CHARLES BEREZIN
But in 1918 we knew in London that the problem of production was
solved, and that the next job was to solve distribution and that this
meant a new administration of credit. I don't think there was any
ambiguity about that. . .. The question being how and who was to
break down the ring of craft, of fraud, and of iron.
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Engels points out that control over men results from a previous
control over things. Pound's false distinction between production and
distribution, which was also held by Diihring, underlies the following
false analysis:
But what is it that makes Herr Dlihring concoct this false definition
of wealth, and why has he to sever the real relationship which has
existed in all former class societies? In order to drag wealth from the
domain of economics over into that of morals. Domination over
things is quite all right, but the domination over men is an evil
thing; and as Herr Dlihring has precluded himself from explaining
the domination over men by the domination over things, he can once
again do an audacious trick and in a trice explain domination over
men by his beloved force .
Engels offers an explanation for why economic problems appear to
Pound as moral problems. Pound's question , "how and who was to
break down the ring of craft, of fraud, and of iron," is phrased entirely
in moral terms. "Solving distribution" means overcoming the evil
designs of evil men. There is no essential £law in the economics of the
situation that overcoming evil cannot cure. Pound's and Diihring's
positions are similar because they both lacked the perception that
control over things precedes and enables control over men.
Major Douglas claims that a factory, as a distributor of financial
values, makes two kinds of payments: "Group A-All payments made
to individuals (wages, salaries, and dividends). Group B-All pay–
ments made to other organizations (raw materials, bank charges, and
other external costs)." Douglas points out that the price of a commod–
ity is determined by A+B, and since A will not purchase A+B, society
will never have enough money to purchase its entire output. Douglas
blames the banks:
B is the financial representation of the lever of capital, and is
constantly increasing in comparison with A. So that, in order to keep
A and the goods purchased with A at a constant value, A+B must
expand with every improvement of process, while at the same time
this increased production must, in the nature of things, be of such a
nature as will enable it to be paid for under group B.
It
must not,
therefore, be an ultimate product-something that human beings, as
such ; require for their personal use-but must take the form of
