ABSTRACT
We saw in our first article that the real aim of discount banks is to facilitate the transfer of capital from the idle who possess it but do not know how to use it to those of workers who wish to use it. We concluded that banks should regulate their operations, which include all kinds of industrial affairs, according to the financial position of the richest bankers who are seen as being between capitalists and workers and who are particularly occupied in determining their material relationships as lenders and borrowers. As we said earlier, the improvement in credit means constantly bringing us closer to a time when property will have only one advantage: that of using and even misusing the product of previous work. This truth is confirmed by the historical study of the march of society in which a drop in the interest rate always accompanies an increase in wealth as it is a means of union between workers; the final aim of mankind, the complete exploitation of the globe, requires work instruments to be freely available to producers and not to the idle who can only have acquired the right of destruction of the products of their past work. Once this industrial organisation has been understood by the workers, it will not require much effort to swiftly implement it. The debate on the conditions of the loan will no longer be a subject for discussion, and the capitalists will no longer be able to make claims to the products of work in which they no longer have a part on the pretext that they have provided the instruments for this work. At this time, rights will only be founded on their useful influence in social welfare and this usefulness should not be based on metaphysical ideas drawn from imaginary conceptions, but rigorously demonstrated by the true conformity of the facts to the aims of any social organisation. In order to achieve such an aim, all events are both cause and effect to one another: by becoming enlightened and joining forces, industrialists can bring down the interest rate, and in the same way the decrease in interest helps the enlightened union of the industrialists. It is therefore unnecessary to try and see exactly when the interest rate paid by the first credit will be cancelled; it is enough to positively establish that the improved system of banks will inevitably lead to taking the discussion into an area in which each of the opponents will be obliged to support his claims by their general usefulness. We cannot imagine how it could be possible to demonstrate that future progress of humanity requires
individuals to spend their time destroying not what they have produced but what others produce, without, for their part, contributing to the constant evolution of the power of men over nature. We are going to present the plan of a general lending and borrowing bank, or discount bank, as we think it should be set up, and then we will list all the advantages which we believe should result from its operations. The first bankers join forces in a company and declare their solidarity towards one another for a given amount of capital which they guarantee by depositing state income coupons, or industrial company shares or title deeds for a property in a common fund. The purpose of their partnership is to facilitate the mobilisation of capital in general, but mainly its transfer from the hands of the man who is idle to those of the working man, and to make the conditions of this loan more favourable to the workers. In order to achieve these different objectives, they undertake to guarantee the individual commitments of the producers in whom they have most faith by giving them, in exchange for these commitments, securities on their own company, banknotes; and as the individual commitments are stipulated payable at a fixed time, they present bills payable at the same time and with a lower interest than the discount rate. This condition of interest is stipulated only for banknotes of more than 100 francs, the others being issued as change for amounts under 100 francs or at the request of people who find it easier to have these notes for small payments; the others do not bear interest, but they make the bank promise to change them for larger notes, bearing interest, when they are presented in sufficiently large quantities. As we can see, in this combination the bank’s profits comprise:
1 The difference between the product of discounts and the interest stipulated on notes of 100 francs and more.
