(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)
Readers’ Note: I’m a poor speller but when you find in a post something like “civilisation” below, it’s usually because that’s the British spelling Churchill or someone else used. John
In November, 1924 Churchill agreed to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new government Stanley Baldwin would head. Shortly thereafter, in a letter to a Conservative Party leader, he wrote :
[The] existing capitalist system in the foundation of civilization and the only means by which great modern populations can be supplied with vital necessities.Churchill soon expanded on that. His biographer, Martin Gilbert, writes:
[On] December 14, he set down for his officials at the Treasury his philosophy of wealth, based upon a combination of the taxation of unearned income and the encouragement of profits and productivity.Gilbert then quotes from the new Chancellor’s statement to the Treasury officials:
The creation of new wealth is beneficial to the whole community. The process of squatting on old wealth though valuable is a far less lively agent. The great bulk of the wealth of the world is created and consumed every year._____________________________________
We shall never shake ourselves clear from the debts of the past, and break into a definitely larger period, except by the energetic creation of new wealth.
A premium on effort is the aim, and a penalty on inertia may well be its companion.
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life. (pgs. 465-468)
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