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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
------------------
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.
------------------
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!)
-----------------
Meat production, in
the greatest part of Africa, is merely a question of the Tse-Tse fly.
(Greatest? - J.Z.)
-----------------
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
turn
- over
___________________________________________________________________________________________
(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
_________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
----------------
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.)
------------------
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.
-----------------
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.).
-----------------
Very
faithfully Yours, signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
-----------------
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.)
----------------
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.
---------------
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.)
----------------
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!)
------------------
"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.)
--------------------
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.
---------------------
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.
----------------------
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.)
-----------------------
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.
---------------------
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.)
-----------------
Which industry is
today no war industry??? Even agriculture is a war industry.
----------------
Beatrice Webb. Very interesting. I would never have believed
that such an author as B. W. can be dry.
----------------
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.
---------------
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.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
---------------------
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".
---------------------
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.
---------------------
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
------------------
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.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
(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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
--------------------
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.
--------------------
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.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
-----------------------
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
---------------------
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.
--------------------
Very
faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
-----------------
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.
----------------
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.
-----------------
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.
-----------------
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.
----------------
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.)
----------------
Very
faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
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.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
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?)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
"… 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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
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.
----------------
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!)
-------------------
Very
faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
-----------------
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.
------------------
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
----------------
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.
----------------
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.
------------------
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."
---------------------
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).
-----------------
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.
-----------------
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.
-----------------
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.
-----------------
Very faithfully Yours - signed: U. v.
Beckerath.
I hope to write, in my next letter, some words about the
"Jew-question".
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
---------------------
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.
---------------------
The lesson is:
Nationalism is the same, whether Nazi or Jewish or any other.
--------------------
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.
-----------------
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.
------------------
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.)
--------------------
Very
faithfully Yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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!
---------------------
Bth.
7.9.19490
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
---------------
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.
----------------
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.)
----------------
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.
----------------
Very
faithfully Yours - signed : U. v. Beckerath
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
-----------------
Very
faithfully yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
----------------------
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.
---------------
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?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
-----------------
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.
------------------------
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.)
-----------------------
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??????
----------------------
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.
------------------------
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.
-----------------
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.
-----------------
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!
----------------
Very
Faithfully yours - signed: U. v. Beckerath.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
-------------------
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.
---------------------
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.).
-----------------------
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.
-----------------------
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.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
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.)
------------------
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.)
-------------------
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.
---------------------
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.)
-------------------
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.)
----------------------
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
----------------
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.
------------------------
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 reporte