5,284 words
Usury does not mean high interest. It means any interest, however low, demanded for an unproductive loan. It is not only immoral but it is ultimately destructive of society. It has only been the rule of our commerce to take usury since the breakup of Europe following on the Reformation. Usury will destroy our society, but meanwhile there is no escape from it. (more…)
3,521 words
Part 4 of 4
National Socialist Germany
Propaganda rather than scholarship has dominated studies on National Socialist Germany. Hence, the manner by which certain socio-economic achievements were attained is buried amidst histories that focus on war, the Holocaust, and racial theories. (more…)
Hieronymous Bosch, “Death and the Miser,” detail
Hieronymous Bosch, “Death and the Miser,” detail
2,448 words
Part 3 of 4
States that Broke the Bondage of Interest
Any efforts to advocate alternatives to banking that might extricate nations from the grip of the money-changers are dismissed as “funny money” (more…)
C. H. Douglas, founder of Social Credit
C. H. Douglas, founder of Social Credit
3,859 words
The Impetus from Catholic Social Doctrine
A significant impetus for financial and economic reconstruction was Catholic social doctrine. In many states such as Dollfuss’ Austria,[1] Salazar’s Portugal,[2] Franquist Spain, Vichy France, and as far away as Vargas’ Brazil, Papal Encyclicals provided the doctrinal foundations. The main feature of these “new states” was corporatist social and economic organization, replacing party parliaments with chambers representing all professions. (more…)
2,956 words
Part 1 of 4
“Money is merely the medium of trade. It is not wealth. It is only the transportation system, as it were, by which wealth is carried from one person to another.” — Father Charles Coughlin (1935) (more…)
Jean-François Millet, "Spring," 1868–1873
Jean-François Millet, "Spring," 1868–1873
2,224 words
The French Age of Enlightenment witnessed and celebrated an economic revolution: the rapid growth of speculation and a money economy, and a corresponding diminution in the importance of landed wealth. Bonald believed that the change had been brought about by the practice of usury. (more…)
Franz von Stuck, “The Guardian of Paradise,” 1889
Franz von Stuck, “The Guardian of Paradise,” 1889
4,413 words
Editor’s Note:
A. R. D. Fairburn was born on February 2, 1904. In commemoration, we are reprinting his magnificent poem “Dominion,” a panorama of the British Empire and his native New Zealand in the trammels of international finance capitalism. Fairburn was a follower of Nietzsche and Spengler and an advocate of Social Credit, the most common intellectual ingredients in the outlook of Anglophone fascists in the 1920s and ’30s.
Ezra Pound, drawn by Wyndham Lewis
Ezra Pound, drawn by Wyndham Lewis
2,422 words
Ezra Pound, heralded as the “founding father of modern English literature” yet denied honors during his life, was born in a frontier town in Idaho in 1885, the son of an assistant assayer and the grandson of a Congressman.
He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1901 and in 1906 was awarded his MA degree. He had already started work on his magnum opus, The Cantos. (more…)
1,979 words
Editor’s Note:
The following is the text of Ezra Pound’s Radio Rome broadcast of March 15, 1942. Pound began writing radio broadcasts in the fall of 1940. His first scripts were read by professional announcers. In January of 1941, he began to record his own scripts. Generally, he did two broadcasts per week, and he would pre-record them in batches of 10 to 20. The broadcasts ended in July, 1943 with the fall of the Mussolini government.
Ezra Pound's May 26, 1945 mug shot
Ezra Pound's May 26, 1945 mug shot
2,356 words
We’re never far from money. We spend most of our time and energy in quest of money.
But how did this thing become an intermediary between us and the world around us? Before money, we bartered. Why did money supplant barter and who is custodian of the money system?
These questions are dangerous: they cost Ezra Pound twelve years. Pound was a victim of political persecution at the behest of financiers and their minions like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (more…)
