With explanations provided by Gottfried
Feder, Dipl. Engineer
Contents
The Manifesto for the Abolition of Enslavement to
Interest on Money
a. What is Mammonism?
b. What is the cure for Mammonism?
c. The nine points of the Manifesto.
Implementation and Rationale
1. Because of failed promises of
the German Revolution of 1918 the people are tending more and more toward
Bolshevism.
2. The German folk are sick with
Mammonism.
3. Mammonism derives its power
from interest on loans.
4. The way to cure Mammonism is
by abolishing interest on loans, especially war-bonds.
5. The vast majority of Germans
holding war-bonds really lose money because of them, because they have to pay
taxes to cover the interest payments; only the largest holders of war-bonds
have a net profit from them.
6. Germany’s real wealth
consists not in any material assets but in the productivity of the German people.
7. If the obligation to pay
interest on public debt were ended, the Bavarian state could abolish all direct
and indirect taxes and fund itself entirely on the revenues from state-owned
industries.
8. Interest-payments are the
reason why the state cannot do without taxes; those receiving the largest sums
of interest pay relatively little in taxes. The Reich is financially in a much
worse situation than the federal states.
9. Comparison of the affluent
bondholder, the working-class bondholder, and the dependent bondholder.
Expansion of social welfare for the dependent bondholder after cancellation of
interest.
10. Instead of repaying the
principal of war-bonds under cancellation of interest the state could simply declared
the bonds to be currency.
11. For other fixed-interest
assets, including mortgages, repayment under cancellation of interest is
recommended. This should solve the housing problem.
12. A history of opposition to interest-slavery.
a. Curtailment and prohibition of
interest before the 19th century.
b. Enshrinement of interest
under the developing global order during the 19th century.
c. Cancellation of interest will
dissolve the interest- community within Germany and enables the German nation
to unite against the Gold International.
The Conversion of War-Bonds into Bank-Credit
Rather than simply declare
war-bonds to be currency, a better idea is to require that they be surrendered
for conversion into bank-credit.
Special Comments on the Demand for Laws in
the Manifesto
Elaboration of the nine points.
The Objections and their Refutation
Objections from various
perspectives are addressed.
a. Three objections based on a
failure to comprehend how conditions would change under abolition of
interest-slavery.
b. A question from the perspective
of a large bondholder.
c.
How is
depriving investors of interest supposed to help the worker? d. What
about the importance of inheritance in holding families together? e. Three
objections from officials of the current system.
f. The Communist complaint that
abolition of interest will not abolish economic inequality.
g. Social-Democracy is doomed
because it is based on Marxist ideology, which does not recognize the radical
difference between industrial capital and loan-capital. Social-Democratic government,
as a moderate application of Marxism that fails, paves the way for Communism.
h. The contemptible bourgeois
and two objections from the bourgeois perspective. Won’t abolition of
interest adversely affect savings? No. Is big loan-capital really not in
some way productive? Only labor is productive.
Further Program
a. Abolition of interest-slavery
is the prerequisite for establishment of the social state.
b. Reconstruction of the German state
according to the true spirit of socialism.
c. Liberation of the entire
world from Jewish control.
Manifesto
for the Abolition of Enslavement to Interest on Money
Mammonism is the
heavy, all- encompassing and overwhelming sickness from which our contemporary
cultural sphere, and indeed all mankind, suffers. It is like a devastating
illness, like a devouring poison that has gripped the peoples of the world.
By
Mammonism is to be understood: on the one hand, the overwhelming international
money-powers, the supragovernmental financial power enthroned above any right
of self-determination of peoples, international big capital, the purely Gold
International; on the other hand, a mindset that has taken hold of the broadest
circle of peoples; the insatiable lust for gain, the purely worldly- oriented
conception of life that has already led to a frightening decline of all moral
concepts and can only lead to more.
This
mindset is embodied and reaches its acme in international plutocracy.
The chief
source of power for Mammonism is the effortless and endless income that is
produced through interest.
From the
thoroughly immoral idea of interest on loans the Gold International was born.
The mental and moral constitution grown from the lust for interest and
profiteering of every kind has led to the frightening corruption of a part of
the bourgeoisie.
The idea of
interest on loans is the diabolical invention of big loan-capital; it alone
makes possible the lazy drone's life of a minority of tycoons at the expense of
the productive peoples and their work-potential; it has led to profound,
irreconcilable differences, to class-hatred, from which war among citizens and
brothers was born.
The only
cure, the radical means to heal suffering humanity is the abolition of
enslavement to interest on money.
The
abolition of enslavement to interest on money signifies the only possible and
conclusive liberation of productive labor from the hidden coercive money-
powers.
The
abolition of enslavement to interest signifies the restoration of the free personality,
the redemption of man from slavery, from the curse whereby Mammonism has bound
his soul. Whoever wishes to fight capitalism, must abolish enslavement to
interest.
Where must
the abolition of enslavement to interest begin? With loan-capital! Why? Because
loan-capital, compared to all industrial big capital, is so overpowering that
the great money- powers can only be fought effectively through the abolition of
interest-slavery.
20:1 is the
proportion of loan-capital to industrial big capital. The German people must
annually raise more than 12 billion in interest for loan-capital in the form of
direct and indirect taxes, rent, and the rising cost of living, while even in
the boom-years of the war the sum- total of all dividends distributed by the
German joint-stock companies amounted to only 1 billion.
The avalanche-like
growth of loan- capital surpasses all human capacity for calculation,
through eternal, endless, and effortless income from interest, and from
interest on interest.
What blessing
does the abolition of enslavement to interest bring for the laboring folk of
Germany, for the proletarians of all countries of the Earth? The abolition of
enslavement to interest gives us the possibility of pursuing the repeal of
all direct and indirect taxes. Hear this, you value-producing men of all
lands, all states and continents: all state revenues flowing from direct and indirect
sources pour constantly into the pockets of big loan-capital.
The profits
of state-owned businesses, including the postal service, telegraph, telephone,
railroad, mines, forests, and so on, suffice entirely for the funding of all
essential state commitments for schools, universities, courts, administrative
agencies, and social welfare.
Thus no
true socialism will bring any blessing to humanity as long as the profits from
public enterprises remain tributary to big loan-capital.
Therefore
we demand as a fundamental law of the state, first for the German peoples, then
as a fundamental law for all those kindred peoples that wish to enter with us
into the cultural community of a league of nations, the following: § 1.
War-bonds, along with all other debt-instruments of the German Reich, along
with all other debt-instruments of the German federal states, especially railroad-bonds,
as well as debenture-bonds of all local governments, are declared, under
cancellation of the obligation for interest, to be legal tender for the
face-value [or rather are to be converted into bank-credit].
§ 2. With
all other fixed-interest papers, covered bonds, industrial bonds, mortgages, etc.,
the obligation for interest is replaced by the obligation to repay the
principal; thus after 20 or 25 years, depending on the interest- rate, the lent
capital is repaid and the debt retired.
§ 3. All
real-estate debts, mortgages, etc., are to be paid off on installments
of the same amount as the payments required hitherto, in keeping with the
charges recorded in the land-register. The property in houses and land freed from
debt in this manner becomes partly the property of the state or of the local
government. [In this way the state becomes better situated to control and to
lower rents.] § 4. The entire monetary system should be under the state's
central bank. All private banks likewise; postal-check banks, savings banks,
and credit unions, all become affiliated as branch-operations.
§ 5. All
credit for real estate is awarded only through the state's bank. Personal
credit and commercial credit are mandated to private bankers under a concession
from the state. This concession is granted based on consideration of need, with
a ban on the establishment of branches for certain districts. The scale of
charges is fixed by the state.
§ 6.
Equity-securities are paid off in the same manner as fixed- interest papers at
the annual rate of 5%. Excess profits are paid out in part to the stockholders
as compensation for “risked” capital (in contrast to fixed-interest and
coin-backed papers), while the remaining surplus, by the sovereign right of
labor, is either socially distributed or applied for the reduction of the
prices of products.
§ 7. For
all persons who for physical reasons (advanced age, illness, physical or mental
work- disability, extreme youth) are not in a position to earn their
livelihood, the interest-incomes from present capital assets continue to be
paid as a pension at the same, and eventually even increased levels, in return
for delivery of securities.
§ 8. In the
interest of a reduction of the current inflation of paper money, a universal,
strongly graduated tax on war-bond certificates and other debt- instruments of
the Reich and of states is enacted. These papers are to be pulped.
§ 9.
Through intensive enlightenment of the people, it is to be made clear to the
people that money is and should be nothing other than a voucher for completed
labor; that while every highly developed economy of course has need of money as
a medium of exchange, the function of money also ends with that, and in no case
should money be lent a supramundane power to grow of itself by means of
interest, at the expense of productive labor.
Why have we
not already done all this, which is so self-evident, which must be regarded as
the Egg of Columbus for the social question? Because in our Mammonistic
blindness we have unlearned how to see clearly that the doctrine of the
sanctity of interest is a monstrous self-deception, that the gospel of the
loan-interest that alone makes one blessed has entangled our entire thinking in
the golden web of international plutocracy. Because we have forgotten and are
deliberately kept in confusion by the omnipotent money- powers about the fact
that -- except in the case of a few rich people -- the interest that seems so
lovely, and is so beloved of the thoughtless, is completely offset by taxes.
All of our tax-legislation is and remains, so long as we do not have liberation
from enslavement to interest, only a tribute-obligation to big capital, and
not, as we would imagine, a voluntary sacrifice for the accomplishment of labor
for the community.
Therefore
liberation from enslavement to interest on money is the clear motto for the
global revolution, for the liberation of productive labor from the chains
of the supragovernmental money-powers.
Implementation
and Rationale We stand in the midst of one of the most grievous crises that our
impoverished folk has had to endure in its painful history. Seriously ill is
our folk; seriously ill is the entire world. Helplessly the nations stammer; a
passionate longing, a cry for redemption passes through the gloomy masses. With
laughter and dancing, with cinema and pageantry, the folk seeks to forget its
own lamentable destiny -- to forget about its disillusioned hopes, about the
deep inner pain, about the terrible disappointment over what one would so
gladly call “gains of the revolution.” But how did we imagine it all
differently? How did all the fine promises run differently? All that we hoped
to gain in the dark of night, in the darkness of our military collapse, seemed
to be glistening gold, but now, when the gray day illuminates the find, it is
all rotten bits of wood. Now we stand here at a loss. For the sake of these
rotten bits of wood that shone so finely in the night, we have thrown away
everything that hitherto was dear and valuable to us, and have stuffed all our
pockets with this lamentable trove. No wonder that the rage of despair grips
precisely the poorest of the poor, and that they rage in senseless wrath
against their own brothers, and in their deep longing for redemption seek to
destroy all that stands in the way. This condition must lead to utter madness,
if consciencelessness and stupidity goad the people further.
And whither
this madness leads, we see in Bolshevik Russia. Nationalization, as socialization
is called in Russia, has proven to be a failure, declares an unperturbed Lenin.
The economy is destroyed, the buying-power of money down to nothing, the
intelligentsia killed, the laborer without bread. Despair in the entire people;
only bloody terror based on Chinese and Latvian mercenaries is able to protect
the Red dictators from the vengeance of the betrayed folk. Among us too the
development will follow this course, if international speculators, obsessed
party-fanatics, representatives of the most grievously burdened bourgeoisie,
and members of a race most deeply alien in nature to the German folk, continue
to be allowed in the government.
What indeed
were those pretty, pretty words that one whispered into our ear? Negotiated
peace, League of Nations, parliamentarism, sovereignty of the people,
democracy, dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism, destruction of
capitalism, liberation from militarism, and other such pretty slogans. A new
free people was supposed to arise, which should determine its own destiny.
None of any
of that has come true, was able to come true, or ever could come true, if we do
not with the highest moral seriousness investigate all these apparitions, all
these slogans -- if we do not conscientiously test the symptoms of the illness
like an intelligent, concerned physician, and painstakingly diagnose the
present condition of the sick person, sparing no effort to ascertain whence
this serious critical illness arises.
* * * * *
The
sickness of our age is called Mammonism.
What is
Mammonism? Mammonism is the sinister, invisible, mysterious reign of the great
international money-powers. Mammonism is however also a mindset; it is the
worship of these money-powers on the part of all those who are infected with
the Mammonistic poison. Mammonism is the unlimited hypertrophy of the -- in
itself healthy -- human drive for acquisition.
Mammonism
is the lust for money grown into a madness, which knows no higher goal than to
pile money on top of money, which seeks with unequaled brutality to coerce all
forces of the world into its service, and must lead to the economic
enslavement, to the exploitation of the work-potential of all peoples of the
world. Mammonism is the mindset that has led to a decline of all moral concepts.
Mammonism considered as a worldwide phenomenon is to be equated with brutal,
ruthless egoism in man. Mammonism is the spirit of greed, of boundless desire
to rule, of the mentality entirely focused on seizing the goods and treasures
of the world; it is at its core the religion of the purely worldly- oriented
human type.
Mammonism
is the direct opposite of socialism. Socialism, conceived as the highest moral
idea, as the idea that man is not in the world only for himself alone, that
every man has duties toward the community, toward all humanity, and that he is
not only responsible for the momentary wellbeing of his family, of the members
of his tribe, of his folk, but that he also has unshakable moral obligations
toward the future of his children and his folk.
More
concretely, we must see Mammonism as the conscious collusion of the
power-hungry big capitalists of all peoples. Noteworthy in this has always been
the hidden arrival of Mammonism.
The big
tycoons lurk indeed as the ultimate driving force behind world- encompassing
Anglo-American imperialism; nothing else. The great money-powers indeed
financed the terrifying mass-homicides of the World War. The great money-powers
have indeed, as owners of all great newspapers, woven the world into a web of lies.
They have with satisfaction whipped up all lower passions, have diligently
fostered the growth of present tendencies, and have through clever
press-propaganda brought French revanchism to a boil. They carefully nurtured
the Pan-Slavic idea, the Serbian conceit of being a great power, and the need
of these states for money, to the point that the world conflagration must
ignite.
Even among
us in Germany the spirit of Mammonism that wanted to know only more
export-figures, national wealth, expansion, big bank projects, and
international finance deals, led to a rout of public morality, to the decline
of our ruling circle into materialism and hedonism, to a superficiality in our
national life, all factors that share blame for the terrifying collapse.
* * * * *
With
astonishment we must ask ourselves whence Mammonism, whence international big
capital derives its irresistible power.
It is not
to be overlooked that the international collaboration of the great money-powers
represents a completely new phenomenon. We have no parallel for this in
history. International obligations of a monetary nature were practically
unknown. Only with the rising global economy, with general global commerce, did
the idea of international interest-economy establish itself, and here we touch
the deepest root, here we have hit upon the innermost source of strength from
which the Golden International draws its irresistible power.
Interest, the
effortless and endless influx of goods based on the mere ownership of money
without any addition of labor, has caused the great money-powers to grow.
Loan-interest is the diabolical principle from which the Gold International was
born. Loan- capital has firmly attached its blood- funnel absolutely
everywhere. Like the arms of an anemone big loan capital has ensnared all
states, all peoples of the world.
Government
loans, government bonds, railroad bonds, war bonds, mortgages, covered-bond
obligations -- in short loan-instruments of every kind have in a manner
ensnared our entire economic life, so that henceforth all the peoples of the
world wriggle helplessly in the golden webs. For the sake of the interest-principle,
in keeping with a thoroughly mad political delusion that every kind of
possession carries an entitlement to earnings, we have submitted to enslavement
to interest on money. Not a single real, valid moral reason can be given as
to why mere possession of money should bring an entitlement to perpetual
interest- payments.
This inner
opposition to interest, and to income of every kind without any occurrence of
productive labor, extends through the soul-life of all peoples and times. But
never has this deep inner resistance to the power of money become so conscious
for the nations as in our time.
Never has
Mammonism been prepared in such a world-encompassing manner to begin
world-domination. Never yet has it placed in its service all baseness, lust for
power, lust for revenge, greed, envy, and falsehood in such a cleverly
concealed and yet brutally pushy manner as now. The World War is at its inmost
core one of the biggest decisions in the evolutionary process of humanity in
the struggle to decide whether in the future the Mammonistic-materialistic
worldview or the socialistic-aristocratic worldview should determine the fate
of the world.
* * * * *
On the
surface, the Mammonistic Anglo- American coalition has without a doubt been
initially victorious. As a reaction against it, Bolshevism arose in the East,
and if one wishes to see a great idea in Bolshevism, it is without a doubt the
position diametrically opposed to the Mammonistic worldview. The methods that
Bolshevism seeks to employ for this however are the botched cures of a Dr.
Eisenbarth. They are the attempt to help someone sick from internal poisoning
with a scalpel, by amputating his head, arm, and legs.
Against
this rampage of Bolshevism, against this senseless overturning, we must present
a workable new idea that with unifying force unites all laboring classes, so as
to drive out the poison that has made the world sick.
I see this
means in the abolition of enslavement to interest on money.
There are
three factors that make interest on loan-capital conspicuous as the authentic
and true cause of our financial misery.
First, the
monstrous disproportion of fixed-interest loan-capital, thus of capital that
grows of its own accord without application of creative labor, and indeed grows
on forever. Among us in Germany this loan-capital has already reached a level
that we do not consider too high at 250 billion. In contrast to this enormous
sum, the industrial working capital of our entire German industry stands at
only 11.8 billion. In addition there is the 3.5 billion in capital of the 16,000
industrial limited-liability companies [G.m.b.H], so that altogether we
have only about 15 billion in industrial capital to tabulate. 20:1is the
first fundamental finding. [* Obviously 17:1 is more accurate, but maybe
Feder is allowing for the likelihood that the proportion will increase.] This
appraisal means that in financial problems of the largest importance, all
measures concerned with loan-capital must prove 20 times as effective as
measures directed at industrial big capital.
Second: the
interest-payment on the loan-capital above, estimated at 250 billion, considered
in its totality for all times, amounts to about 12½ billion annually. By contrast,
the sum-total of all industrial dividends distributed in the year 1916 amounted
in the year 1915 to about one billion marks. In the preceding decades this
number was, on the average, about 600 million. In the last two years of the war
[1914-1918] it may very well have gone up considerably, but will record an
all-the- greater crash for the current year [1919].
The average
profitability of all German stock-corporations [A.G.] was 8.21%; thus
only about 3½% higher than the average return on fixed-interest
loan- values.
Thus, I
recapitulate, in the future the German people will have to pay about 12.5
billion [annually] for the various eternal interest-charges of big loan- capital,
while the yield from industrial capital in the greatest boom-year was 1
billion, and in times of undisturbed prosperity only 0.6 billion. Thus we see
again here a proportion on the orders of magnitude of 20:1 to 12:1.
The third
and most dangerous factor is the enormous growth beyond comprehension of big
loan-capital through interest and through interest on interest. I must here
digress a bit more and hope through a small excursion into higher mathematics
to explain the problem. First some examples.
The
charming story of the invention of the game of chess is well known. The rich
Indian king Shihram granted to the inventor, as thanks for the invention of the
royal game, the fulfillment of a wish. The wish of the wise man was that the
king should give him one grain of wheat on the first square of the chess-game,
two on the second, four on the third, and thus always on each square twice as
many as on the one before. The king smiled at the seemingly modest wish of the
wise man and ordered that a sack of wheat be brought so that for every square
the grains of wheat could be apportioned. As we all know, the fulfillment of
this wish was impossible even for the richest prince in the world. All the
world's harvests in a thousand years would not suffice to fill the 64 squares
of the chessboard.
One more
example: many will still remember from their schooldays the torture of
calculating compound interest; how the penny invested at the time of the birth
of Christ multiplies at compound interest so that it doubles every 15 years. In
the year 15 after the birth of Christ the penny has grown into 2 pennies, in
the year 30AD to 4 pennies, in the year 45AD to 8 pennies and so on. Very few
will remember what value this penny would represent today: a volume of gold
equivalent to the volume of the Earth, the Sun, and all the planets combined
would not be adequate to represent the value of this penny invested at compound
interest.
A third
example: the fortune of the House of Rothschild, the oldest international
plutocracy, is valued today at about 40 billion. It is well known that in
Frankfurt around the year 1800, old Mayer Amschel Rothschild, without wealth of
his own worth mentioning, laid the foundation for the gigantic fortune of his
house through fractional- reserve lending of the millions that Count Wilhelm I
of Hesse had entrusted to him for safekeeping.
Had the
accretion of money through interest and interest on interest with Rothschild
succeeded only at the modest rate of the penny, the curve would not have
climbed so steeply as it has. But assuming that the Rothschilds' collective
wealth increased only at the rate of the penny, the Rothschilds' fortune in the
year 1935 would be 80 billion, in 1950 160 billion, in 1965 320 billion, and
with that it would already exceed by far the total German national wealth.
From these
three examples a mathematical law can be derived. The curve that represents the
rise of the Rothschild fortune, the curve that can be derived from the number
of wheat-grains for the chessboard, and the number that the multiplication of
the penny produces at compound interest, are simple mathematical curves. All of
these curves have the same character. After initially modest and gradual
increase the curve becomes ever steeper and soon practically approaches being
almost tangential to infinity.
Altogether
differently, however, does the growth-curve of industrial capital proceed.
Likewise sprung mostly from small beginnings, soon a strong escalation of the
curves appears, until a certain saturation of capital is reached. Then the
curves run flatter, and in certain industries will perhaps even decline
slightly, if new inventions have led to the devaluation of existing factories,
machines, and so on. I would like to select only one example here, the
development of the Krupp works. In 1826 old man Krupp died almost without
assets. In 1855 Alfred Krupp received his first order for 36 cannons on behalf
of the Egyptian government. In 1873 Krupp already employed 12,000 workers. In
1903 Frau Berta Krupp sold the entire works and property to the Alfred Krupp
joint-stock company for 160 million. Today the total value of the stock-capital
amounts to 250 million. What does the name Krupp connote for us Germans? The
acme of our industrial development. The world's first maker of [steel] cannons.
A vast sum of the most tenacious, purposeful, intensive productivity. For
hundreds of thousands of our folk-comrades the Krupp endeavor has meant bread
and work. For our nation, weapons and defense – and yet it is a dwarf compared
to the Rothschild billions. What significance does the growth of the Krupp
fortune during a century have compared to the growth of the Rothschild fortune
through effortless and endless accretion from interest and interest on
interest?
The two
curves drawn in bold lines represent loan-interest and indeed the upper curve
shows the development of the Rothschild fortune and the lower curve, at first
flat and then rapidly rising, shows in a very general way the characteristic
development of all such curves, in which a small advance on the horizontal axis
can produce a doubling of the value on the vertical axis. The hatched line
shows the development-curve of our total industry in the course of the last
40-50 years. The differently hatched fine lines show the development of several
randomly selected big industrial enterprises from which the general character
of the hatched curve of industrial capital is derived.
It must be
expressly remarked that the curves of loan-capital are shown strongly
compressed. Thus for example the curve of the Rothschild fortune must be set 80
times so high as the Krupp curve. The purpose of showing the curves of course
is only to demonstrate the fundamentally different character of the two types
of capital. The curves of loan-capital show at first a quite gradually rising
development; the development then goes faster until, ever wilder and dragging
everything with it, it raises itself far beyond human concepts and strives
toward infinity.
The curve of
industrial capital by contrast remains in the finite! However strong the
divergences that a trace may show in detail, overall the fundamental character
of industrial development will always be such that after strong initial
development a certain period of maturity, of saturation, follows, after which sooner
or later the decline ensues.
Nothing
shows us more clearly the deep essential difference between loan- capital and
industrial capital. Nothing can make the difference clearer for us between the
devastating effects of loan- capital and the business-profits (dividends) of
business-capital put up and risked in large industrial enterprises, than this
comparison.
It cannot
be emphasized enough that the recognition of the mathematical laws that
loan-capital and industrial capital follow, alone shows us the clear path where
the lever is to be applied for setting aright our wrecked finance- economy. We
recognize clearly that not the capitalistic economic order, not capital in
itself and as such, is the scourge of humanity. The insatiable interest-need
of big loan-capital is the curse of all laboring humanity! Capital must be!
Labor must be! Labor alone can do little. Capital alone can do nothing! Capital
without labor can only be sterile! Therefore the most important demand, the
most noble task of the revolution, the most sensible meaning of a
world-revolution, is the abolition of enslavement to interest on
money.
The House
of Rothschild today is valued at 40 billion. The billionaires of American high
finance, Misters Cahn, Loeb, Schiff, Speyer, Morgan, Vanderbilt, and Astor, are
valued together at 60-70 billion at the least. At an interest-rate of only 5%
this means an income for these eight families of 5-6 billion, which, according
to the researches of Karl Helfferich, is roughly 75% of the annual income that
all taxpayers in Prussia had in the year 1912. (There were at that time around 21,000,000
taxpayers, 75% of that would be about 15,000,000. For every taxpayer there are
on the average 1.56 relatives; hence 23 million relatives.) Around 38,000,000
Germans thus have had to live on what the afore-mentioned billionaires have as
a yearly income. Certainly the American billionaires are not pure
loan-capitalists in the same sense as the House of Rothschild and so on. I do
not care at all to argue about whether the American billionaires are really
“100-million-dollar millionaires” or “1000-million-mark billionaires”; in the
former case one would just have to reckon in one or two dozen additional
Croesuses. Or let us simply accept Rathenau's “300”; then our inventory will
certainly be in order. Here it is not important to give an exact number, but the
acknowledged ratio of 300 to 38,000,000 opens our eyes about the brutal reign
of international loan-capital.
Therefore
let us cast off these terrible chains that can only strangle all energetic
labor; let us tear away from money the power to bear interest, and ever again
to bear interest until all humanity has become entirely obligated for interest
to international loan-capital.
Thus it is
these three points that make clear to us for the first time where alone the
lever may be effectively applied for the alleviation of our internal financial
distress.
For another
thing, we recognize that the assault of the entire socialist world of ideas
against industrial capital has been completely off the mark, because even an
intended complete regulation or socialization of all entrepreneurial profit –
assuming an unweakened economy – would yield a laughably meager sum, compared
to the enormous financial burdens of the budgets of our Reich and our State.
Through the
abolition of enslavement to interest on money the entire financial malaise can
be eliminated with one blow. At once we feel solid ground under our feet again;
at once it must and will become clear to us that we have only deceived
ourselves in the most grotesque manner with this wretched bond-economy.
For what
else is loan-capital, but debts? Loan-capital is debts! One cannot
repeat that often enough. What form of madness is it when the German people in
its totality have borrowed 150 billion for its war? When it has even promised
itself for this a quantity of 7½ billion in interest and now feels itself shifted into
the awkward situation, inevitable from the start, of trying to collect this 7½ billion
from itself in the form of entirely fanciful taxes?
* * * * *
The tragic
thing about this self-deception meanwhile is less the stupidity of this whole
war-bond economy, of which we have always made so much better use than the rest
of the world, than the fact that only a relatively small number of big
capitalists derives enormous benefit from it, while the entire laboring folk,
including the medium-sized and smaller capitalists, as well as business, trade,
and industry, must pay the interest. And here the political side of the whole
idea comes to light. Here they can recognize that in fact big loan-capital and
only this [i.e. not industrial capital] is the curse of all laboring
humanity. One may twist and turn the thing as one wishes, but always the mass
of all hard-working people must in the end bear the cost of interest- payments
on loan-capital. The middle- sized and smaller capitalists have nothing to show
for their lovely interest-payments; can have nothing to show, for the sums of
interest must be entirely taxed away. Whether in the form of direct taxes or
indirectly in the way of indirect taxes, stamps, tariffs, or other burdens on
commerce, the hard-working folk is always the sucker and big capital
the beneficiary.
It is now
quite astonishing to see how the socialist idea-world of Marx and Engels, from
the Communist Manifesto to the Erfurt Program (especially Kautsky),
and even the current socialist leaders, spare the interests of loan- capital as
if on command. The sanctity of interest is taboo; interest is the holy of
holies; no one has yet dared to call it into question. While property,
nobility, security of person and possessions, the laws of the Crown, privileges
and religious conviction, honor of officers, fatherland, and freedom are more
or less outlawed, interest is holy and unassailable. Confiscation of wealth and
socialization, thus outright violations of the law that are only somewhat
sugarcoated, insofar as they are committed ostensibly in the name of the totality
of individuals, are the order of the day: all of that is permitted, but interest,
interest is the noli me tangere, the “touchmenot.” The interest payment
on the Reich's debt is the alpha and omega of the state budget. Its gigantic
weight drags the ship of state into the abyss and yet … it is all a big swindle
... a monstrous self- deception, fostered only and solely for the benefit of
the great money-powers.
Here I
would like to touch briefly now upon the objections relating to small
pensioners, to be discussed later, so that one does not get hung up thinking
about them. In the consideration of the very big questions these are not
considered, but it goes without saying that these compensations will be
provided through the broadest expansion of social-welfare services.
Swindle, I said! Interest-swindle!
A strong word. But if this word has justification, which during the war was
perhaps the most used word in the field and at home, it has the most
justification in regard to the interest-swindle.
But what
about the war-bonds? With the first 5 billion, the Reich took out of the
pockets of the people savings that actually existed. The money flowed back
again. Then came the new loan to suck up the money again, and with that the
last residual savings. And again came the pump and sucked up the billions, and
again they ebbed back again, until merrily, after this charming game was
repeated nine times, the Reich had incurred 100 billion in debt.
In exchange
the people of course held in their hands 100 billion in finely printed paper –
at first we imagined that we had become so much richer – but then comes the
state and says, “I am facing bankruptcy.” Yes, but why? – I myself certainly cannot
go bankrupt even if I occasionally take a hundred-mark note from the right
upper pocket and put it into the left. Certainly it would be the biggest folly
of all if we continued the folly of our war- bond economy by declaring
bankruptcy. [* Feder here is regarding the German nation as a unified entity
rather than a mere aggregation of individuals: the money that has been
transferred from some Germans to other Germans remains within the German
nation, which means that it is within the power of the German government to
adjust the distribution, perhaps to the immediate disadvantage of some
individuals but for the good of the nation as a whole.] Let us break the
enslavement to interest on money! Let us declare the war-bond certificates
to be legal tender with interest canceled, and the nightmare of state
bankruptcy will melt away from us like March snow under the Sun.
People say
to me, the cancellation of interest-payments is a disguised state bankruptcy.
No, that is not true! – The specter of state bankruptcy is really only a
fairytale and a bogeyman invented by the Mammonist forces.
The book by
Franz Röhr, Was jeder vom Staatsbankerott wissen muß [What
Everyone ought to Know about State Bankruptcy], is completely stuck in
Mammonistic ways of thinking. Although the author in general quite clearly
recognizes the economic problems that threaten us through socialization, and although
he advises emphatically and correctly that in the end only a rebuilding of our
economy can save us – he cannot free himself from the superstitious belief in
the sanctity of interest, and therefore he depicts state bankruptcy entirely in
accord with the interest of Mammonism, as a completely terrifying catastrophe.
It is
interesting to observe that Röhr, in spite of better historical knowledge, cannot
free himself from the Mammonistic view, and notes in his closing word: “If the
ruinous economic catastrophe is not averted, no one will be spared by it,”
while on page 81 he admits that the consequences of public financial
mismanagement have been partially reversed very quickly, and on page 68 he says
that in any case there should be no doubt that Russia (in the last century)
overcame these currency- crises without lasting problems. On page 76 he says,
while examining the effects of state bankruptcies, that although of course
profound economic problems etc. have occurred, by and large neither the
destruction of the state nor that of its economic strength resulted. On the
contrary a rapid revival of the national economy and a recovery of public
finances have been observed often enough. When the author then continues
for three more lines saying that state- bankruptcy absolutely means economic catastrophe
and causes infinite misery; I regret being unable to follow this logic.
But back to
our particular case! Which would be more honest? To speak pharisaically of the
unassailability of war-bonds while oppressing the people with an egregious
tax-burden? Or, if a finance-minister had the courage to approach the people
openly and to declare, “I cannot make the interest- payments on the war-bonds,
or I can only if I collect exactly the same amount in taxes from you. “. . . .
But back then during the war I absolutely needed money; nothing more clever
(see England) occurred to me, and so I did the swindle with the high-interest
war- bonds. You must forgive me, beloved folk; it was ultimately all for you,
but if we wish to play hide-and-seek no more … I, the state, shall pay no more
interest, and you, the taxpayer, need not pay taxes to cover these interest
payments…. That thoroughly simplifies our transactions; we avoid the enormous
tax-bureaucracy and likewise the enormous interest- paying bureaucracy, thus
conserving an immense quantity of money and work- potential.” I have lingered
long on exposing this swindle, but I consider it absolutely fundamental here at
no point to lose sight of the big picture.
* * * * *
According
to Bavarian tax-returns, the circle of people that would suffer -- let us say,
precisely those that according to their tax-returns received over 30,000 marks
in interest-payments -- are 822 people, which is only 0.4% of those obliged to
pay taxes (Bayr. St-Z. 1913) in all Germany, therefore, approximately 10,000.
(The upper 10,000!) Let us clarify for ourselves now as briefly as possible the
most important aspects of this revolutionary demand, and indeed let us consider
the questions first from our national perspective.
For this
there is first need of a clear look at our current situation. Secretary of State
Eugen Schiffer, in his big speech in the Berlin Chamber of Commerce, has
declared it “impossible to ignore.” That is only partially correct. Possible
to ignore is the enormous indebtedness of our national economy, and the
unprecedented devaluation of our currency -- in short, the fact that we have
become an impoverished people overnight.
The burdens
that are being imposed on us through the peace-treaty, however, cannot be
ignored. The currently existing certificates of indebtedness, as we have seen,
amount to around 250 billion. Let us assume first that the Entente imposes on
us an additional 50 billion in war- reparations in some form: that makes a
total of around 300 billion in debt.
However
heavily it may strain the narrow confines of this treatise, nonetheless some
words must be said about the magnitude of German national wealth. The
investigations of Helferrich and Steinmann-Bucher assess the German national
wealth at around 350 billion. One can only attribute very limited value to such
findings, however carefully they may have been derived. They are valid only for
times of undisturbed economic activity. But they are also quite misleading
since state and municipal properties are included, thus for example also
road-repairs, waterway-modifications, and so on. It is clear that although the
production of such works may have cost enormous money, nonetheless they have
strictly speaking no intrinsic value. A better yardstick for national wealth is
so-called taxable wealth as it emerges from the tax-returns for the
defense-contribution or the wartime wealth-tax. For this a sum-total of 192
billion results, thus much less by far than Helfferich's figure. To this sum
nonetheless about 10% may be added, according to experience, for the legally
tax-free small fortunes, and about an equal amount for “silent reserves.” [*
“Silent reserves” are the result of underestimating positive values and
overestimating negative values in accounting, so as to create the appearance of
the lowest possible net- worth.] In any case it seems to me overly optimistic
to speak of a national wealth of more than 250 billion. But even this number
has only a very limited importance. The most correct thing would be to break
away entirely from the idea of a national wealth that is at all numerically
graspable, and to penetrate to the recognition that national wealth finds its
expression exclusively in the mental and physical work-potential of the entire
nation, and thus belongs to orders of magnitude that have no relation to the
narrower concept of capital.
Indeed we
must still see a further source of national wealth in the presence of mineral
resources, the riches of the forest, and fertile soil, but these things also
cannot be grasped numerically, since their value fluctuates between zero and
infinity, depending on whether the mineral resources lie unexploited, or, based
on a geological report, can be reckoned for billions of tons of coal and so on.
Let us not
forget that Germany really is a poor country. Of monopolies it possesses almost
none. In wealth of mineral resources it stands far behind most of its
neighbors, to say nothing of the unparalleled mineral resources of the Chinese,
Indian, and American empires. In fertility of the soil it falls far short
compared to the blessed fields of Russia's black soil, and compared to the
effortlessly productive stretches of tropical and subtropical land. Therefore
in the end we have always only the potential and will of our people to work, as
well as the availability of sufficient work, and we must understand clearly
that in this state of affairs there can be no talk of secured debts, of
collateral for our debt-instruments...
Whether
interest-bearing war-bonds or non-interest-bearing Reich banknotes, behind
them stands only and solely the tax-potential of the entire people – and what
is tax-potential other than a function of the work-power of the total working
population? * * * * * We must now clarify for ourselves yet another
relevant complex of questions, and of course the chief entries of our state
revenue-sources and expenditures. There is a remarkable contrast between the
broad space that the concern for making money occupies in our private lives,
and the attention that we give to the great questions of our state financial management,
and yet between individual economy and national economy no essential difference
exists whatsoever.
The chief
entries for state revenue are: first, the net profits of the post-offices and
railroads; second, those of the mines, forestry-administrations, and other
state enterprises; third, tolls and indirect taxes; fourth, direct taxes.
So as not
to foster purely theoretical discussions in such eminently practical questions,
I want to elucidate the individual entries from the Bavarian state budget[1]
of the year 1911 according to their order of magnitude.
Post,
telegraph, and railroads[2] brought 120 million; forests, mines, etc.,
around 40 million; indirect taxes, 53 million; direct taxes, 60 million. An
additional 67 million flowed from stamp-duties, fees, inheritance-taxes,
land-taxes, revenue-transfers from the Reich, and so on.
What about
expenditures? We find here in the first place the payments for interest on the
state debt including the railroad-debts with 85 million. For the royal house, 5
million; administration of justice, 27 million; internal administration, 40
million; churches and schools, 51 million; financial administration, 13
million; expenditures for Reich-related purposes, 50 million; pensions, 36
million. Miscellaneous expenditures 5 million. Back then in this fortunate year
of Bavarian finances the annual budget left a revenue-surplus of 27 million.
In the
scope of our thought however only those expenditures concern us that can be
omitted through the abolition of interest-slavery. Here the interest- payment
on the state debt naturally stands in first place at 85 million marks; add to
that the greatest part of our payment for financial administration at about 10
million; furthermore a large part of the payments for Reich-related purposes,
of which let us add half, 25 million, and finally the 5 million in payments for
the royal house are now gone: a total of 125 million.
The
disappearance of these entries means the possibility of renouncing imposition
of all direct and indirect taxes, which, as we saw, brought in 53
million and 60 million marks, a total of 113 million marks! We are now not at
all of the opinion that one should entirely abolish direct and indirect taxes;
unquestionably within reasonable limits they serve on the one hand to educate,
on the other hand to regulate. It is certainly not more than right and fair
that the profits from property owned free and clear remain subject to a
moderate, graduated tax, since the state of course must also maintain secure
ownership with its policing agencies. It seems just as advisable that trade and
industry be required to make tax-contributions corresponding to their working
profits, since the state also has to care for the maintenance and development
of public paths of commerce for them. A corresponding minimum poll-tax for
every citizen entitled to vote is likewise a requirement of fairness, since
care for the security of the person and his property is also required from the
state.
In the area
of indirect taxes a strong expansion of all pure luxury-taxes has a regulatory
effect in the best sense, while all simple foodstuffs and necessities of the
people should be kept free of taxes! The result of such a tax-policy would be
found less in high revenues – about which there can be no talk, since for the
great mass of the population taxation should be not a real burden but only a
reminder that the person is not only an individual essence but also a citizen
of the state, and that in addition to civil rights he also has civil duties.
Tax-revenues
should be less necessary for paying off the debts of state-owned businesses,
whose net-profits, as we have seen, suffice to cover the normal expenditures of
the state for schools, universities, administration of justice, internal
administration, etc. Tax- revenues should be used to advance special
cultural tasks of the state for which adequate resources were never available
in the scope of the normal state budget. Here I am thinking primarily about
orphanages, institutes for the blind and the crippled, daycare centers, care
for expectant mothers, the battles against tuberculosis, alcohol, and venereal
diseases, and the construction of garden- cities and settlements, especially
for the accommodation and humane care of our war-disabled.
* * * * *
Our view
broadens. We see virgin land. Could the abolition of interest-slavery mean the
cancellation of all taxes? It would mean that, if we had come out of this
gigantic struggle as a victorious people. As things are, let us not celebrate
too early; the burdens imposed on us by our enemies will make sure that we do
not. But in any case we see virgin land based on the indeed quite simple
example of our Bavarian state budget that we just used...
In general
we find quite similar relationships in the other German federal states, and it
is not too much to say that from the surpluses of the state-owned businesses,
the railroads, post-offices, telegraphs, forests, mines, and so on, all state
expenditures for the entire administration of justice, for all internal
administration, including state construction-projects, all outlays for schools
and universities, just as for cultural purposes, could be covered without
difficulty. Thus a perfectly ideal condition.
Why is that
not the case? Interest has crept in. Because of the payment of interest the
population's foodstuffs become expensive; because of interest sugar and salt,
beer and wine, matchsticks and tobacco and countless other necessities of daily
need carry indirect taxes. Because of interest, direct taxes must be raised,
which are divided into land-taxes that are passed on in the form of higher
prices for grain, house- taxes that drive up rent, business-taxes that burden
productive labor, income- taxes that unavoidably depress the living-standards
of civil servants and people on fixed salaries, and finally at the very end,
modest in giving but insatiable in taking, loan-capital pays taxes on capital
dividends. According to the tax-returns of the year 1911, out of 253 million in
capital dividends received in Bavaria, all of 8.1 million was paid in state
taxes.
We have
seen that all capital dividends, all interest on capital, ultimately must be raised
through the labor of the entire people. We have seen that the interest- payment
on public debts constitutes the largest entry in our state budget, and we have
seen that those obliged to pay taxes on interest-payments make only an
extremely limited contribution to state revenues.
In terms of
relative magnitude, the capitalist paid 8 million out of a total of 60 million
in direct taxes, which is only an eighth to a sixth of the direct state taxes
paid in Bavaria in 1911. Direct taxes however are only about a fifth of the
total state revenue. Therefore loan- capital contributes only about a thirtieth
to a forty-eighth share of the state's total needs.
It should
not be denied that tax- legislation during the war, especially in the last
years, resorted to a stronger tax on capital dividends, but stronger indirect
taxation has more or less kept pace with it, so that the relative size has
hardly changed.
The picture
becomes dire when we consider the budget of the Reich. Here the proportions in
themselves are already much less favorable. The Reich does not have the same
tax-sources as the individual federal states. Direct taxes are reserved to the
federal states; the enterprises of the Reich are limited to the Reich's
post-office and railroad (note that this does not include the Prussian state
railroads), and consequently only tolls and indirect taxes remain.
The orders
of magnitude of the Reich's revenue-sources (see Statistisches Jahrbuch für das
Deutsche Reich for the years 1917 and 1918) were, in the year 1915, 1
billion in indirect taxes, 0.8 billion in special revenues (war- contribution,
matricular fees), and so on. Here too the same picture again. More than a
third, 1.3 billion to be specific, was devoured already in the year 1915 by
payment of interest on the Reich's debt. Here too loan-capital pushed its way
in again. Here too it requires all direct taxes to satisfy it. Sugar pays 163
million, salt 61 million, beer 128 million, tobacco, schnapps, sparkling wine,
lamp-fuel, matches, playing cards, and countless other items had to be taxed in
order to scrape together a billion marks that then flows completely into the
pockets of the capitalists.
Today, how
to pay the interest on the Reich's debt is a riddle. Interest- payments alone
devour 8 billion [annually], based on 100 billion in war- bonds plus other
war-credits. Revenues from the post-office and railroad can hardly be further
increased. A further increase in tolls will hardly be tolerated; therefore
probably only a five- or ten- fold increase in indirect taxes is left -- an
impossibility! -- or the clear insight that only and solely the abolition of
enslavement to interest on money can bring us salvation. An enormous self-
deception is what the entire war-bond economy was. The German nation borrowed a
hundred billion from itself for its war. For that it promised 5 billion in
interest to itself; it must therefore pay 5 billion in taxes. All benefit goes
to the big capitalist, who draws so much in capital dividends that he cannot
possibly use it up, and yet only a quite modest percentage is taken away
through the tax on capital dividends, as we have seen.
* * * * *
I hope now
through the main thrusts of my presentation already to have dispelled the
humanly comprehensible terror that many readers may have of eventually losing
the interest-income from their pretty certificates. Let it just be demonstrated
very briefly with one example that the whole interest-economy is a big
self-deception, and along with that I want to look at an upper level of solid
middle-class income.
Assume that
the head of a household has an income from labor of 10,000 marks, and on top of
that another 5000 marks from capital dividends. In the first place about 1500
marks of this will be paid in direct taxes; then at least 1000-1200 marks in
the form of high rents will be stripped away for eternal interest. Another 1000
marks are likely to be drained off in the form of indirect taxes for a family
of five or six, and already now one realizes that not much is left of the
lovely capital dividends that the small and middle-sized capitalists enjoyed
under the happy tax-rates of earlier years. Indeed, already today there can be
no more talk of “surplus”; on the contrary, if one examines for oneself today
the current fantastic tax- proposals, considerably more income from labor will
probably be taxed away.
Naturally
the situation seems to be quite different for the big capitalist, who, let us
say for example, collects only 1 million in capital dividends. (Such people are
fairly numerous in Germany today.) Of the tax on capital dividends this
fortunate man pays at the most 50-60 thousand marks. Of indirect taxes he also
pays no more than the family-father of the previous example. On his budget
after all he can still live quite comfortably indeed with 40-50 thousand marks,
even in the current expensive era. If roughly a nice 900,000 marks cash remain
to him, for that with 5% interest on loans he will get another 45,000 marks in
the next year and that, by law, at the expense of the working population.
The small
pensioner who only lives on his interest undoubtedly would be harmed. If he is
able to work, then he must of course resolve to earn an income from labor. With
that he then situates himself very much better than the millions of his
folk-comrades who have nothing other than their physical or mental
work-potential. If he does not want that, then he must eat into his wealth.
Ultimately he has 20 years to nibble at it again and again, if he continues to
consume the annual sum that he has been receiving at 5% interest. For persons
that are not in a position to work, or are weakened by illness or age,
obviously an appropriate livelihood must be arranged through the development of
social welfare for all segments of the population.
I visualize
social welfare as follows: Let us assume that an older lady, a widow, who
hitherto had to live on the interest from a capital investment of 60,000 marks,
is, through the legally proclaimed abolition of interest-slavery, deprived of
her source of income. Here, through the broadest expansion of the
pension-system, opportunity would be given the afore-mentioned person to draw a
pension corresponding to her capital, wherewith the annual pension could even
be increased relative to the previous interest-yield, so as also to give a
certain compensation for the diminished value of money even to this circle of
people. Thus, for example, in exchange for the surrendered 60,000 marks in
debt-instruments of the Reich, of the states, or in covered bonds, an annual
lifelong pension of 4000 marks could be given. If the widow has children and
she wants to will a portion of the wealth to them, then it can be allowed to
her that only 40,000 marks be transformed into a pension, while the remaining
20,000 would be kept for the children. Out of the 40,000 marks, depending on
the age of the pension- applicant, up to 1/12 of the received capital could be
given annually.
Furthermore,
let it also be noted here that, with the discontinuation of oppressive taxes as
a result of the abolition of interest-slavery, the widow's cost of living will
be quite considerably decreased.
It would
greatly exceed the scope of this essay to examine in detail the personal
interests of each stratum of the population. Such a revolutionary demand cannot
be about personal interests; nevertheless as the idea takes effect one will
find that the healthful consequences personally benefit every individual in the
end.
Precisely
by the problem already isolated above, of how to achieve release from interest
on war-bonds, I have tried to make it clear already that small capitalists --
by which I mean all the hundreds of thousands that have been induced through a
hyper-American advertising-campaign to devote their savings for subscription to
war-bonds -- not only receive no benefit from interest, since of course they
must pay for it themselves with taxes, but, with tax- legislation tailored for
the protection of big capital, must support interest- payments for million-mark
subscriptions.
It seems to
me that, apart from these immediate considerations, an appeal to all for the
sake of their children’s wellbeing must in itself persuade the anxious
bondholder to accept as completely natural the renunciation of eternal interest
from the Reich's debts. In this case, what does the patriot, who has given
10,000 marks to his fatherland in direst need, really lose, other than a usurious
claim to draw 50,000 marks in interest within a hundred years, without even
diminishing the principal? Eternally his children and grandchildren must work,
just to pay all the interest.
* * * * *
The
question of repayment of the lent sums can be solved in various ways. In my
briefly stated main ideas about the problem at hand, which I submitted to the
government of the People's State of Bavaria [under Kurt Eisner] on 20 November
of last year [1918], I proposed simply to have repayment take the place of
interest-payment at the rate of 5% annually for 20 years. I believe that in
what follows I can even make a much better suggestion, which because of its
simplicity certainly deserves preference: “The war-bond certificates upon
cancellation of interest will be declared to be currency.” That is the Egg of
Columbus. The advantage of this measure is in the first place that nobody
really feels anything from it. The war- bond certificates continue to lie at
rest in the depots; but no young people get them, any more than a book, or a
cabinet, or some otherwise useful object that somebody would lend to his friend.
If one
needs money, then one simply whips out a war-bond note and pays with that.
War-bond notes have, after all, just as much beauty and paper-value as our
other 10, 20, 100, and 1000-mark notes. There can certainly be no talk of the
market's being flooded with currency in such a bump-free transition from the
interest-economy into the interest-free national economy. All the war-bond
certificates are indeed already well protected and stored in bank-vaults, or
other places of concealment considered secure by the people, such as a woolen
stocking or a manure-heap. Indeed it cannot be denied that our issued paper
currency, as much as about 40 billion, is also not in circulation but for the
most part is hoarded in the manner described above. Our need for currency in
the times of economic boom before the war was also only about 4-6 billion, and
it is inconceivable that we would need more than twice that much today in the
ever more customary cashless economy.
[In a later
section Feder states that he has decided that simply letting war-bond
certificates be used as currency is not the best idea. He proposes that they
should be converted into bank-credit instead.]
* * * * *
The
cancellation of interest is to be done in precisely the same manner for all fixed-interest
assets. For these assets, just as for dividend-yielding assets, the originally
proposed “repayment” in 20 or 25-year annual pensions is recommended,
especially for mortgages.
The
abolition of interest-slavery for mortgages means without a doubt the solution
of the housing problem, the liberation from exorbitant rents. It is not at all
evident why the holder of a mortgage should have the eternal benefit of
interest from a sum lent once, why an effortless and endless influx of goods
should be granted to him, why the great mass of a people, only for this
unhealthy principle of interest, should pay high rents year in, year out. Let
it be interjected very briefly that self- evidently there can be no talk of a
complete cancellation of rent, since of course the management and upkeep of
houses demands constant labor and money. A lowering of rents thus can only
occur so far as it results of its own accord through the accomplished repayment
of mortgages.
Only one
thing should be sharply emphasized, that the abolition of enslavement to
interest has not the slightest thing to do with our total value- producing
labor, insofar as no hindrance is posed in any way to the entrepreneurial
spirit, to productive labor, to the manufacture of goods, to the acquisition of
wealth. On the contrary, as we have seen, the entire working folk is liberated
from a stifling, unreasonable, heavy burden; our soul- life is purged of an
intoxicating poison.
* * * * *
We can tell
how correctly the fruitfulness of the interest-problem has been recognized in
the course of history, by the fact that minds in all ages and all peoples have
been occupied with it...
In various
passages of the Old Testament, such as Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15, we find
regulations about the cessation of interest in the form that the seventh year
should always be an acceptilation or jubilee, in which all debts of
folk-comrades should be abated.
Solon in
the year 594B.C. abolished personal debt-slavery through legislation. This law
was called the great Seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens).
In ancient
Rome the Lex Gemicia of the year 332 B.C. abruptly forbade Roman
citizens entirely from charging any interest.
Under
Justinian a prohibition on compound interest was enacted, with the regulation
that no more interest whatsoever should be demanded when overdue interest has
accumulated to the level of the sum originally lent.
Pope Leo I
(the Great) decreed in the year 443 a general prohibition on taking interest;
until then only clerics had been prohibited from demanding interest on a loan.
The ban on interest was now part of Canon Law and also a binding regulation for
the laity. Secular legislation also gradually fell in line with canonic views,
and even threatened punishment for charging interest. We find this in the
police ordinances of the Holy Roman Empire for the years 1500, 1530, and 1577.
Of course
such laws were now much opposed and frequently circumvented, and in this quite
short historical retrospective it may only be mentioned as an astonishing
historical fact that although under the canon law of the 11th to 17th centuries
the charging of interest was forbidden to Christians, it was permitted to Jews.
It would be
extraordinarily charming to investigate in each instance what economic tumors
led to these powerful shedding of burdens. It would be especially valuable to
see which powers and forces have violated the prohibitions on interest again
and again.
In the
Middle Ages certainly short work was often made of usurers; the farmers or
citizens having been bled dry got together and beat the profiteers to death.
Today we have entered into a completely different phase of the interest-problem.
Such pogroms are most deeply disapproved.
Also it is
no longer a matter of individual locally confined symptoms of illness that
could be combated by excising the pus-pocket; what is happening is a serious
sickening of all humanity.
* * * * *
It should
be most emphatically stressed that precisely our contemporary culture,
precisely the internationality of economic relations, make the interest-
principle so murderous. The foregoing historical retrospective should also not
be regarded as providing an analogy for the circumstances of today. When the
Babylonians overcame the Assyrians, the Romans the Carthaginians, the Germans
the Romans, then there was no continuation of enslavement to interest; there
were no international world- powers. The wars were also not financed through
borrowing but with treasures accumulated during peace.
David Hume
gives a very nice overview of this in his Essay on Public Credit. Only
the modern age with its continuity of ownership and its international law
allows loan-capital to escalate into infinity. The penny that was invested at
interest at the time of the birth of Christ exists no more, because since then
all rights of ownership have had to give way to violence several times; by
contrast the penny that old Rothschild invested at interest still exists, and
will exist, if there is international law, for all eternity.
In addition
it ought to be considered that broad stretches of the Earth have only in the
modern age gone over from natural economy to money-economy. It is quite
especially important in this connection that only in the middle of the 19th
century were all restrictions on charging interest, and likewise all
prohibitions on interest, abolished: thus England in the year 1854, Denmark
1856, Belgium 1865, Austria 1868.
Thus
today's concept of interest as inseparable from the possession of money is not
much older than half a century. But precisely this interest- concept has for
the first time caused money to turn into the demonic power of such universal
coercion that we have come to know.
The
incipient and then ever-increasing indebtedness of states to capitalists
likewise dates only to the middle of the 19th century. Only since that time do
we see the state degraded from being the trustee of the folk-community into
being the trustee of capitalistic interests. This development has reached its
highpoint in war-bonds, which we encounter in all lands, which exclusively, as
we have recognized, serve only Mammonistic interests, which should be crowned
with the gigantic credit-edifice of a world- loan.
* * * * *
These brief
retrospectives should make it easier for us finally to break away from the
supposition that unto loan- capital must be lent the supramundane power to grow
eternally and interminably from itself. Gifted with a terrifying potential for
sucking dry. We must break away from the notion that loan-capital, unaffected
by worldly deeds and misdeeds, should be able to sit enthroned above the
clouds, unaffected by transitoriness, unaffected by the forces of destruction,
unaffected by the shots of our giant guns. For, should even houses and huts,
railroads and bridges shattered by shells sink into dust and ash, the mortgages
will still exist; the railroad bonds and public certificates of indebtedness
are not thereby erased. Should villages and cities, entire provinces fall
victim to the insane destruction of war, what is the result? New certificates
of indebtedness are what it means. With eyes flashing greed the Gold
International enthroned above the clouds watches the mad rush of humanity. And
not long distant is the time when all humanity finally shall serve only as
interest-slaves to Mammonism.
The idea is
international; it must liberate the entire world. Hail to the nation that first
dares the bold step. Soon others will follow.
The
question often directed to me, whether the idea is nationally realizable at
all, I answer with yes. We are internally indebted.
Against
foreign interest-claims we are naturally powerless for now; these must simply
be paid. Excessive capital- outflow must be blocked to the extent possible,
but, as little as the lawgiver refrains from working out laws against murder,
manslaughter, fraud, etc., because there would still always be
scoundrels, just as little should a people in its totality restrain itself from
taking a step recognized as necessary for the healing of its public finances,
just because of the fact that not exactly the best elements of the folk are
trying to carry their loot into safety outside the country. If we assume that
hundreds of millions, even billions in war-bond certificates would be spent
abroad; even this could still not be a significant impetus for failing to abolish
interest- slavery; for proportionally, of the more than 250 billion marks in
fixed-interest domestic investment-assets, by far the majority must still be in
the country.
Let us
again summarize briefly. – The abolition of enslavement to interest is the
radical means for the final and permanent healing of our public finances. – The
abolition of the interest- community means the possibility of renouncing
oppressive direct and indirect taxes, because the state-owned businesses,
especially after the socialization of further suitable sectors (inland
navigation, electricity, air- traffic, etc.), will give sufficient surpluses
to the public coffers to support all social and cultural tasks of the state.
Aside from
this financial consideration, the abolition of the interest-community will
grant to productive labor in all fields of endeavor the priority that it
deserves. Money is returned once again to the role appropriate to it, to be a
servant in the powerful drive of our national economy. It will become again
what it is, a voucher for completed labor, and therewith the path is
cleared for a higher goal, for abstention from the raging money-lust of our age.
The idea
points toward the establishment of a united front of the entire working
population: from the unpropertied laborer who, as we have seen, is very heavily
burdened with indirect taxes for the satisfaction of loan-capital, through the
entire bourgeois class of civil servants and employees, of the farming and
small-trades middle class, which get to feel the pitiless tyranny of money in the
form of wretched housing, farmland- rental, bank-interest, and so on, all the
way up to the leading heads, inventors, and directors of our big industry, who
are one and all more or less stuck together in the claws of big loan-capital,
for whom the first task of life is always to work for the sake of pensions,
dividends, and interest for the money- powers playing behind the scenes. No
less do all circles of the intelligentsia – artists, writers, actors, scholars,
as well as other independent professionals – also belong to this group.
Although
big loan-capital, as a group of natural persons or as the personification of
the interest-principle, seeks consciously or instinctively to conceal the fact
of its boundless lust for control, and although our entire legal tradition
based upon Roman law, thus upon law serving for the protection of a plutocracy,
has ever so strongly emphasized the protection of property and therewith
permeated our people's sense of justice, the abolition of enslavement to
interest on money must come, as the only way out of the threatening economic
enslavement of the entire world by the Gold International, as one of the ways
to drive out the poison of Mammonism with its corruption and contamination of the
mentality of our age.
The
Conversion of War-Bonds into Bank-Credit The demand in § 1, for the conversion
of war-bond certificates etc. into legal tender, has on numerous
occasions been met with the objection that it would mean excessively flooding
the market with currency. This objection is in itself quite erroneous.
Inflation occurs through the mere existence of war-bond.
It is
however true that, in spite of its wrongheadedness, the concern about the
physical presence of these papers declared to be currency is not going away,
and therefore despite being unrealistic this concern might generate unfortunate
side-effects, as if in fact a new inflation had taken place. Therefore,
amending § 1, we demand, after legislative cancellation of the obligation to pay
interest, conversion of war-bond certificates, along with other public
debenture-bonds, [not into currency but] into bank-credit.
This
formulation has the great advantage that the physical existence of war-bonds as
paper would cease; the war-bond certificates would be delivered to the
Reichsbank by banks, bankers, thrift- institutions, etc., and would be destroyed
after a credit-note for the face-value is issued. Therewith nearly every person
in Germany would receive a bank-credit, an open bank-account that he could use.
Such a
procedure would also have the great advantage that the retention of larger
investments in private possession would not be possible, since after the
expiration of a specified deadline the undelivered certificates would be declared
void.
Furthermore
it would at least be possible to control how much war-bond is spent outside the
country [thus affecting Germany’s trade-balance]. The last point however must
not in any way block fulfillment of the abolition of enslavement to interest.
Since we really feel too weak compared to foreign countries, we must satisfy
(only) the interest-demands that confront us from abroad. Personally I am
entirely of the opinion that we should also uphold the cancellation of interest
even for foreign bondholders. We need not fear that foreign interest-claims
would be enforced by force of arms, since there has been so much progress in
returning [from war-madness] to something resembling self-awareness, and never
yet in history has a warlike action been undertaken against a great state
because of financial measures affecting private persons. It also ought not to
be imagined that even the French people would issue an ultimatum to Germany
because of the interest-claims of Messrs. Mayer, Schulze, and Cohn from Germany,
based on their German war-bonds carried across the border.
Beyond this
it would be possible, so as to avoid even the appearance to the rest of the
world of a state bankruptcy, to conduct a lottery of the war-bond, which then
of course could easily be rigged based on statistics obtained through the
required delivery of certificates, so that at first just the numbers presumably
belonging to people abroad would be drawn and paid off in Reich banknotes.
Yet a third
thing would be the welcome ascertainment of the distribution of war- bonds, and
the accompanying opportunity that still exists for an extraordinarily simple
collection of the wealth-tax, while the bursaries of course would need only to
instruct the Reichsbank offices to charge the account of Mr. N.N. with so and
so many marks in tax. In this manner tax-payments would be more painless by far
-- although of course the taxpayers’ right of appeal would continue to exist in
its full extent.
With such a
transformation (conversion) of war-bonds into bank-credits a certain social
leveling could also be accomplished, insofar as smaller investments in
war-bonds, thus all small subscriptions of all of those for whom the
subscription of war-bonds really is to be accounted a patriotic deed; let us say
up to 5 or 10 thousand marks, would be made good at par, while all larger
subscriptions could be credited at a rate to be established. The credits for
all other government paper would be handled precisely the same.
Special
Comments on the Demand for Law in the Manifesto On § 1 It is completely
indispensable that all state and municipal debt-subscriptions be treated in the
same way, since only such a unitary large-scale regulation of our entire
monetary system, hand in hand with the abolition of interest-slavery, can be
implemented.
On § 2 It
is already clear that the abolition of interest-slavery must be applied simultaneously
to all the other fixed-interest papers, so as not to cause an absurd boom in
these papers, which obviously would occur if the public papers alone were
declared interest-free. The reduction of the debt as such would be accomplished
through annual repayment, whereby a constant and consistent un-debting of all
debt- laden objects would be accomplished.
On § 3 This
paragraph is very closely related to the preceding ones, as well as with the
demand for nationalization of mortgage- lending in § 5. The farmer or homeowner
burdened with mortgages continues, after as before, to pay the amount that he
had to pay to his creditors, but no longer as eternal interest, rather as
repayment. Thus after 20, 25, or 30 years, depending on the preexisting
interest- rate, ownership of land and home will be freed from debt. (The
mortgage-bank for its part can naturally likewise only during this time continue
correspondingly to pay interest on covered bonds to covered-bond- holders.)
Hand in hand with this liberation from debt arises the community's right of
ownership in the real-estate freed from mortgages.
A universal
registry of dwellings, or rather a real-estate cadaster, would have to come
first; because debt-free real- estate ownership naturally also has the right to
repayment of invested capital, and also a permanent claim on a portion of the
rent, to pay all the charges, expenses, and so on that come with real-
estate-ownership, as well as appropriate compensation for work that the owner himself
does. [* The connection between the registry of dwellings and the rights of
debt-free owners is puzzling, unless the idea is to manage the growth of rental
property so as to keep it reasonably profitable.] Let us consider this in broad
outlines with the example of an urban apartment- house. The house has a value
of 100,000 marks. Against that is recorded a mortgage-bank's investment of
50,000 marks at 4% in position 1, a noncorporate investment of 20,000 marks at
5% in position 2, and 30,000 marks is the amount put up by the house- owner
himself. The revenues from rent are 7000 marks. From this must be paid 2000
marks for the first mortgage, 1000 marks for the second mortgage, and 1000
marks for expenses, outlays, and so on: in all 4000 marks. Thus 3000 marks
remain to the house-proprietor as an interest-payment [so to speak] for his own
invested capital of 30,000 marks.
Following
implementation of the legal abolition of interest on money the situation after
ten years is as follows: 1s t mortgage 30,000 marks, 2nd mortgage 10,000 marks.
The house-owner has completely recovered his capital- investment, but on the
other hand there is a new, public right of ownership in the amount of 50,000
marks. With that the right of the state to have a say about further income from
rent and to determine the amount of rent begins. [* Feder does not state how he
derives the figure of 50,000 marks: it is half the value of the apartment-house,
but also equal to the amount of the corporate mortgage. Probably the most
important fact is that it is not more than the amount owed in mortgages, and
therefore causes no pain to the house-owner. Presumably, given the emphasis
that Feder puts on painless transition, if the amount owed on the house were
less than half the value, the state according Feder’s plan would still not
claim a share of ownership greater than what is owed on mortgages.] It would be
unjust now, in regard to repayment, to put the house-proprietor on the same
level as mortgages. For his capital is not pure loan-capital in the narrower
sense that should be affected by the abolition of interest-slavery; here we are
talking about “risk” capital, specifically about money converted into a
valuable good, specifically a house. It is therefore up to the owner of the
house whether to grant a longer duration of payments, or a corresponding
percentage permanently included in the operating expenses of the house.
It cannot
be the purpose here to make any binding proposals; here only suggestions are
being made as to how a frictionless transition of the interest- economy into
the interest-free economy could occur even in the area of real- estate.
So as to
complete the example, let the status after 25 years be presumed as follows: by
that time all mortgages are paid off; only the permanent expenses are the same
or, because of the greater age of the house, increased from 1000 marks to
perhaps 1500 marks. Let the return afforded to the house-proprietor from this
sum also be about 1000 to 1500 marks; thus accordingly it appears that around
3000 marks of the rent- revenues go to cover non-negotiable charges, while the
remaining 4000 of the original 7000 in rent-revenues would be freely disposable.
The state thus has the possibility of lowering the rents by more than half; it
will do this e.g. in workers' dwellings, or the state may cut rents by
only 20, 30, or 40%, and thus gain from the difference an enormous source of
revenue for other public necessities, above all naturally for publicly
conducted home-construction. For mansions the rents are not lowered, or not
lowered much, whence very great additional means become available also for the
better construction of homes, or for special social purposes. This future state
of affairs however reveals – and I hold this for a very fruitful prospect – the
inner justification for the community (state) even now to take part in
determining the amount of rent in the manner that I sketched above, with a
lowering of rent for workers' dwellings.
In the
growing right of the state to participate in real-estate-ownership also lies
the foundation for a sound bank of issue, and issue of credit to mortgage-
creditors.
On § 4 and
5 These paragraphs demand the socialization of the entire monetary system.
Money is only and exclusively a voucher for completed labor issued by a
community that has its own state. To issue money-tokens is one of the sovereign
fundamental rights of the state. The counterfeiting of the state's money-
tokens is subject to the most severe punishments; thus it is a quite
forceful social demand that the monetary system be placed under the
control of the collectivity. The work-power of the collectivity is the sole
substrate of money-tokens, and only the failure to appreciate this fundamental
fact has led in general to the deterioration of our public finances and to
complete anarchy of the monetary system in general.
With the
surrender of personal and commercial credit by private bankers, proposed in §
5, a deeper incision is made into the total credit-system. For the state
credit-system, as well as for municipal and even real-estate credit, one must
cleave to the abolition of interest-slavery with utmost rigor and energy,
because it is the indispensable prerequisite for the social state in general.
The
situation is different with personal credit. We also demand, in and for itself,
the interestlessness of personal credit; yet this demand does not carry the
same enormous and principal importance. We remember the 250 billion in fixed-
interest loan-capital compared to the only 12 billion in dividend-paying stocks.
All such
credits, stocks, participation- certificates, mining shares, equity- holdings,
and so on, are risk capital. The yield of this capital depends on the industry
and efficiency of those persons to whom the money was entrusted. Here the
element of risk and danger of loss thus comes into play, along with the
question of personal trust. For that, a certain compensation of a special kind
still appears indispensable. The owner of stocks and so on is in no way
compensated or benefited if the enterprise to which he entrusted his money
earns nothing. He loses his money entirely if the enterprise collapses.
It is
otherwise with, for example, the owner of debenture-bonds of the Reicheisenbahn.
The Reich's railroads [in Elsaß-Lothringen] are completely lost with the loss of Elsaß-Lothringen.
Nonetheless the holder of railroad- bonds continues to receive his interest-
payments. From whom? From the taxes of the collectivity. The railroads may work
with a deficit balance of any magnitude as in Prussia and Bavaria in the last
year; yet the bondholders receive their interest-payments just the same. From
whom? From tribute paid out of the work-potential and consumption of the
working population.
One would
just like to make this fundamental distinction perfectly clear, in order
finally to recognize where it is that the vampire sucks from the work-
potential of the people.
Thus
personal credit should remain, or rather be allocated again, to personal
dealing through the private bank. The personal efficiency of the credit-seeker,
with which the banker is personally familiar, should again become the
determining factor for personal credit. The fees set by the state will regulate
themselves by themselves, in accord with the fluidity of money that will in any
case commence with the abolition of interest-slavery.
On § 6 The
main point of § 5 is also valid for dividend-assets in particular. In the
interest of the social state-community it must be demanded that a repayment of
the capital once lent be attempted also for the great industrial enterprises –
in order to bring about here too a reduction of the indebtedness of the
individual industrial works toward those that are only investors.
For in fact
what we were able to observe in the relationship of loan- capital toward all
peoples repeats itself here on a smaller scale. Here too the capitalist
exploits the worker, the foreman, the engineer, the entrepreneur, all equally,
because the compulsion to have to earn dividends takes priority. [* This is a
problem of joint-stock companies. Companies owned free and clear by families,
as is common in Germany, do not have this characteristic.] If however we attain
the liberation of industries and businesses from the eternal interest-sucker,
then the way is clear for the lowering of prices of products, and for the
delivery and distribution of surplus value, partly to the community, partly to
the laborers, middle management, and boards of directors of the particular
enterprises, thus to those that really alone create manufacturing and values.
On § 7 In
this paragraph naturally the entire field of insurance also comes into play,
which can be constructed on an analogous interest-free basis. The premiums paid
cannot grow through addition of interest; rather the insurance- companies will
become thrift- institutions; in other words the risk and advantage of insurance
are retained. For this the political community has to be responsible.
On § 8 With
regard to the devaluation of our money, which has resulted only through the
enormous mass of our innumerable certificates of indebtedness, we demand a
strongly graduated wealth-tax. We lay the emphasis in this on “strongly graduated.”
A [flat] wealth-tax [for the purpose of] reduction of the number of notes and
so forth would be nothing but a self- deception whereby one throws sand into
the eyes of the people. For if I also confiscate half of all of the wealth
everywhere and receive payment in bonds and pulp these, all that is really
accomplished thereby is a diminution of the amount of paper, while in return a
conversion-factor will increase the fictive value of the totality of
circulating paper to the same level as before. Real value belongs always only
to goods for consumption and goods for use, never to the paper vouchers for
completed labor.
Another
question is whether the foreign exchange-rate of our mark-currency can be
improved. But even this improvement of the exchange-rate is again in the final
analysis only dependent on work- potential and production, in other words the
possibility for production of our total national economy.
The
Objections and their Refutation Never yet has an idea been able to establish
itself without opposition, least of all an idea that makes such a radical
departure from the long-established assumptions about the sanctity and
inviolability of interest. With the objections already raised and those
expected there is always a two-fold observation to be made: it must be asked,
first, what part of the objections being made is based on deliberate distortion
of the idea of abolition of interest-slavery, and second, what ought to be said
in response to all sincere and fact-based misgivings? The most frequent
objection is the assertion: without the charging of interest nobody will lend
money.
We do not
in fact want anyone to lend his money anymore. Credit was the trick, was the
trap, into which our economy entered, and in which it is now helplessly ensnared.
If the folk
really urgently needs greater capital, then it gets the needed moneys
interest-free at the central state treasury, with only repayment required.
Eventually it will issue new banknotes. Why should it issue interest-bearing certificates?!
Whether the paper bears interest or not makes no difference! Its only and sole
backing is the work- potential and tax-potential of the folk. Why burden every
public expenditure from the beginning with the leaden weight of eternal
interest? Yes, but how should the state fulfill its cultural labors for the
community? It still needs money and can be fair in this task only by way of
loans that charge interest.
This
assertion is based on an entirely Mammonistic way of thinking. It would have to
be deliberately calculated for misdirection after thorough reading of this Manifesto;
for in the first place we have proven that after the abolition of
interest-slavery all cultural and social tasks of the state can be covered out
of state-owned businesses, out of the revenues of the postal service, railroad,
mines, forests, and so on, without anything further. In the second place the
sovereign people's state [Volksstaat] has the power, at any time, to
take care of special cultural tasks through the issue of interest-free
value-tokens in lieu of the interest-bearing certificates declared to be the
rule in the Mammonistic state.
It is
thoroughly impossible to see why the state should make special cultural tasks, e.g.
railroad, canal, and hydroelectric construction, more costly for itself
with an eternal promise of interest that is completely unnecessary. If it
cannot pay the costs of construction from the revenues of its current state-
owned businesses, then there is no reason to see why the state should not
create the money; the sovereign people must indeed pay for it, while it
recognizes precisely this money as a means of payment. Why however should the
folk, with its entire work- and tax- potential, stand behind another slip of
paper (the interest-bearing loan), which imposes on the folk in its totality
only an eternal interest-obligation for the benefit of the capitalist!?
Therefore away with this obsession of the Mammonistic state! The capitalists
then will just take up the issued paper notes and accumulate paper money.
This is
refuted in two ways. First, the demand that mere possession of money should be
rendered unprofitable would then of course be already fulfilled, and the
abolition of interest-slavery voluntarily undertaken by the capitalists
themselves, since the capitalist renounces interest of his own accord if he
piles up his paper notes at home. Second, the capitalist's fear for his money
makes it unlikely; one need only imagine the sleepless nights of the currency-hoarder
who keeps great sums of money piled up at home and must constantly see his
possession threatened by thieves, robbers, burglars, house- searches, fire, and
flood. I am convinced that the upright citizen would become tired of these
worries in a short time, and would soon find his way to the state bank. The
state bank issues a receipt and is now legally responsible for the account, but
not for any interest- payments. Otherwise of course a third possibility still
remains open to everyone, specifically to work with his money, to create values
and to manufacture goods, to participate in industrial undertakings, to render
his life ever richer and finer, to support art and scholarship, in short to
make beneficial use of his money while rejecting the Cult of Mammon.
It can
however still happen that private need of capital for some goals urgently
presents itself, e.g. for testing of inventions, founding of businesses by
young, competent craftsmen or businessmen, etc.
To begin
with, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the abolition of interest-slavery!
For, in the first place, one must logically assume that the capitalist, who
after the abolition of interest-slavery of course has no more opportunity to
invest his moneys in a bombproof manner and to expect idle consumption of
interest, will rather, as in an earlier age, be inclined to risk his money for
such purposes, so that a lack or need in this direction will therefore occur
much less than hitherto. Or has one not heard on the contrary again and again
from the efficient businesspeople, from the cleverest inventors, precisely the
complaint of how difficult it is to get money in the Mammonistic state for such
purposes unless a “dividend” could be guaranteed? In the second place, it must
be the task of the coming state to foster every competent force through
generous support. There were indeed even before now already beginnings toward
this in the old bureaucratic state, but so small- hearted that, instead of a
stimulus, an inhibition and reluctance resulted, because of the harassing
regulations that accompanied the granting of public support. In the third place
let it be noted that with the allocation of several million marks, enormously
much could be achieved. The joy of labor, the industriousness and tenacity of
the German inventor, engineer, craftsman, etc. is so great that, through
the state's right of participation in the results of fortunate inventions, the
expenditures most likely would be richly rewarded (England as an example).
The
abolition of interest-slavery leads necessarily to the exhaustion of wealth.
Oho! Who
claims that? But of course! Whoever has adapted his life to the consumption of
his interest-payments on capital and cannot resolve to work, with him it is
certainly true: consuming 5% annually he will have completely exhausted his
wealth in 20 years. Of course, but that is indeed completely in order! What we
want is precisely the abolition of interest-slavery; we want living on a
pension to cease being the citizen’s highest ideal. We want to end this
Mammonistic decadence; indeed we want no longer to tolerate that one, that
many, can live in comfort permanently only from interest-payments on
loans -- in other words at the expense of others! I repeat: it is also not true
at all that the abolition of the lordship of interest would lead to the
elimination and exhaustion of wealth. On the contrary, the abolition of
interest-slavery would promote the creation of wealth based on labor that
manufactures goods and produces value, unburdened and liberated from eternal
interest-outlays. The abolition of interest-slavery leads, as we have seen, to
a comprehensive lowering of costs in all of life; it unburdens us from the
excessive weight of taxation so that for every working man the possibility of
accumulating savings must be greater in the future than hitherto. One more
thing! The goods- and values-producing national-economic labor of industry,
commerce, and trade is in no way hindered, but fostered to the utmost through
the abolition of interest- slavery.
What does
the worker get if capitalists receive no more interest-payments? This
question really ought not to be coming up anymore! In the first place, of
course it was the constant battlecry of labor that the capitalists would
exploit the workers; in the second place we have indeed clearly and plainly
seen that it is the laborer more than anyone else that is required to pay the
interest on loans. [In other words, what the worker gets is lower taxes and a
lower cost of living.] The bonds of family are weakened and damaged if one
can leave no wealth behind for the children.
Yes what is
the reality here? Quite generally I think that money has little or nothing to
do with the sense of family. Or has one heard that the children of wealthier
parents cleave to their parents more than those of poor parents? Or do rich
parents love their children more than the less propertied? What is likely to be
more important for the children, that their parents arrange for them the best
possible upbringing and have them learn some discipline, raising them into industrious
and healthy and courageous people, or that they leave behind for them the
biggest possible moneybag? In particular cases a justified striving to secure
the children’s financial future undoubtedly will have to be acknowledged. This
striving, and thus the thriftiness of the parents for their children, will be
in no way adversely affected by the abolition of interest- slavery; on the
contrary. The possibility of saving will become greater, when our national
economy will be liberated from the all-encompassing pressure of interest-slavery.
We have
seen from the example of the man with earnings of 10,000 marks and
pension-income of 5000 marks that all medium-sized and smaller fortunes are in
fact robbed of any beneficial effect by the circuitous route of the direct and
indirect taxes of housing-rent and so on.
I cannot
repeat often enough: interest on bonds for possessors of small and medium
amounts of wealth is a swindle, a self-deception, a running around in circles,
but big capital through its devoted press has quite diabolically propagated and
proclaimed in all the world the faith in the sanctity and inviolability of
interest. It allows everyone seemingly to take part in the lovely,
anaesthetizing consumption of interest, in order to lull to sleep the bad
conscience that must invariably accompany idle, laborless consumption of
interest – and in order to recruit comrades for the struggle, for the defense
of this highest good of Mammonism.
The civil
servant, the statesman, will say: the state cannot renounce the obligation that
it has undertaken toward its creditors.
What does
“obligations” mean? Is it in any way moral to enter into obligations about
which the state must know from the beginning that it can only fulfill these
obligations if it takes the interest away from the creditors through direct and
indirect taxes in precisely the same amount? Where is the morality in that? Or
is it not perhaps more honest to admit: “I can only pay the interest if I
collect just as much in taxes – but back during the war I absolutely had to
have money, and for that I did the swindle with the war-bond; you have to
forgive me, beloved folk; it was ultimately for you, and now we want to play no
more hide-and-seek; I the state am paying no interest and you, the taxpayer,
need not pay taxes for the interest; that will substantially simplify our
transactions. Thus we shall do without the enormous tax-bureaucracy and
likewise the extraordinary interest-serving bureaucracy. Right? Do we have a
deal?” And you, Herr Scheidemann, do not again post your name on every
advertising pillar as the secretary of state of the old compromised government
amid foolish declarations relating to the security and inviolability of the
war-bond. You only embarrass yourself: the benefit of the entire swindle has
indeed gone only and solely to big loan-capital.
Financial
officials and banking professionals are declaring that the abolition of
enslavement to interest on war-bonds and public debts is impossible because it
is synonymous with public bankruptcy.
You will
forgive me: according to your speeches we are indeed publicly bankrupt anyway,
or must become so. An overt declaration of public bankruptcy however would be
the greatest stupidity that we could commit: to the actual incompetence of the
current power- holders it would add prematurely the historical confirmation of
this incompetence.
Why declare
bankruptcy? If I have put 3 marks from the right pants-pocket into the left, I
must still not on that account declare the bankruptcy of the right pants-
pocket! It was indeed no different with the war- loan! The Reich took out of
the people's pockets the first actually present billions, then the moneys
flowed back again; then came the new loan and again the money streamed back;
once again came the pump and sucked the billions and again they ebbed back,
until, after the game had been repeated nine times, the state had merrily
generated 100 billion in debt. For that the people had 100 billion in finely
printed paper in their hands. At first the folk imagined that it had become so
much richer; then came the state and said: “It is horrible; I have 100 billion
in debt and face bankruptcy.” – Yes but why? That is in any case only a
self-deception! I myself can indeed never become bankrupt if every so often I
take my money from the one pocket and place it in the other. Therefore we can
rest at ease about state bankruptcy in regard to our internal war- bond debts.
Therefore we really need not declare public bankruptcy and we can really spare
ourselves the gigantic labor with the stupid interest-payments and the big, but
even stupider, taxes.
Let us
indeed finally free ourselves from doing the bidding of big loan-capital! Only
big loan-capital benefits from this loan-interest tax-swindle, since a lovelier
lump of gold is left over for it and the laboring folk pays this surplus in the
form of indirect taxes; meanwhile, however, the small and middle-sized
capitalist simply chases his own tail.
The global
economic official says: The abolition of interest-slavery is not possible for
us to accomplish in Germany alone; it must be done internationally; otherwise
we shall lose all credit, capital will flow away, and we will still have to
fulfill our interest- obligations toward the rest of the world.
I confess
that I myself was at a loss about this question for the longest time.
It is the
most difficult question because it involves our relationship with the rest of
the world; meanwhile the matter has two sides. On the one hand, the idea of the
abolition of interest-slavery is the battlecry of all productive peoples,
against international enslavement to interest on money; on the other hand it is
the radical cure for our internal financial woe. But it is really no reason to
refrain from using a cure, just because the equally sick neighbor does not
employ it at the same time. It would however be added stupidity if we in
Germany continued to run in a crazy circle and pay taxes and interest when we
have clearly recognized that this ridiculous activity benefits only the big
capitalists and nobody else. Therefore let us lead the way by our liberating
example; let us liberate ourselves from the enslavement to interest on money,
and we shall soon see that the force of this victorious liberating idea will
stimulate the peoples of the world to follow us.
I am
actually convinced that our initiative – if this initiative is not suppressed
by the German Mammonists – will sweep the other peoples along with irresistible
necessity.
The
Spartacist says: The whole idea only amounts to a protection of capital; it
still remains then as it was: the poor man has nothing and the rich remain.
Yes, my
friend; it is in general very hard to have a discussion with you -- if you
really are in the depths of your soul a Communist, and will therefore actually
maintain that “all things belongs to all men” [* Peter Kropotkin, The
Conquest of Bread], and if along with that you are indeed familiar with the
actual ideas of the great Bolshevik leaders in Russia, especially Lenin, and
regard them as correct, and accordingly regard the next tasks of the Soviet
Republic designated by Lenin, “universal tendering of accounts and control of
all production and distribution,” as humanly possible.
If however
you are completely clear about the fact that this task is really only feasible,
if at all, under a horrible tyranny, and you still remain at the bottom of your
heart a convinced Communist or Spartacist and so on, then let us not dispute
further with each other; we just do not understand each other and are speaking
different languages, and the future will decide, either for the strait- jacket
state that can ultimately result from the chaos of Bolshevism, or the new state
for which I hope, with a national economy liberated from interest-slavery.
But if, at
the bottom of your Communist heart-- if you are honest -- you find that you
still think about, still long for wife and child, for a human soul that stands
closer to you than an Eskimo or a Zulu kaffir, if during factory-labor
commanded by the soviet-director you think that it would still be nice to
possess your own little cottage, a little garden-plot, if indeed in the very
depth of your soul it would really give no true satisfaction that you should be
entitled like a dog on the street to use every bitch that crosses your path, if
you want to call somebody your wife, if you merely think about saving something
from your wage, which then should belong to you alone, then you are already no
longer a Communist; then you have already in your heart broken from your so loudly
proclaimed catchphrase, “All things belong to all men”; then precisely what you
do not want is that all things should belong to all men; you want that
precisely what you wish for yourself -- wife, child, house, farm, savings -- whether
you already have it or only hope to get it, even then should belong to you
alone.
And do you
see, my friend, if you only suspect in your heart that it might make a
difference to you, if some random individual came and simply took your savings
away from you in the name of “all,” and if he brought another child for you and
took with him yours because all children belonged to “all,” then my friend, let
us not continue to speak completely past each other.
Perhaps I
could ask you to contemplate whether in fact the Communist message that all
things should belong to all men would not necessarily mean the end of every
culture, because the lack of any concept of ownership must with compelling
logic force man down to the level of the beast.
If all
things belong to all men, if a tendering of accounts and control of all above-ground
production and distribution in Lenin's sense could be coerced, then in the
best-case scenario an ant-colony would result. But in that case we can also do
without language, soul, and thought; mutely and instinctively we can perform
our forced labor. The end of man is there. [* “The End of Man” is from Ezekiel.
There it means the purpose of man but here it could have a double meaning. Man’s
purpose under Communism becomes mindless slavery, which is the destruction of
man.] But enough now, friend Spartacus. Let this fundamental consideration sink
deeply into your head and heart. A more exact answer to your question will then
result during conversation with the other parties.
And now,
you comrades of the two socialist orientations, moderate and independent! [* Feder
refers here to the Social-Democratic Party and its pacifist offshoot, the
Independent Social- Democratic Party.] I cannot imagine that serious
contradiction or objections against the abolition of interest-slavery would
come from your side, and yet I must deal with you categorically, along with the
entire socialist world of ideas, from Marx up to the current leaders Ebert,
Scheidemann, Kautsky, and so forth.
1. The
socialist will: elevation of the working class is an idea
unconditionally bound to prevail; so far we are in agreement.
2. The
paths trodden for the attainment of this great goal are almost entirely wrong,
because they 3. are based on false assumptions.
4. The
[Marxist] socialist idea of the state leads necessarily to Communism, thus to
decline.
5. Because
however Social- Democracy has a different goal, the elevation of the working
class, of all working people in general, it faces a terrible inner conflict,
because the logical consequences of Marxism lead to the direct opposite of the
practical goal of the workers' movement.
6. From
this inner division results the overt uncertainty in the direction of the
government.
7. For the
sake of the great practical goal (elevation of the working class) a sharper
line must be drawn against Spartacus and Bolshevistic Communism, and their
methods must be combated with all our might. But Social- Democracy, organized
through labor-unions, feels weak today before these radical groups, because it
has taken up Marxist thinking as its fundamental principle of education, and
because all Marxist ways of thinking logically lead to Communism.
Now the
proof: point 2 says that the paths trodden by Social-Democracy are almost
entirely wrong.
The whole
agitation conducted throughout the country has led to a deep division within
the population of our nation. The constantly repeated slanders against
employers of every kind, indeed of every bourgeois calling whatsoever, as
exploiters and bloodsuckers of the manual laborer working ostensibly
unassisted, have led to an unjustified embitterment and to the haughtiness of
labor, which today necessarily finds its expression in the demand for the “dictatorship
of the proletariat” (Communist Manifesto). The essential demand of the Erfurt
Program – the transfer of the means of production from private ownership
into the ownership and operation of the community – has today been compressed
into the cry for “socialization.” It is completely clear to every serious
politician that full socialization of our economic ruin would mean complete state
bankruptcy. But one dare not confess this openly and freely to the people.
Not socialization
but desocialization would have to be the motto now. Thus one
attempts to compensate the blatant miscarriage of every socialization through
delusional tax-projects and by this route to “expropriate the expropriators”
for the second time. All of that means nothing other than abandoning the entire
national economy to utter ruin. Instead of growth (a doubling of production, as
the entire socialist literature for the period after the revolution promised,
is out of the question) the exact opposite has occurred.
The worst
thing however would be if the current socialist government thought of accepting
big foreign loans. With that not only would our economic decline be sealed, but
we would furthermore quite entirely deliver ourselves into interest-slavery to
the Entente, from which there would be no return.
The
fundamental failure, the basic error, upon which this whole wrong chain of
treaties, demands, and promises to the people has been constructed, is an
entirely wrong attitude toward industrial capital and loan-capital. The Communist
Manifesto, the Erfurt Program, Marx, Engels, Lasalle, Kautsky,
have not recognized the radical difference between industrial capital
and loan- capital.
On this
point the entire Social- Democracy must relearn; this fundamental error must be
clearly recognized and frankly admitted without reservation. Then however one
must also relentlessly draw the only possible conclusions. These however
signify radical renunciation of the pointless, because completely mistaken,
rage against industry, against the employer. Worker and work-giver belong
together; they have the same goal -- work, production; for without
production, without work, there can be no life, no culture, no forward, and no
upward. The self-evident and unavoidable oppositions that exist among humans,
just because they are humans, are much less important than the great shared
interest of employer and employee. These oppositions are and have been
resolvable by means of wage- contracts and trade-organizations to the mutual
satisfaction of both sides.
But let us
not pursue further these questions that are trivial in the scope of our
treatise on the largest political lines of force, and let us only emphasize
that the interest of labor collectively is perfectly aligned with our national
industry, with the national economy of our people.
Whoever
teaches otherwise and presents the oppositions between employer and employees
as more important reveals himself as irresponsible precisely in regard to the
workers; for he thereby lays the axe to the roots of the tree that nourishes
and supports the worker.
Social-Democracy
however has done that, and with that it has incurred eternal guilt
before German labor; with that it has brought unspeakable misery upon our folk,
because it cannot keep all its promises, because it cannot bring to us the
peace of mutual understanding, because it cannot create work for us, because it
must even set up an armed force against us, because it cannot get by without
the civil service, because it must demand the obligation to work, because
universal equal and direct suffrage for men and women over the age of 20 helps
nobody to earn a living, because without the state's guarantee of the security
of person and property chaotic circumstances must occur, because without
integration and subordination of the individual into society no vitality of the
state is possible.
Thus a
deep, despair-filled wave of disappointment passes through the entire people.
If individuals still do not understand it, ministers, members of parliament,
and people's delegates continue cheerfully lying to each other that the “gains
of the revolution” must be defended against “reaction”: what these two terms
mean, if anything, no sincere statesman would be able to tell the people
clearly.
The
negative actions of the revolution, the deposing of a series of
antiquated dynasties, deposing of officers, abolition of the
nobility, dissolution of the army, in short the “Great Demolition,” is
indeed no “gain.” And reaction?! The swept-away, rotten doctrine of divine
right does not have anywhere in the entire folk enough moral support to result
in any forceful action; the bourgeoisie, as regards the real bourgeois,
is much too cowardly, much too morally corrupt, to rally against class-conscious
labor: therefore it is not necessary for the ruling class of the workers to be
worried about a dynastic or bourgeois reaction.
But the
deep disappointment of the people about the so-called gains of the revolution,
in other words about the lack of any real improvement of the people's situation,
that is the great danger. This disappointment leads to the streaming away of
great masses ever farther to the left, where the promises already made are
outbid by far.
Ultimately
one can no longer make promises such as “all things to all men.” That is pure
madness, but every idea, every phenomenon, every activity stretched and
exaggerated to the extreme becomes madness in the end, and then changes into
its opposite. So goes it likewise with the Communist idea that all should
belong to all, for this ultimately comes to an end and resolves into all ...
having nothing. Hunger, despair, misery, sickness, and need have arrived in
Russia; people have lost the last remnant of courage and joy in living.
I repeat:
the enormous fundamental error in the socialist idea-world is ultimately to be
traced back to the failure to recognize the deep essential difference between
industrial capital and loan- capital. Interest-devouring loan-capital is the
scourge of humanity. It is the eternal effortless and endless growth of big
loan-capital, not productive, goods- manufacturing, industrial working-
capital, that leads to the exploitation of peoples.
I cannot
forgo here the examination of the question of why this essential
difference has not been recognized; whether it really has not been recognized,
or whether it perhaps has been obscured for the benefit of big loan-capital;
whether the leaders and chiefs in the struggle against Capitalism, whether the
authors of the Communist Manifesto, of the Erfurt Program, and the
current leaders always have proceeded with the necessary conscientiousness.
It is the
most grave and terrible thing when one casts doubt on the absolute earnestness
and firm conviction of another; it seems all the more grave, the more carefully
one seeks after the causes and relationships pertaining to life’s occurrences.
I want therefore also to give no answer at all to this question itself, rather
only to allude to big, obscure connections by citing an utterance of Disraeli,
the greatest English Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield. This he writes in his
novel Endymion: "No man will treat with indifference the principle
of race. It is the key of history, and why history is often so confused is that
it has been written by men who were ignorant of this principle and all the
knowledge it involves." [Baron Sergius to Endymion] The bourgeois.
The
bourgeois, to whom rest appears as his bourgeois duty, is certainly disturbed
by every new revolutionary demand, as always with every new idea. It means
unrest for him; for perhaps he would even have to think something about it.
All change
is odious to him; he wants to have his rest, and woe unto him that covets his
moneybag. Now indeed one does want from him his interest- payments, his income
from rent on houses, the interest-payments from his covered bonds, the interest
that he collects on mortgages; in short, what constitutes his rest, his
contentment, and his good fortune.
Even so, we
must inquire what the members of the classes owning loan- capital will have to
say. They form, apart from the true bourgeois…. Bourgeois is a human type, with
which nothing further is to be initiated; the bourgeois is a branch on the tree
of humanity that should be lopped off, the sooner the better. These are the
smug, self-satisfied Babbitts with their deplorably narrow horizons, who are
capable of no enthusiasm. They while away their days in eternal monotony with
coffee, morning newspaper, morning drink, noon paper, lunch, afternoon nap,
coupon-clipping, afternoon drink, friends at the pub, and occasionally the
movie-house. Lacking comprehension for all that moves the world, all for which
youth longs, all that distresses the folk, the state, and society, untroubled
about war and victory, they vegetate and decay, simultaneously arrogant and
obsequious – but the bourgeoisie is such a broad class that it cannot be
ignored.
Thus,
through the abolition of interest- slavery, thrift is destroyed; people end up
in the poorhouse.
That the
abolition of interest-slavery quite generally may have its influence on thrift
must be decisively denied. Thrift has just as little to do with the prevailing economic
views as e.g. wastefulness. Thrift and wastefulness are human qualities
that either are present or not, indifferent to whether an age approves or
frowns upon the idea of interest.
In times of
transition perhaps an increase or diminution of thrift can be promoted. In the
given case however I tend much more to the view that a rational, economically
minded person will say to himself the following: “I can no longer in the future
count on living on my interest alone. I want however to live in later years and
also still leave something behind for my children; therefore I must now save
more.” The abolition of interest-slavery must, in my opinion, exert this effect
on the majority of people. As for the elderly, of course they will be referred
to public support.
Here
too I must once again stress emphatically that, given the current burden of
direct taxes on property and the burden of indirect taxes on every lifestyle,
nothing of the lovely interest- payments remains, except in the case of that
person for whom – and it is indeed something iniquitous and to be combated –
all income flows only from eternal interest-payments. Therefore a
decline in thrift is probably not to be feared.
Is
(loathsome) big capital really so utterly unfruitful? Has it not also created the
means to large-scale progress that bears fruits for humanity greater than what
the interest on loan- capital destroys? No! The posing of the question only
proves that Mammonistic phraseology has clouded our clear vision.
Big capital
has not created the means to large-scale progress; rather big capital has grown
from labor! All capital is accumulated labor. Big capital is in itself
unproductive, because plain money by itself is a thoroughly unfruitful thing.
From mind, labor, and available or already developed raw materials or mineral
resources, values are produced and goods are manufactured – through labor and
only through labor.
For if one
pours so much money onto the most fertile farmland, into the richest coalmine,
the farmland does not on that account bear grain, nor the coalmine spit out
coals by itself! Let us conclusively affirm this.
If people
have invented money, it is accordingly quite useful and reasonable; for in
every complex economy one needs this (universally recognized) “voucher for
completed labor.” But that a potential should inhere in these “money- empires”
to grow eternally from themselves into enormity – and money does that, if it
can bear interest – it is that against which the core of our being rebels; it
is that which exalts money far above all other earthly manifestations; it is
that which makes money into an idol. And all of that is indeed only the most
enormous self-deception of humanity! Nothing, nothing at all, can come from
money alone. Table, cabinet, clothing, house, tool, in short everything around
us has some value; in the end one can still use a broken piece of furniture as
firewood to warm oneself, but with a twenty-mark note one cannot do anything; I
cannot even wrap a piece of cheese in it. Only after people have sensibly
agreed on the facilitation of the exchange of goods for consumption, to write
vouchers for completed labor, only with that does the slip of paper receive
meaning and purpose, and it is very reasonable that the farmer for his grain
receives from the coalmining company not coal but money; thus a voucher for
other completed labor, e.g. pitchforks, crockery, plough, and scythe.
But with that the power of money should end.
Thus the
large-scale progress of humanity has been made not by money but by the men
themselves, their bold spirit, their proud daring, their clever mind, the
strength of their hands, their shared, therefore social, industrious
labor. So proudly and so clearly must we see. The men were the thing, certainly
not the pitiful pieces of paper that men invented for the simplification of
commerce.
Further
Program Although the abolition of interest- slavery is not the final goal of
the new statecraft; it is truly the most incisive deed, the only deed that is
able to unite all peoples into a true league of nations, against the tyranny of
Mammonism that encompasses all peoples. But it is not the end. On the contrary,
the abolition of interest-slavery must lead to further steps, because, as we
have seen, it lays hold of the global evil by the root, and indeed by the main
root.
Only when
the groundlaying demand for abolition of interest-slavery is fulfilled, is the
path cleared for the first time ever for the social state. This
must be clearly recognized, and it must be accomplished in spite of all
Mammonistic powers. The cry for socialization [while interest-slavery persists]
is nothing more than the attempt to bring about the formation of a trust of all
industries and to create giant conglomerates everywhere, over which big
loan-capital, in spite of all wealth- taxes, will naturally also have the
deciding influence again in the future. A socialistic state on a Mammonistic
foundation is an absurdity and leads by nature to a compromise between Social-
Democracy, already strongly contaminated with Mammonism, and big capital.
We, by
contrast, demand radical rejection of the Mammonistic state and a
reconstruction of the state according to the true spirit of socialism, in which
the ruling basic idea is the obligation to nourish -- in which an old basic
demand of Communism can find its rational and useful satisfaction -- in the
form that every member of the folk shall receive his assigned entitlement
to the soil of the homeland through the state's allocation of the most
important foodstuffs.
We further
demand, as a skeleton for the new state, a representation of the people through
the Chamber of People's Representatives, which is to be elected on the broadest
basis, and next to that a permanent Chamber of Labor, the central council in
which the nation’s workers have a voice in proportion to their distribution by
profession and economic class. Finally we demand the highest accountability for
the directors of the state. This new construction of the state on a
socialist-aristocratic basis will be treated in an additional work that will
appear soon from the same publisher.
The
prerequisite for all this construction however remains the abolition of interest-slavery.
My
unshakable belief, nay more, my knowledge makes me recognize clearly that the
abolition of interest-slavery is not only enforceable but will and must be
taken up everywhere with indescribable jubilation. For bear in mind: in contrast
to all other ideas and movements and endeavors, however well intentioned, that
aim at the improvement of mankind, my proposal does not want to try to improve
human nature; rather it applies itself against a toxic substance, against a
phenomenon that was artfully – no, diabolically – invented, completely contrary
to the deepest feeling of man, in order to make humanity ill, in order to
ensnare humanity in materialism, in order to rob from it the best thing that it
has, the soul.
Hand in
hand next to it goes the frightful, pitiless tyranny of the money-powers, for
which people are only interest- slaves, exist only to work for the dividend,
for interest.
Deeply
troubled we recognize the frightful clarity and truth of the old Biblical
proverbs, according to which the god of the Jews Yahweh promises to his chosen
people: “I want to grant to you to own all treasures of the world; at your feet
shall lie all peoples of the Earth and you shall rule over them.” This global
question is now laid out before all of you. Global questions are not solved
with a wave of the hand, but the idea is clear as day. And the deed must be
diligently propagated; we must understand clearly that we face the most
formidable enemy, the world-encompassing money-powers. All force on the other
side, on our side only justice, the eternal justice of productive labor.
Extend your
hands to me, working people of all countries, unite! Publisher’s Afterword While
repetitive at times, this Manifesto clearly stresses the importance of ending
interest-slavery and presents some of the many benefits that would arise from
such a radical departure of what we know as the "norm." What most
Americans are unaware of is how much emphasis the Nazis placed on uplifting the
working class. This lack of awareness comes in spite of the NSDAP name :
National- Socialist German Worker's Party.
Concern and
struggle for the working class continues today, as does the movement to end
profits without work - interest-slavery. Such modern struggles have been far
more successful in Europe than in the United States, but there is a single
American organization calling itself the "American Nazi Party" (
www.anp14.com ) that continues to harp on very similar economic principles as
Feder and the NSDAP. In fact, due to the ever increasing wage disparity in the
US, coupled with high unemployment rates nationwide and general dissatisfaction
with the current government, such movements are currently seeing relatively
strong growth.
It is clear
as to why Feder's ideas have not taken root in modern society, and that is
because of the influence that the international banking powers wield over most
nations. In the US, the Federal Reserve is a private banking entity that is not
accountable to the US Government, yet they hold tremendous power over the
American economy. Had Feder's ideas been implemented here in the States,
Ceteris paribus, it is almost certain that the recent mortgage crisis of 2007,
which led to deep recession, high unemployment, and the big bank
"bailouts" wouldn't have occurred.
This
publisher hopes that the Manifesto was read with an open mind, free of any
preconceived ideas about "Nazism" or the horrors of war that are so
often associated with the 3rd Reich. Clearly there was much more to the
ideology and practices of National- Socialist Germany than the History Channel
or even most "history" books provide. Modern governments have taken
much from Nazi Germany such as laws protecting animal rights, the
"green" movement (see Richard Walther Darré), paid vacations and other
labor comforts that we take for granted today. Would it be too absurd to
suggest that maybe their economic policies held some merit as well? [1]
The following declarations about the Bavarian state budget are in rounded
figures taken from the Bavarian State Yearbook of the year 1913. This is the
last statistical yearbook that appeared before the war, which gives exhaustive
reporting about Bavarian finances. During the war no more recent reports
appeared.
[2] The
unceasing increase in interest-rates and material-prices has led to the fact
that the net yield of the Bavarian state railroad in the year 1918 has declined
to 3 million marks, compared to an average of 80 million in preceding years. In
Prussia, according to the reports of Finance-Minister Simon, the previously
customary average profit of 700 marks has even been replaced by a deficit of 1,300,000,000
marks. We will therefore be less able than ever to think about continually
increasing direct and indirect taxes; we must think more than ever about
immediately reducing the new debts that have grown through catastrophic
finance-economy by very strong requisitioning of wealth, especially from the
very large fortunes.
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