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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 21. August 28 1978

The Class Character of Social Credit

The Class Character of Social Credit

The main enemy in the eyes of Social Credit is the present financial system and those who directly run it. In singling out the finance capitalists for attack Social Credit reveals itself as a party of the small businessman and farmer.

In the conditions of modern monopoly capitalism the 'small man' is oppressed by finance capital: he depends on bankers and financiers for working funds, for loans to expand the business and for his mortgage. He smarts under the whip of climbing interest rates almost as much as he sweats over his rising wage bill. Cheap money is a dazzling prospect, indeed.

'Social Credit theory is not just an economic fallacy, as the professional capitalist economists would have us suppose. It is also a well-founded, though necessarily confused, cry of protest raised by the remaining independent producers against the ever growing domination of the great monopolistic capitalist groups.' (Strachey, The Nature of Capitalist Crisis)

Social Credit's agricultural policy is particularly significant in this respect. In his maiden speech in Parliament, Beetham made a strong plea for 'justice' for the farmer. The basic price paid to the 'efficient' farmer should cover all legitimate internal costs and provide for a 'reasonable' profit.

What this amounts to is the extension of 'cost-plus' pricing into the farming industry. In the past, farmers have always been price-takers due to their great numbers and the competitive nature of the market in agricultural produce. It has been impossible for farmers to adopt the monopoly capitalist cost-plus methods and they have had to accept the prevailing world market prices. The vicissitudes of this predicament have been ameliorated to a certain extent by price stabilisation schemes and subsidation.

Drawing of a man blindfolded by money, holding a syringe