Hector Denis

“ If, from the beginning, we could have had a system allowing us to exactly register transactions, would money have been indispensably necessary? In a word, is money in point of fact the particular element in such transactions which caused the writing of them down, or, in reality does not its use hide an agency entirely independent of money? ”

“ Money presents itself to us as being an indispensable instrument for effecting transactions which are not mere acts of barter, and it presents itself also as having rendered possible,—and this is of capital importance as the sequel will show,—the registering, the writing down or account-keeping of the transactions, if one may so say, which barter did not permit.
Money is exclusively of use to those who enter into commercial transactions. Thus a man who could sufficiently provide for himself in everything without any such transactions, would not have to make any use of money ”

“ Gold and silver are not a «real commodity» except when they take the form of useful objects, utensils, works of art, etc., the possession of which produces enjoyment. Turned into coin, they lose this character, they become an instrument, an instrument recognised so far as indispensable for obtaining a real commodity, be this commodity material or moral, by an operation which I have designated under the general term of «transaction». Money is not then a commodity in the true sense of the word; on the contrary it is generally obtained by the surrender of a commodity. ”

“ The usage of money has taken from the unity of value that character of invariability which it ought necessarily to possess.
This unity being associated in point of fact with a real article of merchandise, society has been exposed either to want, or to have too much of the matter thus become the indispensable element of transactions, to suffer in fact monetary contractions and dilations, the results of the traffic which necessarily takes place, results which, for a nation producing the precious metals, like the United States does, may possibly end in disaster. ”

“ In our epoch of exact science and profound insight into phenomena and things, it is no longer possible to err on the very basis of a question of an interest so general and so vital as this relating to the monetary system. The suppression of such a defective instrument as money and its substitution by a mere simple writing down of transactions, but legally guaranteed,—a system which we have entitled «Social Comptabilism» demands the study of every economist who wishes progress independently of any dogma, doctrine or party. ”

“ But without inquiring, now, what may occur in a future perhaps alas still remote, in only occupying ourselves with the production of present good, it has seemed to us in the general interest to solicit the Chamber to establish a service of which decisive experiences have fixed the essential conditions and shown the efficacy, and of which the link is as manifest with our democratic evolution as with the higher forms of credit and circulation. ”

“ In a general way and within possibly narrow limits, very different and variable according as the case may be, given the existence in actual society of fortunes and desires of all degrees of importance, one can, in principle, admit that theoretically, the value v of a thing or of a certain quantity of goods, is proportional to the average d of the desire to possess it, which the men demanding it have, either on account of its use, or from any other reason, multiplied by the number h of these men and divided by the number o offered of this thing ”

“ Bound by invisible threads to more than four thousand secondary organs:—the post offices, which plunge directly into the torrent of the exchanges,—the Central Office records each day with extraordinary precision the minutest changes that the ever increasing number of its adherents accomplish in the social movement of wealth. ”

“ A person who cannot write is obliged to bring with him a witness who authenticates the depositors mark by his own signature. To those known personally to the Post Office official, or, who identify themselves by means of a certificate of domicile, a passport or a work-or service book, the Post Office official can himself become the witness.
In the case of Societies, Unions, Cooperative Associations and persons having a legal position either the bringer of the first deposit can give his signature and be then regarded as the Payer, or no signature will be received. ”

“ The principle of the account-book consists naturally in the book forming a real account with debit and credit—like all accounts in ordinary book keeping,—in which is inscribed in a way which would be regarded as valid, having legal force the sums corresponding to the transactions effected either by being written out at full length, with the signature, or by marking in figures, and indicating at the same time the personality of the party making the transaction, or by means of stamps as we have just seen, or finally by some other way. ”

“ The Postal Savings Bank, as it is organised and works, has not yet any kind of purpose of freeing circulation from its metallic basis, but like all other credit institutions, it contributes to this end by economising more and more the use of money; with extraordinary powers of expansion, it enables an ever increasing number of respectable persons, associations or bodies, to effect all their payments without the least risk, almost without loss of time and without having to keep any metallic money in their possession. ”

“ The word «exchange» has continued to be employed after having quitted the system of barter to enter upon the system of buying and selling, by means of money, just as the expression «money» has continued to be used to describe bank-notes, which are only paper having the power of money, as money is an instrument having the power of «things.» Thus we have here an example of the general rule, that the evolution of ideas [Pg 4] and of facts, is always more rapid than that of the words which represent them. ”

“ And herein is seen clearly the fundamental error or profound confusion of those who believe there can be any other thing in the social problem which occupies us than what has just been stated; of those who imagine that capital or fortune must be able at every moment, and not eventually, in the sole end of utilising the metal for itself, to be represented by its equivalent in gold or silver ”

“ If the price of any commodity,—for example, some article of food or manufacture,—rises in comparison with what it was 50 years or a century ago, it is often asked whether the augmentation is real or only apparent and due to the diminution in the value of the metal which supports the unity: it results clearly from what has been advanced that the variation in the value of metal goes for nothing [Pg 10] if, it be well understood that the quantity of money in use is supposed to remain exactly proportioned to the needs of the transactions. ”

“ Perfected instruments, as the Empfang Erlag Schein, the certificate of payment in and of deposit, the cheque-books of payment and of clearing with the [Pg 95] ingenious measures taken to baffle every fraud have been well tried in Austria and Hungary and there would be no longer any peril in adopting them.
A metallic reserve sufficient to satisfy all immediate wants ought to be secured. Experience has proved that this condition is to be realized without difficulty.
The establishment of a service of cheques and clearing may lead to a more considerable flow of capital to the Savings Bank. ”

“ But from the day in which the comptabilist system becomes legal to the exclusion of the monetary system, from the moment in which each individual has his personal account introduced into the registers of the accountant-general, his transactional life is henceforth, and for ever, represented on the one side by the mortgages and guarantees that he furnishes in order to obtain comptabilist unities, on the other hand by the balances of his account books that the accountant enters successively and indefinitely to his account. ”

“ In the same way a statement with reference to the remaining balance retains its validity without regard to these repayments or debit entries, until in its place comes another acknowledgment of receipt in consequence of a new deposit, or a new statement with reference to the balance of the account in consequence of a new payment made without delay.
It is evident of itself that a higher sum than the balance remaining at the depositor's disposal after deduction of the last repayment and entered in the book cannot at any time be paid. ”

“ In our opinion exchange properly speaking,—true exchange and free from the alloy of any foreign element whatsoever, has never been anything but barter; and as soon as the system of barter was left and that of money entered upon, the exchange system was rather abandoned for another system quite different, than that one form of exchange was simply substituted for another form of exchange. ”

“ All the post-offices in the Austrian Empire are in connection with the Savings Bank, the central establishment of which is in Vienna and which has become during the last few years a thoroughly comptabilistic establishment, in this sense, that,—independent of its primitive aim, it keeps the accounts of over thirty thousand who are affiliated and who annually through this medium do business of which the figures are above a thousand millions of florins. ”

“ But apart from that, they could be with held or parted with, they could be borrowed or lent, with or without interest, directly from man to man, or by the medium of banking houses, exactly as in the case of money.
And in fact, if the force of habit required, nothing would prevent their being called money of account or comptabilistic money, since apart from what has just been said as to the way of obtaining them and their nature, nothing would be altered in the current methods, everything would remain as to day both in the organisation of business and of society. ”

“ The Savings Bank exacts from those persons who wish to transact business through its medium, a fixed monetary deposit of 100 florins, without relation therefore to the importance of the transactions which they can effect; it opens for them an account and delivers them, upon request, cheque books which serve to effect the payments which they desire to make. ”

“ When we say that the value of things in general would rise in a case of monetary dilatation occurring in the way we have put it, and that it would fall in the case of monetary contraction pure and simple, it is because we are allowing that the supposed want or excess of money would make itself generally felt amongst those engaged in transacting business. ”

“ It is evident that in this way society as it is at present organised, can demonetize the precious metals and establish social comptabilism without in principle having to make any revolution whatever in its present position, it has only largely to increase a portion of its machinery, already existing and in full swing. ”

“ Does not the National Bank of Belgium, as well as the Bank of France, among our neighbours to the west, issue bank notes,—and from our point of view, these notes represent unities of comptabilist value—to all those who offer them sufficient guarantees. In exchange for a deposit of securities, or for well known signatures, paper is obtained, notes equivalent to metal money:—this is already on the road to social comptabilism. ”