australia, 12,721,000 cwt.
Wheat flour imported 1930, 11,779, 000 cwt., of which 3,178,000 came from the United States, 4,492,000 from Canada, and 1,713,000 from Australia.
At page 58 it is said that in the year 1930 (provisional figures) were imported 103,843,000 cwts wheat and 11,501,000 cwt. wheat-meal and flour.
Obviously, in the year 1930 the USA were not yet decisive for England's supply with wheat. Other countries - - I remember - - complained bitterly bitterly that England bought -- go little grain from them. Such countries were Romania, Hungaria and Turkey. The latter was unable to us her vast territories, quite fit for wheat production, but now in danger of becoming a desert, and would have preferred to produce wheat for Great Britain.
In the year 1929 Romania produced 2,714, 848 metric tons of wheat (Statesman's Yearbook, page 1225) = about 54 Million cwt. (1 metric ton = 19.684 cwt long). In the year 1928 Romania produced 3,551,590 metric tons = about 70 million cwt. Romania could easily have produced 21 million cwt more wheat - - thus replacing the USA's part - - if she would have been sure to sell the wheat. But here lies the rub. Please refer to any economic paper of that time, especially those of the International Agrarian Institute at Rome. I remember that a little because Rittershausen, at that time, prepared a study about the possibilities to increase the food supply of Germany by investing in plants abroad for watering by artificial rain, with the help of German savings banks. (A plan by no means utopian; one day it will be executed, if not by Germany than by another country.)
(Meddle with an old statistician! If my nice statistical library would not be burned, I could tell you more.)
Offer Rumania or Hungaria or Turkey to buy wheat and to pay it with bonds, based on the "acceptance principle" (let me simply call them "Milhaud bonds"), and they will at once supply you with more wheat than England can ever eat. (Well, a long-term contract might be advisable for England's annual wheat requirements. - J.Z., 9.2.03.) Until now nobody offered any wheat producer payment in Milhaud bonds. Try it, and you and the producers will be delighted.
Try it, and a few days later the Dollar Scarcity has disappeared.
(But - - terrible to think this: the monopoly of the Bank of England to furnish means of payment for external trade would have disappeared, too. - - "Verstehst du dieses, Zephyses?" said the old king of the spirits in the old play: "Der Diamant des Geisterkönigs".) (Do you understand this, Z.? … "The Diamond of the Spirit-King". - J.Z.)
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1 confirm with 1,000 thanks the receipt of:
1.) "Economic Digest, May 1949,
2.) "Truth", of 14. October,
3.) "Economist", 15. October,
4.) "City Press", 14.October,
some containing sensational news.
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At page 200 of "Economic Digest" I read, inter alia:
Wheat Equivalent, caloric basis, World's totals: 1947 = 98, 1948 = 112. (Index numbers)
That's a considerable increase. Do you think, that now the possibility of further increases is exhausted? The answer is the reduction of arable land under cultivation in the USA for 1950. Already there is a shortage of eaters. Malthusians do not know what to do: Either be pleased about how much food is now available - - for those with means of payment - - or be sorry about their failing prophesies.
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From the "Courrier de France" I take the news that the French would be able to transform the whole French Sphere in North Africa into a very large grain producing area, but the problem remains here as anywhere else: How to sell the grain? France herself is satisfactorily supplied, which I read from the latest edition of the "Courrier de France". Prices are even falling, so that the peasants demand subsidies.
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You know the saying of King Philipp of Macedonia: "A gold-laden jackass finds his way into the best-watched town. He overcomes even the highest walls." Today he would have said: A gold-valued Milhaud Bond finds its way through the Iron Curtain, to Romania, Hungary and Russia herself. For such Bonds - Stalin would rather let all Russians go hungry and would supply England with grain. (He is right. [In his appreciation of such clearing certificates. - J.Z.] Try it!)
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I read Bevan's Speech at the Devaluation session. Such an impressive speaker!!! And he's a character - - a charlatan can't speak so. Bevan would be a prop for the present government if he could not speak so well - - really reminding of Demosthenes and Cicero.
(At the first speech of Robespierre all deputies laughed, for every man saw that it was his first speech in a great assembly. One man did not laugh - - Mirabeau. Asked by his friends why he was so earnest at such an amusing occasion, he replied: Oh, my friends, do you not see, that the man believes all he says? I fear him more than all others.) (Nonsense combined with excellent rhetoric and uttered with conviction is really a great threat! - J.Z., 9.2.03.)
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Please, do read the article: "Optimum Population" in the 1947 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is very short but disproves many volumes of the "New Generation"
Very faithfully Your - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, …. 29. X. 1949.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
it is your opinion that Christ's recommendation in Matthew 5, 39 - - do not resist offences - - belongs to the Christian Ethics. You are insofar in the right, as all books on ethics, written by Christians, take the same view. Also all priests of the Christian Churches will here agree with you. But I cannot agree, saying with old Abaelard:
"Si omnes patres sic, ego non sic."
Nevertheless, I do think that we differ here not so much as it may seem at first sight.
Take any year from the year zero to the year 1949 and estimate: How many persons may have lived in that year and have seriously acknowledged that principle? How many have really offered the left cheek, is they were slapped on the right? More than 1,000? You doubt it? I do to. And is it not true, that all those, not belonging to that trifling minority, do hold in contempt all those who did not in any way resist the invaders? Would the most Christian king have permitted a judge or a soldier or any of his officials to obey the principle and not resist an invader?
Further: If a thief would have come one night to steal the fish caught by Petrus, would any man in the world believe that Petrus then spoke thus to the thief: Oh - - wait a bit - - you shall get my net, too!!!
In other words, the principle was taken serious by almost nobody and those, who did take it serious, were boycotted by the other Christians.
That admitted, nobody can say that the principle formed, at any time, a part of Christian Ethics. When Christian authors pretend the contrary, and all of them do, they do either lie or do not know what they say.
If Nietzsche of any other would have asserted that the principle formed a part of Christian Ethics, then he was not careful enough in his criticism. (Very often he was not careful enough.)
The question arises whether Christ himself intended to recommend such a principle. Christ was obviously a man whose religious thinking was far above that of the level of his time. It would be unjust to reproach him that he did not yet find out, what 1,700 years later David Hume and Kant found out, under conditions much more favourable than the conditions for religious critics at the time of Christ.
The whole passage from verse 31 deals with matters of law. He demanded from his adherents that they do not apply to a court for divorce. He demanded that the courts be refused an oath in the legal and prescribed forms. He protested against the fundamental principle of the Jewish justice system, which was the jus retalionis. (An immense progress at that old time, where the avenger was not bound to any limits for his revenge, and, on the other side, had the right to renounce revenge for a trifling sum of money.)
He recommended avoiding the courts and to try to come to an agreement with adversaries.
The apostles, in their letters, underlined this point of view, and I think that you know the passages.
The true sense of what he meant, seems to me expressed in verse 25 and Luke 12, 58.
The verse 39 is obviously altered and corrupted, as are so many dozen others.
(Gibbon relates edifying stories about the mutual reproaches of Christian sects and churches, for having falsified the scriptures. A celebrated falsification is that of Matthew 5, 3, where it is said that the spiritually poor are blessed, while in Luke 6, 20 the real text is preserved, where Christ simply speaks of the poor. Some old bourgeois added "spiritually".)
The behaviour of Christ justifies my theory. (I hope it will not only be mine. The theory very much suggests itself.)
At his trial one of the beadles (church servants - J.Z.) beats Christ. (Luke 22,64, John 18, 22.) In no case offered Christ the other cheek. John reports that, on the contrary, he protested and in a manner no less dignified than courageous. The words about the two cheeks are an oriental expression which none of his listeners misunderstood.
And then the cleaning of the temple, which all 4 evangelists report. Here Christ not only did not resist but executed a real charge against his adversaries. Here as well he displayed much courage and even robust strength.
From Christ's ethics we possess only corrupted fragments, not sufficient to restore Christ's real doctrine! What today passes under the name of Christian Ethics has not much to do with Christ's actual teachings.
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100 years in the future Free Banking will be acknowledged as a religion. And the theologians of that religion will prove, that the main reason for which Christ attacked the Banks of the temple was that these Banks were obviously not founded on the Free Banking principle, which, in such a holy milieu really must be considered as a mortal sin.
Insofar Christ is here also justified.
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I do hope that you will now be convinced!
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Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 30. X. 1949. Your letter of 20. cr., received 23. cr.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
there are several "movements" for Scotch Independence and some of them - - that is my impression from a little article in "Truth" - go very far beyond the sympathetic aims of Mr. Gibson. G. demands a kind of economic and monetary home-rule, whose advantages would be for England no less important than for Scotland. Gibson will not separate Scotland in toto from the British Commonwealth, but others will, for reasons much inferior to those for which Ireland (de facto - - not formally) separated.
Let me here observe that many Cosmopolites (Cosmopolitan members of the Cosmopolitan Union of Werner Ackermann - J.Z.) considered the former British Commonwealth as the beginning of that international power which Kant expected to come, and to develop into a Union willing and able to maintain "eternal peace" or - - expressed less mystically - - to suppress wars of the old style. (Neither Kant nor - - as far as I know - - anyone else tackled the problem to suppress civil wars like the American of 1861/65 and the many others of that kind in England, France, Germany, China (especially China), Japan and elsewhere.)
Kant said: The creation of such a power is the aim of nature itself, and men aid nature here, although with no more consciousness then the corals do, which build atolls, the latter being nature's aim and the corals merely the tools.
For what purpose nature wants such a power we do not know, but an impartial look at nature's work lets us recognise that the tendency exists. I share Kant's views.
And now you may understand for what a crime I consider the present and the former government's acts by which India was delivered up to the "300,000 Indian Intellectuals", (among them at least 299 000 sheep heads), by which South Africa was permitted to create a colour bar, which gets much applause in Alabama and Missouri, but gave the Indian "leaders" the moral force to create that "independence movement" and prevented China from becoming a voluntary and true member of the Commonwealth.
Suppose a new Robert Bruce succeeds in separating Scotland from Great Britain. What would be the economic and, monetary effect? The first would be, that Bruce creates a Scotch monopoly bank that issues monopoly notes. Bruce would consider these notes as being as valuable as gold and would, therefore, prohibit the export of these precious papers. Every Scotch journal would defend the measure and would "prove" its necessity to supply Scotland with means of payment. To those, who demanded the restoration of the condition before 1844 would be answered, that at then "culture" was not yet as developed as today, people read classics instead of listening to the radio and wrote letters - - many still worth reading - - that's true - - instead of telephoning. People who do not believe in the progress performed by Bruce would be sent to a concentration camp and all papers would congratulate Bruce for his energy, patriotism and restoring the "unity of public opinion". The import-export problem would be exactly the same as now for Great Britain. To the Scots would be preached: Let no export come in from England to Scotland before the English Pounds to pay them are ready and the latter can "obviously" be done only if beforehand Scotland's exports are permitted to come into England. A Scot, who travels to London and pays there the hotel-bill with a Scotch note, would be considered as acting unpatriotically. It may be, that he merely amuses himself in London, but the hours of work which London - - acting in this case for England - - expends to amuse the Scotch, cannot be considered as a delivery of goods to Scotland, as would be the case in an import.
(Why not? They, prudently, do not reply, because they don't know it themselves.)
In other words: The old Soviet system of trade would be introduced and the whole world would admire it.
And all that would be nonsense because
I. ) If the future system of Bruce would be reasonable, then it would also be reasonable now, and not only in the trade between England and Scotland, but also in the trade between London and Dover and even between Wimbledon and Wandsworth. (In 1848 merchants of Berlin framed a "cahier" in which the subdividing of Berlin into economic spheres was demanded and an obligation for every inhabitant to buy at the stores in the street where he resided.)
II.) If the present system is superior to the "zone-system", then it remains superior if one part of the country gets another flag, its policemen another uniform and the man who "plans" for his fellow-citizen is replaced by two men, whose combined successes are of no greater advantage for their fellow-citizens than was before the success of the one man - and for the same reason: Two milked oxen yield no more milk than to one.
And now let us consider the export-import-problem of Great-Britain from that standpoint and let us not forget that if Jeanne d'Arc would not have interrupted the sound political development in Western Europe, so that without her intervention today Paris would be an English town (or London a French one), and further, if the English government in 1776 would have granted some quite unimportant concessions to the Americans, that then the whole problem would not exist and there would be one great empire from San Francisco to Lowestoft and from the Orkneys to Marseille at least
To Jeanne d'Ars applies what Goethe said:
"Was die Weiber lieben und hassen, (What women love and hate
"Das wollen wir ihnen gelten lassen: One should concede to them,
"Wenn sie aber urteilen und meinen, But if they judge and opine,
"Da will's oft wunderlich erscheinen." Then that will often appear to be curious. [miraculous?] - J.Z.)
But: to be impartial: If Christina of Sweden, Gustav Adolph's noble daughter, would not have meant that there were enough men killed and ordered her government to make peace, Germany would have had a 50 or even 100- years war instead of a 30-years war and would have been reduced from 25 millions inhabitants in 1618 not to 5 millions in 1648 but perhaps to 1 million or less in 1660 or so. (Is the book: The Role of Women in Politics" already written?)
Suppose: An Englishmen travels from Dover to Calais, drinks there a bottle of wine, pays for it with a pound note and returns. The inn-keeper says: What do I do with the pound note? The shops of Calais don't accept it - - I must spend it in England, if I can't find anyone, to whom I can sell it and who then spends the English money in England. Well - - I know what to do - - I'll send the note to the Biro firm and I ask them to send to me one of their magnifique, useful Biro Pens, without the thicker down-stroke. ("Gleichschaltung" is the parole of the time - - why not in the strokes of writing too???)
What is now the effect? English labour is exchanged for French labour. The quantity of labour is equal or may be supposed to be equal. The form of the business is of a kind that the exchange must take place, provided the French accept English money. What can be objected from an economist's standpoint?
From the standpoint of Cobden, Herbert Spencer, Jevons and Adam Smith nothing can be objected. But from a modern standpoint, that of a Keynes, Sir Stafford Cripps, and such people the thing is very different. They will object:
I.) This kind of trade offends our mentality. State, authorities, banks as money suppliers and the advice of experts such as we are, is here quite eliminated. That should not be.
II.) The monopoly of the Bank of England to supply the external trade with means of payment is here violated.
III.) A control of what is useful external trade is not possible if free trade - - as in the example - - prevails. But we like to decide what should be introduced into England in return for Biro's pens.
IV.) Schacht proclaimed the principle (which he borrowed from the Soviets): First export. Thus win foreign exchange and then you may - - if I think it necessary - - import and pay for the import with the foreign exchange earned. We - - Keynes, Cripps, Bevans, etc. - - accepted the principle and our brains require much effort to learn new things. Others have to use their brains to apply our system to their affairs!
Forcing foreigners to by our goods by the system of the example, namely: "Let Englishmen buy at libitum any foreign goods with means of payment of English origin, and let it then be the foreigner's worry to get the equivalent - - after all, they do have the means of payment in hand and they do know where these means are accepted as money - - " - -would mean too much new learning on our side. Therefore, the system must be forbidden.
(For many years the Soviets have abandoned the system. They may be human tigers, but they are no blockheads in economics.)
Rittershausen told me some time ago: The old economic aristocracy in all countries used the Malthusian principle and now has attained its aim: It is extinct. The employees, book-keepers, errand-boys, cashiers and such people are now in the business, to which they brought their mentality of subordinate and obedient men, who remain employees also as department-chiefs. These people govern us. But nature has destined them and their offspring not to govern (although they may be good department-chiefs) but to obey and be guided. It may require centuries before a new race of real merchants arises.
Schacht is a governing book-keeper - - no fool blockhead - - by no means - - but of political economy he understands no more than an average sergeant understands tactics and strategy. That is true, although he may know by heart 50 modern text books of political economy.
(J.Z.: Regarding modern economic textbooks and handbooks on inflation and unemployment: One can go through at least dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of them before one finds one that sees the connection between inflation and legal tender and deflation and the issue monopoly. This was a hint given to me by B. and I tried it out, repeatedly, first during a large book exhibition and since in many libraries and bookshops - and found it confirmed, again and again. Seeing all these text contain already these 2 very basic and important flaws, how many other flaws are they likely to contain? Thus most of them deserve to be ignored. Most bring a formal definition of legal tender and of the note issue monopoly - but without comprehension and exposition of their implications and awareness of the terrible disasters they have made possible. - For me that is the "Schopenhauer-Test" for most economic textbooks. - J.Z., 10.2.03.)
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Many will say: But the foreigners will not accept Sterling Means of Payment. They distrust the Sterling. Perhaps that is true, after Sir Stafford Cripps denied 9 times his intention to devaluate and now is suspected of not having told the truth nine times. (A governmentally monopolised and mismanaged paper money deserves every suspision! - J.Z., 10.2.03.) But foreigners will accept Dollar-notes of British origin at the value of a really free exchange market - - say that of New York, notes by which no (rare metal - J.Z.) redemption is promised but merely their acceptance in the "Zahlungsverkehr" (the dictionaries do not translate the word) (international payment and clearing transactions? Literally: payment transactions. - J.Z.) of the issuers.
And if then anyone says: Also such means of payment of British origin will not be accepted by foreigners, the I answer: I will believe that after such means of payment are formally declined and this not by mere writers of papers but by real firms and businessmen.
(J.Z.: Alas, most of these share the economic prejudices of the official "experts", but not all of them. From the few, who would there see new business opportunities for themselves, and from their experience with optional alternative and private means of exchange and clearing, also with alternative and freely chosen value standards, this knowledge and experience would rapidly spread, even if, initially, such actions are still and often coercively suppressed and punished. - Many do already strive now to achieve alternative payment options through the Internet. But most are still tied in their notions to metal redemptionism, rather than realising the "pure clearing" facility thus provided. And the others are insufficiently informed about the extent and the limits of "shop-foundation" or the "readiness-to-accept-foundation." They have notions of rather supplying new alternative international means of payment to others than letting them or helping them supply their means of payment and clearing themselves, obliging only themselves thereby, and using the technological avenues of the "inventors" of "electronic money" only as channels for the circulation of their goods warrants and clearing certificates. - The electronic channel providers should concentrate on that, and the security of their channels and should offer optional value standards for transactions through their channel and be also open-minded towards the introduction of new ones between consenting exchange partners. - J.Z., 10.2.03.)
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But very probably the "acceptance-Bills" (Milhaud-Bills) are prohibited by the foreign-exchange-control laws of governments. The present of providing money for external trade subdues the country more than despotism of the old style, say by Louis XIV. did subdue it and lets political freedom become - - in practice - - no larger than it pleases the monopolists and their "Hintermaenner".
(J.Z.: B. suggested "hintermen" here, a literal translation. What is meant are the "powers behind the throne" or the "men ruling behind the scenes", the powerful manipulators, who keep in the background, out of the spotlights. But some are impertinent enough to put themselves forward as experts, e.g. Cripps and Keynes, offering all their wrongful and false advice as the highest possible knowledge and wisdom. - J.Z., 10.2.03)
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You speak of trade deficits. And you are right, I did not reply to all your arguments as they deserve. But that is your own fault. The points you dealt with in your letters were so important and interesting that better economists than I would have shrunk away from them.
Some decades ago a German economist amused himself and his readers with a new kind of statistics. He added the import numbers furnished by all trade statistics, from the earliest times and added the export figures as well, confronting them. He commented: In the world's commerce there is no balance of trade. No country presents gifts to other countries, in goods, services or claims. If the commercial statistics were exact, the sum of all imports must equal the sum of all exports, perhaps not in every year, but certainly in every decade. It must even be equal at every moment, provided all claims are exactly included.
Example: England grants China a loan. Then there will appear in the commercial statistics an export from England to China but no equivalent export from China to England or to such countries which export in their turn to England. Some years later, when China repays the loan, the reverse will be observed. But the balance will be at every moment zero, if the claims are duly included.
Alas, this and other such surveys and arguments remained without effect. For each year the commercial statistics seemed to prove that the imports of the whole world surpassed the exports. That in economically impossible and proves the some flaws of the statistics. (They were already pointed out by Bastiat! - J.Z.) What may have been and still is the true cause of this inaccuracy has been the subject of controversies. For our discussion it in at the moment not important.
A similar observation could be made at the inflation time in Germany, Austria and other countries which suffered from Inflation. (Or, as English papers at that time said, which profited from inflation at the expense of those, who retained an honest money.)
In the case of Germany it seemed as if Germany imported enormous quantities of foreign goods and exported
very few. At that time I had an occasion to talk with one of the largest Hamburg importers. (His name was Schlubach, then known in the whole world for his very superior commercial qualities, absolute honesty and the great authority which he - - quite rightly - - enjoyed in all commercial circles. He paid his employees better than any other firm in Hamburg.) Schlubach was an adherent of the usual balance of trade theory. He gave me the later published figures from which one might see, that the balance of trade was very much against Germany. I could not
help considering the matter also from a mathematical point of view and replied modestly to Schlubach, that if the figures were true, then there must be people in Germany, who were debtors of the foreigners to the tune of many dozens of millions. Who - I asked him - are these people? Do you know their names? I do not have to know them and I will be content if you tell me: I know these people! Schlubach could simply have said: Well - - I know the names; but he was a man of the old Hamburg honesty and would rather have paid me 1,000 Dollars in specie than to tell me the least lie. He told me openly, that he knew no such people, who enjoyed credits to the extent that was here in question. He added, that he himself could get much credit from abroad. But at that time the business was performed in a way that the commodities were transported to Germany, remained in the custody of reliable concerns like Schlubach, but also as the property of the foreigners. If some quantity of these foreign goods was sold, Schlubach sent the equivalent abroad, in most cases German commodities. There never remained a real balance of considerable amount. But often Schlubach become debtor of German factories, who sent him commodities, in his case mostly (or frequently) railway supplies, also locomotives and railway equipment for Argentina. For the German factories it was a profitable thing. They built the locomotives with credits from
the Reichsbank given in Papermark and debited Schlubach in Dollars. After 3 or 6 month they repaid the Reichsbank credit received (worth then some boxes of matches) and got from Schlubach the Dollars he owed.
In the year 1926 I had some business in Paris, and there the French told me, that if at the Champs Elysées a very elegant auto was to be seen, then people usually said: Hein - - encore un allemand!
The result of my meeting with Schlubach was: The statistics were not reliable, and after my discussion they did not seem reliable even to Schlubach.
(J.Z.: The unreliability of the statistics I readily concede. But here a factor may have played a role which B. did not explore above. Foreigners may have accepted the already inflated Reichsmark for all too long, merely upon its old reputation - Meulen's "trust", which had lasted for several decades, as if it had still been the old Reichs-Goldmark and may have been insufficiently aware of its diminished and almost constantly diminishing purchasing power in Germany. Thus, they may have sold much and relatively cheaply (reckoned in gold value) to Germany, but with the inflated Reichsmarks thus obtained, they, or their importers, could have bought little in Germany. Even in Germany, where it was happening, the inflation, its cause and effect, were noted only belatedly and initially only by very few. Price rises were ascribed to everything else but the real cause. Foreigners would have been even less informed on this. So they miscalculated in their exports and imports, in the pricing of their goods in paper Reichsmark. Probably they had also foreign exchange controls, so that not they but their central bank suffered. Anyhow, this aspect might explain large imports of goods and small exports for the Germany at that time. Many foreigners or their central bank ended up with little purchasing power in return for their exports. Finally they got wise and altogether discounted the paper Reichsmark greatly or refused it altogether and insisted in being paid in their own currency. Then this condition was legalized, as if it were always economically necessary or advisable. At a later stage of the inflation this relationship was reversed. Foreigners buying with their relatively stable currency in Germany were at a great advantage. With a few and relatively stable US dollars or Sterling Pounds etc., foreigners could buy very much and very cheaply in Germany, thus exports rose, while Germans could buy very little, if anything, in foreign countries, with their inflated paper Reichsmark, thus imports greatly declined. - J.Z., 10.2.03.)
And now I ask you: Do you really believe in the commercial statistics????????? A statistician trusts in a statistics only if he, who compiled it, stands with his name for it and says openly how he compiled it and gives samples of the material from which he took his numbers. Who is the debtor of the negative balance of the English trade? I am convinced that such debtors do not exist, at least not more so and not indebted more than in the year 1913.
I beg to call to your attention to the following fact. If a country like England exports goods, which only an expert can properly price, like chemicals, textiles, optical instruments, etc. it is easy and the usual method to value them for a fraction of the real value, simply to save custom duty. I know enough examples from my own experience, and I would be surprised, if a man, so connected with commercial circles as you are, would not know many more examples. Import goods, such as England imports them, grain, flour, cotton, meat, wool, etc. can also be valued by average custom officials. But manufactured goods can be properly priced only by a few experts. Moreover, it is well known that in countries like the USA, and much more in others, the custom officials are very susceptible to bribery. In Russia, at the time of the Tsars - - as every voyageur knew - - the custom officials were Circassians. The Russian government had found out the Islamic religion of the Circassians, together with the inborn nobility of the Circassian character made them immune to bribery while the most pious Christian Russian, for a few Rubles, would let pass every desired quantity through the customs at the rate the other party wished.
(So the honest Circassians helped the Russian government in its robberies, while the dishonest Russian officials resisted them, well, to their own advantage, too. - J.Z., 10.2.03.)
Under similar conditions the balance of trade of every country (exporting manufactured goods and importing food and raw materiel), inevitably seems passive.
To confirm the foregoing, you will know better than I do, the events which induced the Chinese emperor to entrust the customs not to his Chinese but to a man like Sir Robert Hart. It any one would have offered him a ship loaded with gold as a bribe, he would have smiled kindly and then have the briber arrested. By his administration of the customs, Imperial China became the best and most trustworthy debtor of the world. How the affairs were conducted after the dismissal of the foreigners from service in Chinese customs - you will know.
Summary:
I.) England's balance of trade is active,
II.) The opinion that only the USA are able to furnish food to England is quite unfounded. The same countries which before supplied food etc. to England will do it now, if payment is offered in Milhaud Bonds - - with the latter being the only thing that must be introduced as an innovation. After a few weeks this innovation will be recognised as a great improvement, in England and abroad.
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The present system of payment must bring the most flourishing trade to a standstill - after a few years.
That you always demanded:
Merchants should not depend upon a monopoly bank for conducting their trade - - and that not only in their own interest, but in the interest of the whole country - that has now, by the present situation, proven to be an absolute necessity.
England's future depends upon realising your demand.
Under the present system Malthus will always seem to be in the right, and always the quantity of available food will seem to be too small, even if England were reduced to one million inhabitants.
Under your system the whole of Great Britain may grow into a single town and there will be more food available than the inhabitants can eat. Your system merely waits to be applied and it will transform, in a few years, the African bush into grain-producing fields and the Amazonas swamps into the greatest garden of the world - - supplying many hundreds of millions with food - - as already Alexander von Humboldt predicted.
If you continue to underestimate your own system, laid down in an admirable book and in so many articles in The Individualist, you will simply commit a sin.
"Nur die Lumpe sind bescheiden" said old Goethe. ("Only the beggars are modest." - B. always tried to motivate others by praising them, often to excess. Meulen's monetary system had severe flaws. Only if it had been introduced in free competition with other free banking systems would it have done little harm and would have vanished after a while, replaced by better ones. - J.Z.)
Day by day the Russian army increases by 4,000 trained soldiers. England's army does not increase. You (and nobody else but you) can provide the means to create - - in the long run an army like the Russian. Do it!!!
(J.Z.: Free Banking in England could provide conditions there, which would make military defence largely unnecessary. For foreign soldiers, told to fight England, would rather desert and freely work there than fight against England. And then such deserters or refugees would be invited and welcomed with open arms, as helpers to increase the standard of living in England even further - and could and would be told how to introduce the same conditions in Russia as well. - It would have been a country in which every hard working "proletarian" could have become relatively rich, rather fast, the capitalistic and free-market and cooperative way, thus deflating all State socialist and communist pretences. By comparison, the Soviet system would have been generally seen as a great flop - by almost everyone, every Russian conscript and civilian victim included. The few remaining communists would be asked: Who are the "exploited" in England, seeing that even the lowest employed or cooperators have a multiple of our income and that England has no longer colonies, which were, presumably exploited [also more fantasy than reality], but simply trades freely with all the world? The morale of the Red Army would have evaporated as far as England etc. was concerned - but would have risen in strength against the Soviet regime. In material and manpower resources "military strength" also means a great economic burden and it was one which the Soviet "planned" economy could at last no longer bear. The most strict "military discipline" in the world is not a sufficient help to a ruler when the other side offers each of its victims a much better deal, individually, also as far as any rightful national, racial, religious, ideological or other desired liberation is concerned. It is not impossible or difficult to offer all conscripts, professional soldiers and civilian subjects of a dictator a much better deal, ideas and programme than their dictator offers them. Nevertheless, the attempt is rarely made, because our rulers have monopolised this sphere, too and their governmentalism is not all that much better that it is quite obvious to almost everyone. They still consider immigrants and refugees a problem rather than as an unappreciated and unused great resource, for benefit of the host country as well as for the refugees and immigrants themselves. - J.Z., 10.2.03.)
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When judging the present situation a philosophical truth - - seldom noticed - - must be observed. One can always connect any effect to any pretended cause by interpolating a sufficient number of logical links, the one dependent upon the other, each logical link itself being very probable.
Suppose, an effect depends upon a pretended cause with a probability of 95 % - - which average men cannot distinguish from certainty. Suppose further, that the cause depends upon another pretended cause, also with a probability of 95 %. Then the whole probability is already reduced to 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.9025. Adding another logical link with the same probability reduces the whole probability to 0.95 x 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.857375. To average people the probability is brought to nearly three times confirmed certainty, because in their minds they add (unconsciously) the probabilities and get: 0.95 + 0.95 + 0.95 = 2.85.
By 90 links, linked together as before, the final probability is brought down to 0.00988836, that is less than one percent. Average people get the impression that here a truth is demonstrated, with certainty, 90 times confirmed.
Often I was tempted to work out examples from present economic discussions. But: time, time, time!!
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(Salt marshes??? Essex???? Caravans???? I went at once to the British Information Centre to look for these things in the Encyclopaedia Britannica - - but it does not contain an article "salt march of Essex" and also does not mention the thing either under "salt" or under "Essex". - But I see, that your health has now improved. The Demiurgos of our universe department gives humanity a new change.)
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Jevons, in his admirable "Theory of Political Economy" introduced there a new notion: Commercial body", by which he emancipates himself and his adherents (to whom I belong) from the old and not decisive notions "mutual" and "owned and guided by a single person", in the notion "commercial body".
The customers of a Mutual Bank and those of a Bank guided, as old Scotch Banks were, both form a "commercial body". The legal shape is perhaps not of primary importance. May both legal systems compete!
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
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U. v. Beckerath, … 4. XI. 1949. Your letter of 18. X. 49.
Dear Mr. Meulen,
Mr. C. V. Drysdale, President of the Malthusian League, just published a very interesting pamphlet: "The scientific path to peace and prosperity."
Mr. D., like Malthus himself, is a strong opponent to reforms of the social system (page 7), and from his
standpoint this is a quite logical consequence. Mr. D. says about such reforms:
"… but Malthus felt compelled to oppose them on the ground that they would remove all deterrents to early marriages and lead to such a rapid increase of population as would soon result in universal destitution.
If Malthus and Mr. D. were in the right, then you, who is now at the top of social reformers (always butter them up? - J.Z., 11.2.03.), deserve More blame than all others, seeing that they are not going as far as you do. Let me
here remind you, that the revolutionaries mentioned by Mr. D., Rousseau, Karl Marx, Henry George and Prince Kropotkin did not conceive the idea of emancipating mankind from the present money monopoly, neither from the quasi-monopoly by the relative scarcity of gold and silver nor from the artificial one that confines the right of note-issue to the State or State banks.
But here must be mentioned your most important discovery, that non-convertible certificates, standardised as money is, are not prohibited in England.
(Something that M. did not consider to be of importance and in which he was, most likely, quite wrong! - J.Z., 11.2.03.)
Possibly here lie, still hidden, immense social reforms, provided people can be found to utilise this freedom opportunity.
In Germany even those bonds in small denominations are severely prohibited now which were, 60 years ago, issued by every little shop and accepted by them for their nominal value in payments. Similar laws exist now in nearly all countries, Russia included, where also certified cheques of cooperatives are prohibited as a violation of the Central Bank's means of payment monopoly.
The breaking of the modern money monopoly would be - - although possibly quite bloodless, and more: possibly escaping the attention of the masses - - a social revolution of much greater consequences than the simple transformation of private capitalism into State capitalism, as in Russia, which you pointed out in your publications. The quantity of blood shed for social changes and the mass of property changing hands in revolutions proves nothing for the importance of the change as a system.
One day sociology will confirm the most radical influence: The breaking of the money monopoly. It still has to discover what you found out more than thirty years ago, that the monetary conditions of society are that factor which, more than any other, influences all relations of man to man, of man to the State, of man to the means of production and of man to the social product and its just distribution. I regret that not all friends of the present system are informed that this system was demanded by the 27 years old Karl Marx in the first German edition of the Communist Manifesto - as a good start for Communism, even if the Communist Revolution must be postponed. That was in the year 1847. Marx was quite right.
Mr. D. says, that his present views are the outcome of fifty years of earnest study. The earnestness of his studies every critic must confirm, who reads the pamphlet impartially. But, obviously, Mr D. preferred, during these 50 years, other studies than those in the theory of political economy. That's pity, for the population problems belong first of all to those studying political economy, although they seem to belong more to agronomy and the physiology of plants, beasts and men.
Mr. D. is excused, as even scientists like Darwin, who confessed himself to be a Malthusian, did not become aware that none of the problems investigated by him, not even the "struggle for life", have to do with an asserted greater increase of the population of man than his means of subsistence. (Descent of Man, 2nd edition, page 607.)
The struggle of life is carried on against all kinds of resistance and, in the case of man, especially against the resistance of the beasts of prey, i.e.., against being killed, as long as men are hunters. But man himself is no beast of prey for other men, as are beasts of the chase, not even there where cannibalism prevails. The purely religious nature of cannibalism is now generally acknowledged and also that it never contributed any essential part to the diet. If the immense material, collected in the last decades about cannibalism, had been accessible to Darwin, then he would have been the first to draw from it the right conclusion and, probably he, whom no naturalist surpassed in impartiality and sagacity, would have discovered there things still unknown.
(J.Z.: The following few lines, here given literally and in brackets, were crossed out by B. I reproduce them as indicating his line of thought. - J.Z., 11.2.03.)
(The fight against human and other robbers was in early days of mankind, what concerns the problems of overpopulation in the sense of Malthus, after hunting as a normal kind of production of food had been abandoned, not essential. That robber tribes were induced to their robberies not by lack of food, but in first line by their notions of a warriors honour is clearly seen from)
Some Malthusians represented the "hunting period" of mankind and the present conditions of hunting tribes as a proof for Malthus' theories. But from this age and of these tribes no facts are known that are favourable to Malthus' theories, although the human hunting activity immediately decreases the quantity of available food. The situation for man is much changed by passing from hunting to stock-breeding and still much more by passing to agriculture.
Here the food can be and is regularly increased far above the quantity really needed to maintain production. That is proven by the history of luxury from the remotest to modern times. At the court of the old Persian kings about 15,000 persons did service in the royal household. The fact that even with antique tools one man doing agriculture work is able to sustain about 9 persons was well known - and recklessly misused.
World's history hands down no record that men died of hunger or had to suffer hunger merely for the reason that their number was too great, excepted cases where the community did not enjoy free trade, that is: no free or good communications; or the government or the ruling classes restrained production or the free exchange between agriculture and industry, both foreign and domestic.
To conceive the importance of political and social conditions for the food supply, one might imagine that the Earth would be populated only by three men, one of them being the proprietor, but unwilling or too stupid to use the labour of the two proletarians. Then the earth would seem terribly overpopulated and a deadly competition between the two would arise.
Prof. Edwin Cannan, internationally recognised as one of the most able economists of our time, worked out a new scientific basis of the theory of population, one very different from old Malthusianism, but -- it seems - - accepted by some of the more progressive Malthusians. (Example: "Plenty of People", by Warren S. Thompson, Lancaster, Pa. 1944.) - In an excellent article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1947 edition, "Optimum population", the Director of the London School of Eonomics, Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders, refers to Cannan's investigations and for further information to L. Robbins, "The Optimum Theory of Population", in "London Essays in Honour of of Edwin Cannan" (1927). Obviously, Cannan's discoveries escaped Mr. D.
Carr-Saunders says inter alia:
"The optimum theory of population ... was not held by Malthus or by the elder authors, who discussed the population problem. It was their failure to formulate this theory, which robs their treatment of much of its value. This conception lies at the basis of the position now taken by all authorities, may be briefly expressed as follows …. If population is at the optimum number, the greatest return per head possible under the circumstances will be attained. Departure from the optimum, whether in the direction of deficiency or excess, will be accompanied by a return per head less than the possible return. Etc."
I state that your standpoint never differed from Cannan's, although there might have been, in special cases, a difference between adherents of Cannan and you about the probable optimal number of inhabitants in certain countries.
Cannan's and your views (I believe M. would have denied that they were his. B. left him an honourable way out. - J.Z., 11.02.03.) lead to another interpretation of history than the interpretation given by Malthus. Take Great Britain as an example. In the year 1798, when Malthus published his book, Great Britain was inhabited by less than 10 million people. Malthus asserted that the country be overpopulated and was convinced that the misery and the hunger prevailing among the lower classes were caused by a mis-proportion between the number of inhabitants
and the quantity of available food, a situation which he believed to be practically incurable. Today Great Britain produces from her own soil food for about 30 million people and, in spite of rationing, these 30 millions are, probably, better nourished than were, in the average, the contemporaries of Malthus. Obviously, 150 years ago, Great Britain was considerably under-populated. Until the year 1815 she was so under-populated, that the government granted a bounty to those who exported grains, seeing no other way to get rid of the surplus of food.
(At the times of Defoe, the government hoped to use the surplus - - to avoid destroying it - - by favouring the fabrication of gin, which at that time, and intentionally, was very lightly taxed. For reasons that every one might have expected, the system was later abandoned. In the year 1751 a high tax was laid on spirits and its retailing by shopkeepers and distillers was stopped. - English Social History by G. M. Trevelyan, 4th edition, 1947.)
Not before 1846 were the corn laws of 1815 repealed.
Also, it was one of the most common sayings at the time of Malthus, and is still sometimes used rightly, that in England and in every year many more people die from eating too much than die by starvation.
Although Malthus proved himself to be a bad observer in practical population questions, one must not underestimate him and I think you treated him with all respect in all your publications. Malthus - - as may be learnt from his writings - - proceeded insofar more scientifically than many of his successors, as he included the possibilities of employment into the means of subsistence, although he gave no clear indication of what these possibilities consist. If Malthus would have better worked out this conception, that a country's means of subsistence are not identical with the quantity of food produced on its own soil, then he would have attained Prof. Cannan's result. But Malthus did not elevate his investigations to the standpoint which Bastiat took, in his essay: "Things seen and unseen". Malthus had seen the many unemployed at workhouses and elsewhere and got the same impression which until today many unemployed themselves get, while they wait crowded before the Labour-Exchanges: "We are too many. Food for so many people is unavailable. Therefore we are hungry."
But what Malthus did not see, and what you saw, is: Food must be bought before it is eaten and not men buy but their means of payment buy.
By this statement you transferred the whole problem to a sphere very different from the sphere in which Malthusians of the pre-Cannan period are at home. The introduction of the monetary view of population questions shifts basis and conclusions.
Now no economist of rank can acknowledge a real overpopulation before the people stand in queues before the bakeries, although the monetary system is as good as it can be in the country, as well as in the food-supplying countries, free trade has removed all obstacles of importation, technology has opened sufficient communications to the centres of food supply and no price laws frighten away the food ready to be imported.
In this connection, it must be remarked that a good money system, so as you demand it in every number of "The Individualist", includes absence of foreign exchange controls. Here you differ much to your advantage from Malthus, who never thought that such a control can have anything to do with food supplies. He also did not become aware that the fear of merchants, that their payments may be devaluated, plays a very decisive role in the food supply. But you emphasised this fact.
Let me add that a perfect monetary system includes the permission to pay imports by means of payment originating at home, so that conditions like a Dollar scarcity cannot arise.
Under a monetary system like yours (B. as a personal appeal, ascribed his own system to Milhaud and to Meulen! - J.Z., 11.2.03.), a country will always seem to be under-populated, all the foregoing conditions being fulfilled, as long as queues before the bakeries are not to be seen.
Let me here refer to your book, page 215. You say:
"… at present the difficulty is for labour to obtain credit or purchasing power; under a more perfect banking
system it will be difficult for purchasing power to find labour."
That is perfectly true. But a country, where the demand for labour constantly surpasses the offer of labour, will never be considered as overpopulated, also if the prices for food can freely rise as a consequence of the eater's demand.
Mr. D. would perhaps answer: But now the world's food supply is really insufficient, and would refer to authorities like Lord John Boyd Orr and others.
My answer would be that if in a country all conditions for sufficient food supply would be fulfilled and then the present monopolistic money system would be introduced, then and within a few years, the present state of affairs would arise. A great part of the produced food could no longer be sold; the people would become undernourished,
the food producers would reduce the land area under food production and then, certainly, there would