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 Les Hunter : Who is he?
Les Hunter is the author of “Courage to Change” - A case for Monetary Reform, which was first published 2002. Harbourside Publications Limited, P O Box 10088, Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. (ISBN 0-473-09257-3)
A few copies remain available from him. His address is: 31 Pacific Cove Drive, Papamoa, Mount Maunganui 3118. Phone 07 5741126. Email: les.hunter@clear.net.nz
In Les Hunter’s book , he says:
I wrote this book to offer an explanation for the economic malaise and inequities that, together with the associated social problems, became increasingly evident around the world in the dying years of the 20th century, and into the 21st.
I hope to stimulate others to give attention to the issue of monetary and economic reform.
The risk of a severe monetary and economic breakdown, with global implications, remains dangerously high. Averting such a risk requires a comprehensive understanding of the modern economic and monetary processes.
The ideas in this book - many of them original and controversial - emanate from my experiences as a family man, farmer, businessman, property developer and political researcher and activist.
Life began for me on a poultry farm near Foxton, on the south-west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. In the early 1930’s, my father managed an operation that included one of the largest chicken hatcheries in New Zealand. In 1936, my family moved to Palmerston North, and established an owner operated poultry-breeding business.
By 1943 I had finished school and, at sixteen years of age, joined the family business. Within five years, I was managing one of the 200-odd poultry-breeding units producing laying hens for New Zealand’s consumer egg requirements.
In 1957, I established and was chairman of directors of a co-operative company which became the leading proponent of poultry-breeding programmes in New Zealand. By the early 1970’s, market changes meant the co-operative company became a subsidiary of a Canadian operation.
In the early 1960’s, I began to develop four residential subdivisions in Palmerston North, financed primarily by means of a bank overdraft on which the bank charged interest. It appeared the bank was creating new money to fund the investment - a fact I found impossible to reconcile with the conventional Keynesian view that investment must be funded from savings.
As the sections were sold and the proceeds banked, the overdraft was reduced, and it became clear the equivalent amount of money also ceased to exist. At this point, I concluded that conventional economic and monetary theory was faulty, and that policies based upon it had extremely dangerous, long-term ramifications.
I was particularly concerned by the inevitable and compounding debt owed to the creators of money and to the money-lenders.
In 1969, I joined the New Zealand Social Credit Political League and, for a period, held the offices of both deputy leader and finance spokesman. I was the initial director of the Social Credit Research Unit in Parliament House, Wellington, charged with researching and analysing what was happening in the world of politics and, in particular, advancing and debating the affirmative case for radical monetary reform.
I resigned as a political activist in 1984, convinced that monetary reform had an uncertain future because the theory in support of the policies being promoted was not sufficiently cogent to neutralise the rising political influence of the neoclassical and monetarist doctrinaire.
In my book, what is suggested can provide only the basis for research, theoretical formulation and policy development. The reader may be challenged by ideas originating outside the traditional academic institutions, but it is critical that these ideas be appraised in relation to the reader’s own perception of reality, rather than whether or not they confirm with the opinion of an authority.
The Decision must be a personal one, made in the light of one’s own experience and moral values.”
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