Money Manipulation and the Social Order

 The art of money manipulation is similar to the art of manipulating the number of inches in a foot or ounces in a pound or days in a week. Those who can do it are in control of the lives and fortunes of those who cannot. Since peace within societies and between nations must be founded upon justice, it stands to reason that there cannot be any justice or peace in a world where the manipulators of money control the economic order to their own advantage. The Christian social order of the nation inevitably breaks down.

The money question is very much on the mind of the American people today. Only the Catholic Church has the answers that we seek. Father Fahey is among the best expositors of the social Kingship of Christ and the economic principles of a Christian social order.

“According to right order, then, money or exchange medium is for the production of material goods, and the production of material goods is for the virtuous life of members of Christ of which the foundation is laid in the Christian family. Money, according to Saint Thomas, was invented by the art of man for the convenience of exchange by serving as a common measure of things saleable.”

— Quoted from Chapter Two

 “Stability in value is a property or necessary attribute of an exchange medium. Money is meant to facilitate families in procuring by exchange the sufficiency of material goods required for the virtuous life of the human personalities composing them. The virtuous life of human persons is simply their ordered development in supernatural life as members of Christ”.

— Quoted from Chapter Two

DEDICATION

To the Immaculate Queen of Heaven and Earth, to Saint Joseph, the Head of the Holy Family and the Protector of the Universal Church, to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Church’s official teacher of order, and to Saint Brigid of Ireland, who was so well versed in the arts of rural life, this book is lovingly and humbly dedicated by the author, in the hope that by their intercession it may contribute in some little way to the return of the world to the full acceptance of the rule of Christ the King, so that social environment may once more sustain men in their efforts to live as members of his Mystical Body.

“I have alluded to the appalling progress of desert-making on behalf of greed throughout the world. Erosion is a symptom of sickness in any civilization. Today, as modern civilization is a world complex, it bids fair to engulf mankind. Already the specter of world famine casts its shadow ahead. Even in forestry there is more need to plant trees to preserve life than there is to exploit forests for felling. The financial rulers have the greatest responsibility for all this, since the system they administer has faithfully implemented human greed and ignorance. Financial greed has not only led the van, but directed the attack; and, having lent at interest sufficient money to exploit the soil, it has thereafter diverted the springs of credit that might have repaired the damage due to soil exploitation to the profitable business of transport, public utilities and luxury trades. The result is that it is as devastating to human material as it has been upon the soil . . .. Most of this degeneration can be laid finally at the door of finance, just as to the same door we can lay the twenty to thirty million unemployed who haunted the streets of Europe and America.” (Alternative to Death, by the Earl of Portsmouth, pp. 40, 37).

 FOREWORD

The author begs to thank the editor of The Standard (Dublin) for kindly permitting him to reprint the large portion of Appendix II which appeared in that paper and also for the permission, generously accorded, to make use of the other passages quoted from that paper. He begs to thank the editor of The Weekly Review (London) for kindly acceding to a similar request and also the many publishers, whose works are quoted. He hopes to interest his readers in some of the valuable works that have appeared in recent years on this important subject.

To those who are beginning the study of money, the author recommends Promise to Pay, by R. McNair Wilson (George Routledge and Sons), The Root of all Evil, by Sir Reginald Rowe (Economic Reform Club), and The Modern Idolatry, by Jeffrey Mark (Chatto and Windus). These can be followed by Professor O’Rahilly’s Money (Cork University Press) and The Role of Money, by Professor Soddy (George Routledge and Sons). To those who deplore the decay of the countryside he specially recommends Alternative to Death, by the Earl of Portsmouth (Faber and Faber), Look to the Land, by Lord Northbourne (J. M. Dent and Sons), and An Agricultural Testament, by Sir Albert Howard (Oxford University Press).

By an oversight it has not been mentioned in the text that An Outline of Money, by Geoffrey Crowther, is published by Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., and that Professor Skinner alias Montagu Norman, by John Hargrave, is published by Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., Ltd.
           

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ONE - DEMAND FOR MONETARY REFORM IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER TWO - POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PRINCIPLES OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

CHAPTER THREE - THE FUNCTIONING OF THE GOLD STANDARD MONETARY SYSTEM: Money—Manipulators and Governments—Defective Principles adopted by the Bank of England with regard to the Issue of Money—The Banker’s Discovery

CHAPTER FOUR - NATIONAL FINANCE AND THE GOLD STANDARD: The Meaning of Inflation and Deflation—Some Historical Examples of Planned Deflations

CHAPTER FIVE - INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND THE GOLD STANDARD: The Urge to War and Destruction

CHAPTER SIX - THE EFFECTS OF THE GOLD STANDARD SYSTEM ON HUMAN LIFE: Farming—Bread

CHAPTER SEVEN  - USURY: The English Monetary System and Ireland

CHAPTER EIGHT - OUTLINE OF PRINCIPLES OF MONETARY REFORM: National Monetary Reform:           

(a) Abandonment of the Domestic Gold Standard           

(b) Issuing of Lawful Exchange medium by the state           

(c) Lending of Lawful Exchange medium by Banking Guild           

(d) Stability of Price Level

CHAPTER NINE - THE FULL RETURN TO ORDER

APPENDIX I - MONEY—BANK—DEPOSIT

APPENDIX II - GARDENS, FERTILIZERS AND FINANCE: Inorganic Fertilizers—Artificial Manures and Finance—The Ideas Underlying the Bio-dynamic Method of Composting 

APPENDIX III - DESTRUCTION OF QUININE TO KEEP UP PRICE

APPENDIX IV - OUTLINE OF ENGLISH HISTORY

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES