
ORGANIZATION SERIES - PART 15 OF 20

[New name: How To Present Scientology To The World]




MONEY

A lecture given on 6 November 1956

[Start of Lecture]

We have a subject on which there is no basic agreement, and about
which, none of us don't know much, evidently.

A subject however which is quite current. A subject which we find
doled out from time to time. A subject which makes or breaks men
with the greatest of ease. A subject which is really the root of
a great many love affairs. A subject which is quite convertible.
A subject for which there are probably more slang terms than any
other subject in the language. That subject is money.

We have in our midst some small samples of this particular
commodity. But if any of you have your acquaintance with it
strained or if you have not recently been introduced to it, why,
I'll tell you what it is, and thus give you a much greater
familiarity with the subject. Just a minute.

Well, I don't have any myself but you know what the stuff looks
like. You know what the stuff looks like. It's uh... well, I've
got kind of a foggy recollection actually. I think it has the
United States of America on it. And over in England it has the --
I distinctly remember it had something on it. Yeah, yeah, it said
that the controller of the treasury as an individual would pay to
anyone who challenged him the same bill that they paid him. I
remember that.

U.S. notes vary, they're different. The money is much better than
English money because there are more vias. American money is much
better than the English money because there are more vias.

Now, English money is issued by an organization which is part and
parcel of the British government. In other words, there was some
authority to issue the money. But in America that's not the case.
Money in America, most of it that you have issued to you is
issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City, which is a
very private organization. I know, I tried to walk in there once
(I thought there might be something lying around loose). And only
after I had shown them my Intelligence cards, only after I had
shown them my citizenship papers, had answered up on a lie
detector, did they then throw me out. Boy, are they exclusive!

Well, this is a private organization and it issues pieces of
green paper which are beautifully engraved. Of course, the whole
subject of engraving is in disgrace, you realize that. Because
the best engravers of the country are in jail. This is so much
the case that the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, when it wants
somebody to make some money for it, you know, they go down to the
local pen and parole somebody onto their payroll. Actually,
that's how it got to be known as the Federal payroll.

Anyway, the difficulties attendant to the issuance of money are
as many as the money is good. That becomes obvious doesn't it?
That's the first thing we have to learn about money, is that the
difficulties attendant to issuing it are the validation of it.

In other words, here's British money issued by the British
government, and it says that if you give them a pound note,
they'll give you a pound note. Boy, is that direct. That's really
direct. That's right there, you know. And they're having trouble
with their money. They've had trouble with their money ever since
it became issuable directly by the government.

They didn't have trouble with their money as long as they had a
few more vias on the line. But people can look at that now and
say, "Hah, we know where that came from. It came off of a
printing press. It came directly. The government said, 'We'll
issue some money,' they issued some money and we're expected to
take this stuff? Ha ha!" Obviously, has no value because it isn't
crooked enough.

So, the point is that American money is better. It's better. It
buys more things in the world than British money does, and that's
only because American money has additional vias on the line. Now,
the British system of releasing currency is very short and to the
point. Parliament says, "We authorize currency." And the Bank of
England authorizes the printer to run some off and they get
somebody to make some plates out of their local Dartmoor, you
know, and he comes over and they run off the plates, they run off
the money and they bring in bales of the stuff, wheel it in on
carts. And people throw it across the counter at the Bank of
England. Anybody can see this happen and their money's gone down.

Well now, American money is much more valuable and it is not
issued by the government. We never see bills relating to the
publishing of bills, nobody quite traces where it came from or
how, and I thought you might be interested in how it came to be
money. Would you be interested?

Audience: Yes.

Well, it's quite an amazing story. It has to do with a fellow by
the name of Alexander Hamilton, who was killed in a duel. And
this is not why he was killed in a duel. He was killed in a duel
because he was... Well, his name had been closely associated with
George Washington's. As a matter of fact, he'd been an aide-de-
camp. And when George used to sign official orders, "All soldiers
must be ready to cross the Delaware by two o'clock," you look
over in the corner and it said "Alex Hamilton." It said
"Official, Alexander Hamilton." It's quite interesting. I mean,
after a while, anything that Alexander Hamilton signed was
official, see? Get it?

So when he proposed this cockeyed system of banking, everybody
said, "Well, that's contrary to the Constitution."

And he said, "Well, ha, it's official." And so they adopted it.
And the U.S. from that day to this has never had money as
authorized by the Constitution. And it just isn't legal. That's
why it's so valuable.

That's right, that's right. You think I'm joking. I'll show you
how this happens.

The Constitution said that Congress shall have the power to coin
money. And Congress never has. They don't coin money. I've been
up there on the Hill looking for their coiner. Closest I can get
to it is flipping quarters, heads or tails, with some of the
senators. I get some of the Middle-Western senators -- they're
the only ones that will flip coins with you and let you use your
quarter. The Eastern ones don't. They insist you use their
quarter. Of course, the Western senator, he's pretty liberal.
He's more open-minded and he always says, "Well, we'll use
somebody else's quarter." That's the general difference in
districts of the country.

Anyway, they never have coined any money. They have yet to do so.
But they pass bills every once in a while saying, "It shall be
coined." But they don't ever pass the bill and just exactly say
that, you see? They say, "The secretary of the treasury," who
isn't authorized in the Constitution, "shall as the executive
branch of the government," duties of which are not defined in the
Constitution, except that he shall be commander in chief of the
army and the navy...

They've just gotten around to that recently, being
constitutional. We have forthrightly a general. But he's not an
admiral so he's only half legal. I haven't seen him in an
admiral's uniform yet.

English manage these affairs much better. They don't bother so
much about the rank but, boy, they sure issue uniforms. You get
to ruling things around there and you're a lifeguard and a
blackguard and all kinds of things, you know? A guy comes out one
day as an admiral, another day as an air marshal, and so forth.
Boy, I tell you, it's terrific! I'm going to ask them sometime
when I see somebody around like that -- "You got your commission
handy?" And you know, I bet he hasn't got a commission. If he
has, he signed it.

Well anyway, U.S. money was found to be unissuable after
Alexander Hamilton had talked to everybody up on the Hill. (The
Hill was up in Philadelphia at that time. They've moved it down
since.) And Alex talked to the boys. And I think he kind of got
them off in a corner somewhere, and he says, "Now boys, you know
very well that someday Hubbard's going to tell you that something
is as valid or as incomprehensible as it has vias. Now, if
anybody understands money its going to be worthless, you know
that."

So the boys said, "Well, I don't savvy that."

And he said, "Well," he says, "you can make more out of it
personally." Well, they bought that! -- immediately formed an
organization called the Federal Reserve, which organization was
composed of half a dozen bankers. In that day a banker could have
good repute. It's terms that just don't go together today. But
you'll have to stretch your imagination and realize that there
was a time in the country when bankers did have good repute.
People looked up to them. And these boys got together, and
Congress authorized a bill saying that they could exist, and that
any time it wanted to, the Federal government could buy all of
its stock out at par value. You got that now? I mean, it's very
interesting but that par value at this moment is 385 million
dollars. That's the par value of the total stock of the Federal
Reserve Bank which exists as a private organization in New York.

Well now, this Federal Reserve Bank issues money this way. You
won't believe this, but this is the way they do it. They have a
book, have a ledger. It's probably a common school-composition
book, you know? And they get a stubby pencil, and they write down
in it, "Owes us ten billion dollars." Got that? Who does? "The
U.S. government owes us ten billion dollars." Well, that's the
start of money. Now, it issues, then, ten billion dollars worth
of stock, which the Treasury Department is permitted to issue.
And then because they permitted the Treasury Department to issue
these ten billion dollars worth of stock, then the Federal
Reserve can issue ten billion dollars worth of currency that is
backed up by the stock. You get that? That's backed up! See that?
I mean it's backed up real good. It's for sure. There it is, see?

There's somebody around here looking puzzled. I mean, I'll go
over this again.

They have this composition book -- ledger -- and they write in it
with a stubby pencil, and they say, "U.S. owes us," see, "ten
billion dollars." And then they say, "ten billion dollars worth
of stock," you see. They issue it, but the Federal treasury
issues it to them so that the Federal Reserve can then issue ten
billion dollars worth of currency. You got that? Well now, that's
valuable money!

Now, why is it valuable? Well, it's got more vias on the line,
you see?

Now, when they retire money then they have to retire bonds. That
makes it equal, doesn't it? You get it? That keeps it legal. Only
we don't quite see how either the bonds or money were worth a
damn, because in fact, by current economic theory, neither one
represents real property, coin, specie, gold, silver or anything
else. They don't even represent promise to pay. See?

Now, it says -- if you look at a bill -- the bill says, "The
Federal Reserve promises to pay the bearer on demand ten
dollars." Ten what kind of dollars? The same kind he's got his
hands on. Well, this is a paper swap. Well, sometimes people like
clean paper. Now, that's essentially it.

No, I was joking before about not having any money. I held up my
wife tonight just so that I would have a couple of bills here,
various kinds, so that I could talk about this more idiotically.

Now, if you look on one of these bills, you will occasionally be
dumbfounded to find one of them headed, "silver certificate."
That's not a Federal Reserve note. Well, what's a silver
certificate? Well, a silver certificate is quite different than a
Federal Reserve note. It is actually issued against the amount of
silver down here in the treasury.

That's a different kind of money. That's the kind that was more
or less authorized by Congress. But there's very little of this.

Now it says, "This certifies that there is on deposit in the
Treasury of the United States of America, ten dollars in silver,
payable to the bearer on demand." And you can walk right in and
you can get yourself ten dollars worth of silver just like that,
except they'll give you another bill. Now, that's valid money.
I'm not joking now, that's what you know as money. That money is
backed up as money and it does consist of money.

Now, here's the bulk of the money in the country. That was money
that I just showed you there. This says, "Federal Reserve note.
The United States of America will pay to the bearer on demand ten
dollars." You say, "Ten dollars? Now, just a minute, who will pay
to the bearer on demand? The United States of America? Or the
Federal Reserve note?" Now we see. We match up the print and we
find out that it's the Federal Reserve. Probably, though --
probably -- the United States of America will probably issue it
out for the Federal Reserve, but that makes the Federal treasury
an agent of a private bank.

Quite amazingly, it has on its face the picture and portrait of
Alexander Hamilton. Now, that is valuable. That is valuable. It's
a nice engraving, it's a nice picture and it's worth money. But I
don't think anything else here is. Unless money is just money.

Now, here's what makes it legal. It says right up here, "This is
legal tender." It says, "legal tender," for something or other --
"for debts public and private." Well, that means if you don't
accept it you get a bayonet in you. Well, I wish I had somebody
around that would make my creditors accept my IOU's. But that's
what it says, and that's what it is. Now, that is money.

The bulk of the cash in the country is composed of that. Here you
see Federal Reserve note, a twenty-dollar bill. Federal Reserve
notes are the usual thing. You see a few silver certificates and
you see a few ones, fives and tens that are silver certificates.
You see much more of them in Washington than you do any other
part of the country for some reason or other. It isn't that the
Washington government employee is more critical than others. He
is not known to be.

Well, you see this stuff, it's money. See, here's... I've got a
bunch of silver certificates here and that's really terrific.

Now we're getting up into sizable currency. Here we have a
Federal Reserve note, one hundred dollars, that says that "The
United States of America," evidently -- only it isn't -- "will
pay to the bearer on demand one hundred dollars." In what? In
this. It's the same show as the Bank of England, don't you see?
Except it's a private bank that does it in this case. You throw
them a hundred-dollar bill; they give you a hundred-dollar bill.
You give them your hundred-dollar bill; they give you another
hundred-dollar bill.

I'm going to stay down in one of these cages someday, just
passing back and forth hundred-dollar bills. And maybe I'll find
out after the thirtieth or fortieth pass that it suddenly turns
into gold or something else. But it might not. I might be
disappointed in that.

Well, I thought you might be interested in this singular fact,
because all I'm really trying to teach you is not that Federal
money is no good. It has become so valuable today, actually it is
so terribly valuable today, that they have upped interest rates
all over the place and it's very valuable stuff. It isn't no
good. It's just money.

And what is the character of money? Money is a commodity. It is a
substitute. It is a thing. It is something that people push
around. It is something that is defined in economic textbooks. It
is something which is exchanged. It is something which is
printed, it is coined, it is minted. It is something for which
people get killed. It is something that makes it worthwhile to
become a robber. It is something with which you pay dues, tithes,
taxes. It's, in short, the weenie in any given culture. It is the
thing everybody is after. If you didn't have something that
everybody was after then you wouldn't have any game.

And so we get down to one of the most fundamental agreements of
our present society: that money is something everybody is after
and very few people have. Now, it takes that stable datum. It is
valuable. In order for a thing to be valuable, it is, of course,
somewhat scarce. If you gave people enough money they would
simply go on and buy produce and live happy lives and carry on
and so forth, and you couldn't have that.

So you keep it scarce and they have a game. They get up in the
morning worrying about how they're going to get another one of
these pieces of paper. And they go to bed at night realizing that
they've spent one of those pieces of paper that they shouldn't
have spent. And they have nightmares that somebody has suddenly
filled up their bed full of money and they wake up to find out
that it's not money, it's bills. We get into all sorts of
interesting complexities by which one man owes another man money.
And he doesn't pay him the money, so the court gives him a
summons and then they take him down to court and they have a big
case. And if it's on a piece of paper and he had a piece of paper
saying it, why, then of course the other fellow could pay him the
money because he's got proof that the money didn't change hands
when it should have changed hands. You get the idea? And you get
a very nice game going that nobody can understand. And they can't
understand it for the basic reason that there isn't anything
there to understand.

Now, let's look at this much more closely. We put some vias on
the line. Very nicely and neatly, we put some vias on the line.
In other words we put some extra terminals. The Federal Reserve
has the Federal government issue some bonds so that it can issue
some money so that the Federal Reserve's bonds... Get the idea?
Then we talk about the shortage of money and the scarcity of
money and the superfluity of money, and we talk about inflation
and deflation; we hire people to fill up pages in the newspapers
concerning the business credits of this moment. And we have
authorities and we teach economy in all of the universities.

And boy, we get more stuff piled up -- bang-bang-bang-bang. Much
more. Thick, thick books. We get all kinds of things stacked
together on this one subject called money, in the hopes that
somebody will not penetrate the secret and split up the inner
sanctum by saying "Money is as valuable as it is complicated. But
when it is too complicated, it isn't. So money is the optimum
level of complication that can still be, to some slight degree,
uncomplicated."

Now, you may be taking a preclear apart someday, thinking fully
that you are taking a preclear apart, and discover after Lord-
knows-how-many hours of auditing, that all you were trying to do
was take care of his ideas about money. There was something there
but there was nothing there.

You take a capitalista. This is a term... I don't like to use the
term straight out, because it's gotten to be a nasty word. There
are two nasty words in the society: the one is that one and the
other is communist. Communist got to be a nasty word because it
fought the capitalist. Capitalist got to be a nasty word because
it was one.

Now, the capitalist got to be nasty because he put too many
complications on the thing and he stressed it. He went overboard
beyond optimum. Don't you see? He made money do more than money
could do. He made money itself manufacture money. Now, that's
different.

Now, it's bad enough to have the stuff issued someplace that you
don't quite know about, and spread around, but how about the
fellow that takes two dollar bills and then presses them hard
enough with an iron to get three? Now, you see, that's pretty
downgrade. That's pretty downgrade.

Fellow can't face outright creation. He hasn't the nerve merely
to go and get a counterfeiter out of prison himself and just
print some. Nor can he produce a machine or a building or a
parkway or something which people then give him money for. That
is not what a capitalist does -- something you should very
clearly understand.

I'm not rabble -- rousing now on the side of the liberals, the
socialists, the communists, and so forth. But the old saw, that
if you were against capitalism you were at once a liberal, I'm
afraid has worn all its teeth out a long time since. Just because
you are a bit against the capitalist is no reason that you're
even vaguely liberal. See, it's not necessarily true at all.
Capitalism is something that you either laugh about or cry about,
as it may strike you.

Now, here is this fellow who doesn't produce. He, in some
fashion, accumulates some money. Now he makes the money make
money, got that?

Now, the capitalist has sort of disappeared out of the society.
He's been killed off. It's too unpopular an activity.

It's interesting that in that part of the country -- the New
England states -- where capitalism was once pretty doggone rife,
we had (before the advent of the white man into this country) a
tribe of Indians which, of all the tribes in America, understood
the charging of interest. There was actually a tribe of Indians
up in Maine that knew how to charge interest and did charge
interest on anything loaned. When they put out some wampum they
wanted some wampum-plus back, you see? And that was up in the New
England states. And the boys that came in after that, they got
the idea that if you could just get some wampum together then you
could make wampum make wampum and you were all set. But who is
all set?

Well, obviously, the only fellow in such an arrangement who is
all set is the fellow who is making wampum make wampum. That's
the only fellow who is all set. Why? Because it's a drag on the
actual existing currency, and a heavy drag on it, because it has
a nonproducer who is totally a consumer, who then is quite a drag
on the remainder of his community. It's just the same as having
somebody there who is totally indigent, you see? But this total
indigent now has authority in his community.

How would you like to have somebody down here who couldn't make a
dime, he couldn't do a day's work, he couldn't do anything. And
yet he insisted on being fed nothing but the finest of roast beef
and pheasant's tongues, and he had to be driven everywhere in a
golden chariot and that sort of thing. And you'd after a while
say, "This guy is for the birds," and probably should be for the
graveyard. And you'd say, "There's something wrong with that
fellow." Well, the society as a whole has finally said, "Yes,
there is something wrong with that fellow." The capitalist never
produces anything. Now, don't ever then get capitalism really
mixed up with the entrepreneur, the producer, the manager. Just
separate those out.

What is meant by a capitalist is one who makes money make money.
You see, that's all he does. That's his total philosophy.

Thorstein Veblen was mad-dogging around about this at the turn of
the century in a book called Theory of the Leisure Class, which
is one of the doggonedest books you ever cared to read in your
life. You've got to have a leisure class to consume the goods of
the worker, otherwise the society caves in. That is the theory.
Oh yeah? Since when did workers not like to ride around in gold-
plated Cadillacs, huh? All right.

Now, let's look over this thing, the nonproducer. And we realize
that somebody who stands there and simply shuttles money back and
forth and takes so much of it is a bog in the economic world.
He's a bog. He must replace the money he takes out with something
-- service, good looks, winning ways, a pleasant smile,
something! But if he puts nothing on that line the economy is apt
to cave in, simply because there's somebody there who is
consuming who isn't producing. And therefore, capitalism is not a
sound theory of economics, and it goes up and down and people
revolt against capitalism.

Listen, the peasants of France of the fourteenth century had
never heard the word communism. Well, that didn't restrain them
from revolting against the first capitalist in France who started
to issue paper money. They revolted like mad! This doesn't
restrain anything.

It doesn't matter what words you put on it; as long as you're
dealing with this commodity called money, you get this phenomenon
called capitalism. See, it's an interesting phenomenon. But just
regard it as a phenomenon, not necessarily bad or good about
anything but the economy. A capitalist is simply bad for his own
economy, you get the idea? He's bad for his own economy, not
necessarily a bad person.

All right. We take this whole lineup and we look at the other end
of the scale that gets created thereby. A fellow is made to
produce, produce, produce, produce, produce, and he can't have
any of this stuff called money. Got the idea? And we therefore
get a peasant or a worker class that is way subnormal.

So, when you get a fellow way up at the top who is taking money
off the line without contributing anything to it, somewhere or
another there's some fellow who is going to have to work twice as
hard and get nothing for it.

And that's what starts revolutions in the world. That's really
the basic woof and warp of revolutions. They're nine-tenths
economic, only one-tenth political. And we see the whole of the
world getting tangled up this way. Well, what are they tangling
up over? They're tangling up over the fellow who can't work.

The Indian tribe that goes to pieces, goes to pieces because
there are only fifteen men of the tribe who are hunting: there
are ten other men of the tribe who are just eating. And the
fifteen men after a while can't shoot enough game for twenty-five
men and all the women and children that went along with it, so
the tribe starts to starve to death. What made them starve to
death? The guys who were eating without hunting. You see this? So
we get an imbalance because of indigence.

Whenever you get this created situation whereby you get something
that is only pulling off the line, it is only absorbing or only
receiving and is never paying out, you get an imbalance in some
other part of the system. You see this? It's rather clear.

All right. Let's look at this whole thing about money. You put
enough vias on the line, it becomes valuable -- but only if it is
somewhat scarce.

Now, how scarce should money be? Well, what is an optimum
scarcity of money? Well, it has to be scarce enough so that
people will consider it more valuable than the goods they're
holding or making. It has to be just a little bit harder to
obtain evidently than the goods themselves. Otherwise they'd
consume their own goods to some degree, wouldn't they? You must
have just a little bit more value.

Therefore, we have a situation in terms of money whereby somebody
has to produce and receive money for. Well, this is all based on
the fact that people produce different things and everybody wants
a little bit of everything. So we use money as the communication
line with which to adjust this economy. Now, horribly enough,
when money is used for anything else, the whole culture goes to
pieces.

That is actually what money is. That's all it does. That's all it
could pretend to do. There isn't any, really, further end to it.
It is simply a substitute. If you threw money into a little
village it would seek the level of the production at which it was
scarce. The prices would eventually range themselves so that it
was scarce, just slightly scarce, so that people wanted it more
than anything else. Well, why would they want it? It's because
it's convertible into other items which they themselves don't
produce. And therefore you have a system by which you can get an
exchange.

So, if you've got to have a production-exchange system -- you
see, that's not necessarily necessary -- but if you've got to
have a production-exchange system, then money is a very good
answer to this and so has remained in vogue.

But when we complicate money any further than that, why, you
start to see shifts and imbalances of power. We finally find that
the indigent can have power. How can they do this? Well, they
start mixing up with this money, and without producing they yet
can alter the flow of currency. And people sit around for a long
time. They'll permit this. And they'll see this lazy bum that
can't even step out of a carriage by himself, you see, driving in
a carriage. They haven't got carriages. They see this fellow who
never produces anything, he never made a witty crack in his life.
He's produced nothing, see? And they look at that and they say,
"What do you know? What do you know?"

Well, there are two answers to it: Either we will not work and
see if we don't get more -- that's a strike -- and the other one
is "Let's just knock off everybody." And the society sort of
varies between these two decisions. "Let's gun everybody down
that isn't working," see? "Let's take the capitalists and shoot
them all up" or "Let's go on strike and refuse to work until we
get more money."

What are they trying to do? They're trying to adjust by force
something that is at best a flimsy idea. They're going to adjust
by force this very flimsy thing called money. And I say if
production is necessary, then money is a good answer for the
exchange of goods.

Actually, "a promise to pay" is a sloppy definition for money. A
promise to pay is only really valid if you say in what. A promise
to pay is only valid from a person who can produce, not pay,
don't you see?

So, what do we have in the final analysis? We have society in a
commotion and in turmoil over an abstract commodity which itself
doesn't have any more validity than how many vias are on it. It
has a use. That doesn't necessarily give it validity.

Give you some kind of an idea of what you can do with economies
and currency if you... You want to hear something about it?

There was a fellow by the name -- one time -- a fellow by the
name of Christophe. Terrific man! The French had been holding
Haiti for a very, very long time. And they had been killing off
Haitians and burying them in the ground, and knocking them over
the head and doing interesting things that were only interesting
to them. And after a while the chaps there in Haiti got the idea
that the French meant them very little good, if any, and decided
to eject them from this island.

Well, there were several leaders rose, but the greatest of them
was Christophe. And this chap was a tremendous figure of a man.
He was about -- oh, I don't know how tall he was, but he must
have been about six foot eight, six foot ten, something. To hear
them speak of him, he's obviously that big. He might have been
five foot two but he sure looked six foot eight or six foot ten
to everybody. And this fellow decided that he could set up a
better nation than the French. And after the revolt against the
French and so forth, he proceeded to do so. And he did set up a
rather successful one. He did this because the French didn't
think he could.

The French thought, "Haiti will collapse economically the moment
we are swept out of it." They were thinking only in terms of
money, weren't they?

Do you know what Christophe did? He said, "Hereinafter, as
aforestated, by command of what bayonet units and machetes we
have to hand, all gourd trees become the property of the state of
Haiti." And he sent his soldiers out, and they chopped every
gourd they could find out of every gourd tree on the island and
made every gourd tree sacred to the treasury of Haiti and carted
them in, and the following morning-after it was all done --
declared the only currency current to be accepted for goods and
produce was gourds.

And to this day, to this day, the notes, the money which you are
issued in Haiti is called gourdes. And they have pictures of
gourds on them. That was back in 1810, 1812, sometime back then.
And a hundred and forty, fifty years later, why, we still have
the money being called gourdes. You see?

It was basically an idea. There was a finite number of gourds in
Haiti. So he established that as the economy, and it gradually
sought its own level and there he was. And he had an economy.

And the French stood back absolutely flabbergasted. They said,
"This man can't possibly succeed." Oh, yes he could! He had all
the money there was in the country!

Well, here's another example. They were absolutely sure, down
here at the other end of Sixteenth Street, that a fellow by the
name of Schicklgruber could never succeed back in '33. And they
laughed their stomachs sore, if you will excuse me ladies, after
they heard that he was going to refinance Germany. With what? He
didn't have any gold, he didn't have any silver, and he didn't
have any credit, and he didn't have any produce. How in the name
of common sense could he possibly do so? Obviously, Germany was
broke, could not then rearm and could not thereupon ever become a
menace to the rest of the civilized world.

Man, was this a pauperized notion of money talking! They knew
nothing about money. They didn't even know enough to read the
history of our own Western Hemisphere. They didn't even know the
story of Christophe. They should have. Because what did Hitler
do? He just issued some stuff and says, "This is money." And
people disagreed with him and they didn't live long. And after a
while, boy, that was the bestest money you ever heard of. And
today the mark is worth about twenty-two cents and is the most
stable coin in Europe. It is accepted right with the American
dollar. It is much better than the pound, much, much better than
any francs.

What is this mark? It's a mark. What's a mark? It's a mark! Of
course, you can say, "Well, it's backed up by U.S. economy."
Well, that I seriously doubt. Because if this economy over here
is in any shape to back up anything, I haven't heard about it.
It's in shape to back up.

No, here's this fabulous thing. This fellow, he had a lot of
tricks, you know? But every one of his tricks went along this
line of law: a via. He put another via on the line. The money was
good because it had gone through somebody else's hands before it
was printed, you see? The money was good because it had another
kind of picture on it than somebody else's money. Of course he
had a hard one to fight there, because they'd already learned in
Germany that when you turn printing presses loose you eventually
bought loaves of bread -- you bought great big loaves of bread or
little tiny loaves of bread -- with wheelbarrow loads of money.
See, and they'd had that. And that's inflation, that's bad! Huh!
That is not inflation. Inflation is not defined as "That's bad!"
See, it's a condition. It's a condition.

So we get to the other interesting thing. If we want to know all
this about money, and we find out there isn't very much to learn
about money, except money is money, what the devil is regulating
the economy of any given country or preclear or president or
businessman or anything else? What is regulating it? Is it money?
No, it isn't money. It's produce, ability to produce, and
existing production. That is all that can stabilize any economy.

Now, that is dependent upon manpower and natural resources. You
must have men who are willing to work, and you must have natural
resources to be worked. And if you don't have them you'd better
invent something to produce that doesn't need them. But certainly
we're dealing with something real. We're dealing with something
that has solidity. We're dealing with mass. We're dealing with a
commodity. Whether it's a pair of nylon stockings or the
pasteboard boxes to put them in, it is a produced item. And the
production must be wanted and consumable. You understand that?

A little clock, by the way, is consumable if it's just sitting on
a shelf See, it's used, it's usable. Why is it sitting on the
shelf? It doesn't even run. It's merely pretty. It's just because
somebody wanted it, don't you see?

Desire for produce then creates the interchange. The produce
itself establishes the possibility of an economy, the desire for
it brings the economy into an existence whereby it is a third-
dynamic function.

So we get all sorts of fellows with long hair rushing around
saying, "Woikers of the woild arouse." "Woikers, them capitalists
consider youse is lice." I've heard fellows, by the way, that
spoke with a perfect Harvard accent, off the speaker's platform,
use English as bad as that. "He was a popular mug, see?"

They go around and they rabble-rouse. Why? They conceive
themselves to be dealing with the only people who produce. And if
they can get control of these fellows who produce, then they can
loaf in the stead of the capitalist. See what a neat scheme it
is? The only difference between a commissar and a capitalist is
spelling.

Now, we have these fellows, we have these chaps who get this clue
about production, and they themselves try to do it all by
production. But remember, the production is nothing, as I just
said before, without the desire to have the pretty little clock
on the mantel shelf. In other words, there must be desire to have
production. That must exist. So it does no good to stand up
people against the wall and say, "We're gonna shoot you boys all
down if you don't produce." If you do this to a whole nation, you
eventually wind up, see, with nobody able to want anything. The
desires of a corpse are measurable by worms alone.

So if you knock out the wantingness, if you knock out the
consumingness and if you just stress producingness, the cogwheels
keep turning and turning and pretty soon some worker asks, he
says, "Hey Joe, hey Joe, what we making?"

And Joe says, "I don't know. What is it?"

"It's a little box, some kind here. Comes out at the other end.
See, there's one."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Hell, I only been here ten years."

You have this silly picture of everybody producing with nobody
consuming and, of course, you don't have a third dynamic. You
have a series of firsts.

So these great group social movements, based on "snare the
worker," usually wind up as a first-dynamic action. See this?
Totally first dynamic, you see? Everybody out for nobody. Not
even out for themselves, by the way.

Do you realize, everybody out for himself is a better society
than everybody out for nobody. At least you've got a possibility
of fighting on the first one. When you yourself, you see, feel
that everybody should be out for himself, you can go around and
accuse people of this. But if everybody is out for nobody, then
who'd care whether you accused them or not?

All right. So we look at this huge economic network and we
recognize that a network does require a certain amount of
consumption, but the consumption of course must be ranged
somewhere along desire. And we mustn't take this automaticity of
food. We must say, "Well, people must always eat." I don't know
that people must always eat. I think it's a bad habit. I almost
cured somebody of eating the other day in a processing session.
Stopped just in the nick of time.

Here's this interesting fact: I don't know that any of these
desires are anything more than somebody's idea that he wants.
Well, you could ruin an economy two ways. You could ruin an
economy by making the people cut their production down. See,
"Don't produce that much Joe. You don't produce that much. We
don't need all that. And you skip making that this year. And
nobody wants any of that over here." And we just keep this up,
see? Plow the pigs under, you know, sort of thing.

And then we would go around and say, "Now, all of you people
should be self-sacrificing, and you shouldn't go around being
greedy and wanting all these things, see."

It really takes both of these actions. Because if you don't have
the second action then the first one will never get corrected if
it goes out of line. In other words, if people did sag on
production, you must still have another crew (even if they're
just the women of the family, you know) to go around and say, "I
don't care what it costs, I don't care how many miles you have to
walk for it in snow; when I say mink, I mean mink!" There must be
somebody there.

Now, this current economy has this interesting aspect:
everybody's being hammered and pounded all the times with "must
have" -- "can't have." You look at the TV ads: "Get into this
beautiful new Cadillac. Drive down this smooth road."

At first you say, "Don't I wish I could." And after a while,
because it's just glass with some light playing on it, you say,
"All these rich dogs ought to be shot!" It's your next reaction.

And after a while, you would unfortunately say, "What Cadillacs?
I don't even read the ads anymore." Do you get the idea?

You could overstimulate the desire to have and then not gratify
it to such a degree that everybody would become apathetic about
possession, and an economy would go bzzzsst! That'd be the end of
that economy.

Now, the funny part of it is, the only thing I don't think you
could do would be to overproduce variety. Of course, if everybody
in the world all of a sudden started growing watermelons and
wouldn't grow anything else but watermelons, and every plant
would only manufacture synthetic watermelons, I think the economy
would be shot.

A variety of production -- people producing what they can
produce, producing consumable goods, goods that did fill various
needs -- it's almost impossible to overproduce.

Now, just why you think somebody has to be a rich skunk to drive
a Cadillac is, of course, traceable only to ads. Ads show rich
skunks driving Cadillacs -- you know, the black-white plumed tail
waving in the air behind the Cadillac.

No, it's a fact. It's a fact. There is no reason under the sun
why this economy couldn't build a Cadillac for everybody that
wanted a Cadillac. They're rather simple to build. They require
no more metal really than a Ford. They just make it thinner. And
you've got this vehicle.

Well, now, it is true that everybody in the society couldn't have
a gold-plated Cadillac. There isn't that much gold. You'd run out
of gold in very short order. You'd have to tap the government
down here at Fort Knox and say, "Give us some of that stuff that
belongs to us."

And they'd say, "No, no. We've got to have that to back up the
money."

And you'd say, "What money?"

Of course, they'd say, "Oh, you're invalidating the currency of
the United States. Well, that's a criminal offense." I think it
is, too. Be the fifteenth statute I've broken today. Well, I --
anyhow...

Within the range that you didn't want a gold-plated Cadillac,
then, I'm sure that everybody could have a Cadillac. You get the
idea? Everybody that wanted one could have a Cadillac. Well,
somebody would have to be producing gold, you see, for everybody
to have a gold-plated Cadillac, because there are finite limits
of gold available. Get the idea?

In other words, these economic checks are monitored by desire to
have and ability to produce. And of course, if you don't have the
raw materials you can't produce it. But the only wide-open track
along the line that looks relatively wide-open is production. You
can't overdo it and still maintain a variety of production.
Unless you enter in a new number of factors.

Now, you can enter in this new factor which would have to do with
money, scarcity of. You could tell everybody carefully, "Now
listen, in order to get any produce you have to give money for
it." Everybody learns this. That's a new lesson. They learn it.
They learn it well. They go around, they say, "All right. I want
a new Cadillac. That means I have to have ten thousand dollars
and I pay it on the line here, and they give me a new Cadillac."
Everybody learns that lesson well.

And then all of a sudden some cheap dog forgets to write down
something in this composition book. See, they look at the
composition book and say, "Well, that page is full. We're not
going to issue any more money." And you look in your pocket and
you don't have ten thousand dollars, you just have ten cents. So
you don't get a Cadillac, you get a hamburger. Get the idea?

Well, supposing you were producing like mad, or supposing there
wasn't enough money to pay you for your production. Supposing
there wasn't enough money for anyone to buy your production.
Ahrhyeah! So we find out there isn't much you can do about people
from a production angle. And it wouldn't do anybody any good to
monitor production anyway. The place to hit it is for money,
money. You make the money scarce.

Now, there's two ways to make money scarce. Both of them add up
to no value for money. Just print it by the billions of bills.
Let it blow all over the streets. Show pictures of your president
lighting cigars with thousand-dollar bills. Or don't print any.
Everybody'll forget what it looks like.

The whole society might or might not stay on the subject of money
if it weren't for the fact of taxes. There is a monobrained,
puppy to the root -- well, monomaniac sort of an organization in
the country. It's composed of tax collectors. And it only
collects taxes in money. Does you no good to take down eggs. Does
you no good to park that Cadillac out in front and say, "There it
is." They'll only settle for money. You could print some money
and give it to them, they wouldn't be satisfied. They got to have
a special kind of money. They got to have their own money. But
they didn't make any. How can you pay them?

Well, I'm afraid that's a problem that's being solved right here
at this moment. It's being solved in this fall of 1956. How you
pay taxes in money which isn't being manufactured.

The financial low of all time since the depression has been
reached within the last four days on the subject of the amount of
money available to buy Cadillacs. That ratio is now below 1931.
There is less money in the economy for the amount of goods in the
economy than there were since 1931. The money is getting scarce.
The money is getting very scarce. It would be very unkind of me -
- who keeps my eye open (I should say who keeps me eye open) on
things like this -- not to tell my friends about it, which is the
only reason I'm talking to you tonight. Because this is an
unsavory subject -- money -- because they got it so rigged that
when you got no dough you don't eat. "No dough, no chow." That's
the motto of this society.

But money is not production. Money is money. And if money is not
produced, it doesn't exist. To that degree it is simply another
production.

I'm not trying to scare anybody to death. I'm not trying to scare
you anymore than... Mortgage brokers and other people are
hysterical right now. As a matter of fact I'm trying to do quite
another thing as far as you're concerned. I'm trying to show you
why you shouldn't be particularly upset and alarmed, and perhaps
you can understand what's going on in this society around you
just a little bit better.

Yesterday, or a many yesterdays ago, you ordered a radio set. You
didn't pay the fellow for thirty days. You forgot it. At the end
of thirty days you gave him your check. You said, "Here's your
check."

The fellow said, "All right, that's good."

Today you buy a radio set. Your checkbook does not come out of
your pocket quite fast enough, the fellow's hysterical. You buy a
commodity today and you have somebody on the other end of the
line within twenty-four hours if he has not instantly received
pay. Why? He's going broke! He has certain set, fixed expenses.
People all around who want things. People all around want his
produce. They want what he's distributing. But they haven't got
any money to buy it. But he has to pay salaries. But he has to
pay the manufacturer. But he has to pay rent. And above all he
has to pay taxes. And he might be able to get away with his rent
with a couple of new TV sets, and he might be able to square the
beef in some other direction. But he can't square it with the tax
collector in any other way than money.

So, he's apt to be on the phone within a week. And he's apt to
have you in court within two weeks if you don't pay it.

In other words, hysteria. What's that hysteria based on? Not
enough little printed pieces of paper such as I showed you at the
beginning of this lecture.

Why should you get hysterical about little pieces of paper?

Well, everybody knows. It's just another one that "everybody
knows." It is such a solid agreement that everybody has agreed on
it.

What does this mean, perhaps, to the auditor? It really doesn't
mean anything but good news.

When economies go bad, people become worried about themselves.
People can find money to pay for treatment when they can't find
money to feed their kids. Now, this is a horrible fact.

People have to become more able in order to survive. And the
business of an auditor is really never better. So an auditor (of
all people) should never become the least bit upset about a
depression. It's in depressions that great movements move
forward. It is in depressions that old regimes are overthrown. It
is in depressions that people are willing to learn. And out of
such a depression, a whole new culture might arise. This doesn't
mean that we couldn't cry a little when we see how grim it is
probably going to get within the next couple of years in this
country.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[End of Lecture]
