Talk:Social Credit

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[edit] New Zealand & US "Greenback Movement"

New Zealand had a Social Credit party also with at least one member of Parliament. I know very little about it, think it disappeared in the '80s Ping (07:30, 11 April 2003)

I'll look up the NZ thing.
Also, when I wrote this w/u originally for E2 I found some information about the "Greenback Movement" in the United States, which holds that the government end taxation and just print money (or something like that).
I don't really understand it, but apparently these people (who are largely anti-government militia types) claim to take inspiration from Douglas's social credit economic theory and Abraham Lincoln's monetary policy (there's also a bunch of conspiracy theory stuff about his murder)).
I'll do some looking and see if it's worth a page. -- stewacide 07:35 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
This sounds a lot like the documentary Moneymasters. It's a 3 and a half hour long history of central banking in the states that basically concludes the the US government should be responsible for issuing money and eliminate the federal reserve. As far as I know the system would still allow for fractional reserve banking and loans so it seems like it has some significant differences with this system but the idea of government controlling the issuing of money based on needs of the economy is the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.128.98 (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
There has only ever been one NZ SC MP (An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand [1]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.80.123.40 (talk • contribs) (01:12, 29 July 2005)

[edit] Canada & article split

The info on the Canadian party is all accurate and does not deserve to be suddenly and inexplicably deleted. user:J.J. (18:25, 31 August 2003)

Most of the Canadian leaders eventually ditched the idology, but kept the name. (WAC Bennett was a Conservative). I didn't delete it, though it should be taken off until it is rewritten.Vancouverguy 18:29, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I've split the article in two: one on the theory and one on the party. That way we can keep all the info on the party without implying that they followed Major Douglas's ideology. - Efghij 18:35, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)
Excellent.Vancouverguy 18:40, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)
A good compromise user:J.J. 18:44, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Flaws in "many of Douglas' ideas"?

So, what exposed these alleged flaws in "many of Douglas' ideas"? I don't know that much about Social Credit, but I get the impression that no country has ever put it into practice. And so far I haven't found any clear refutation of the theory (as I understand it). What proof did J.J. refer to? And what, specifically, did it prove? -Dan (01:24, 30 January 2004)

I don't even know if I wrote some of the things you are quoting. All I know is that based on my simple understanding, he was advocating printing more money to help fix the economy, which is simply not a sensible pratice. -J.J. (09:02, 31 January 2004)
I'm sorry if I put words in your mouth, I may have misread the history page. As to the question, more than one Social Credit champion has proposed ways to fight inflation. I'll add some info about these. Meanwhile, let's see this alleged proof if anyone has it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dan (talk • contribs) (06:10, 1 February 2004)
One of the tenets of the Douglas thesis is that there is a perennial shortage of purchasing power in the economy. In other words, the aggregate price of goods on the market at any one time is greater than the total amount of money at the disposal of the buying public.
The result is that people must borrow from the banking system to make up for this deficiency. It is the banks who issue new (credi)money (not cash/legal tender) all the time by lending more and more. Only about three per cent (tree out of one hundred) of the total money supply is in the form of notes and coins, i.e legal tendeder. Janosabel (23:28, 2 February 2004)
Just to clarify: Douglas did not advocate "printing more money" but instead suggested that amount of money available to purchase goods should match the price of the goods available for purchase. In other words, production should match consumption. He further suggested that when production exceeds consumption, the difference should be distributed to all consumers so that goods already manufactured could always actually be purchased. Stevebockman (04:39, 9 February 2004)
Gary North doesn't seem like the best spokesman for the opposition, but I honestly don't know of any other "refutation" that addresses even one of the anti-inflation strategies. Does anyone have that "proof"? Dan 09:37, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Gary North's criticism of Social Credit is more a tirade than anything else. He erroneously claims that Social Credit would cause inflation, when Douglas was quite explicit that his compensated price scheme would in fact lower prices. North seems to have a problem with the philosophy of people getting something for nothing, because it contradicts his evangelical philosophy that if a man doesn't work, neither shall he eat. Socred (19:11, 25 July 2006)
I'll readily admit economy isn't my strong point, but doesn't the A+B contain a logical fallacy? The amount of money A producers pay to consumers derives from their prices A+B. Now, the amount of overhead costs B obviously is also paid to someone (e.g. some other producer), and therefore also makes its way back to consumers eventually. Stated another way, producers are also consumers.
Second, the proposed system seems unmaintainable in the view of international trade, where some countries will inevitably be running a trade deficit. Governments would in effect be subsidizing foreign producers, which forces them to either establish tariffs or print money. squell 16:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Your "logical fallacy" argument may affect the original form of the A+B theorem, but it ignores Heinlein's version with his focus on savings. Note that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Bernanke recently spoke of a world-wide savings glut. As to your second paragraph, I just don't follow you at all. Why would "subsidizing foreign producers" create a problem in a Heinlein-style Social Credit society? His book explicitly advocates exchanging paper money for foreign-made products (a.k.a. real wealth), in those situations where foreign producers can supply us with the product more efficiently. At what point would this cause individuals to suffer, and how? Recall that the largest single number of business loans in Heinlein's future U.S. would come from the publicly-owned Bank of the United States, which may not actually have to make a profit. If an American company goes out of business because of Bank/government policy, the Bank could presumably change the repayment schedule to prevent any gross hardship. Nothing would limit their ability to forgive loans except the ability of the economy to deal with extra money.
(Addendum -- if the Bank decides to forgive a loan to a U.S. company because a "trade deficit" has put them out of business, this may imply that the Bank has put more money into the national economy than it planned. But meanwhile, consumers have sent a presumably unexpected amount of money out of the national economy by buying foreign products. It may even out. We would ask Bernanke's future equivalents to take all this into account in making later policy decisions.) Dan 09:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
As Douglas stated in the Monopoly of Credit:
"To say that at some time or other the money has been distributed is in the nature of a general assertion which does not bear upon the specific fact. The mill will never grind with the water that has passed, and unless it can be shown, as it certainly cannot be shown, that all these sums distributed in respect of the production of intermediate products are actually saved up, not in the form of securities, but in the form of actual purchasing power, we are obliged to assume what I believe to be true, that the rate of flow of purchasing power derived from the normal and theoretical operation of the existing price system is always less than that of the generation of prices within the same period of time." (C.H. Douglas, "The Monopoly of Credit")
Money cycles - it doesn't circulate. Money is created by the banks in the forms of loans to businesses, and ultimately to consumers in the form of wages/salaries, and dividends. It is then taken back from the consumers through businesses in the form of price, where it is then paid back to the bank and extinguished. That is the accounting cycle of money. If the money created creates more costs than it cancels before its extinction, then each such operation produces a corresponding disequilibrium between prices and income. This process happens all the time via re-investment of money received as income. We are charged with capital depreciation, but are not credited with capital appreciation. Socred (19:11, 25 July 2006)

[edit] Direct Credits Society?

Why no mention of Alfred N. Lawson's Direct Credits Society? Even within the entry on Alfred Lawson, there's a ghost link inviting an article to be written on direct credits. Lawson was a nut, but one to be reckoned with just like many other devotees of populist money schemes. Maybe someone should also add to the Robert Anton Wilson material his jocular embodiment of theory in flaxscrip and hempscrip. - robgood@bestweb.net, 3/10/06

Please add whatever verifiable material you can. Wikipedia is a collective project written by volunteers. There is no "editorial board" that writes or approves entries. You can edit the "Social Credit" article by clicking on the "edit" tab at the top of the page, and you can create an article on direct credits by clicking on the ghost link. Leave a message on my talk page if I can assist. Ground Zero | t 13:39, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Antisemitic?

It's inaccurate to say that 'there is no suggestion that Douglas was anti-Semitic'. John Finlay, 'Social Credit: The English Origins':

'In the beginning he was restrained in his attitude towards [the existing economic order]. But from an early belief that it might, "like Topsy, just have growed", he moved on to attack "a very deeply laid and well considered plot of enslaving the industrial world to the German-American - Jewish - financiers". It was not long before the German-American element faded into the background, leaving the Jews as the real villains of the piece. When asked where real power lay, Douglas would answer that it was with Sir Basil Zaharoff, the mysterious armament king.' (p.103; quoted in Meghnad Desai, 'The Route of All Evil: The Political Economy of Ezra Pound', p.137)

I don't know enough to say whether Finlay is accurate, but he certainly makes the suggestion that Douglas became an anti-Semite. Duke Aldhein 16:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

There are a few occassions where Douglas mentions Jews in his writings, but to state he was "anti-semetic" is a stretch. It is used by those who have nothing else to criticize in his works in order to cast aspersions on them. Socred (18:22, 31 August 2006)

[edit] the theory

as an economic theory, what is wrong with the theory? The above discussion talked about it, but it is still unclear to me. Can someone clarify this in the article? And what are the distinguish points compared to other monetary theories? Jackzhp 20:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page cleanup

I have done some major editing and cleanup on this page. Very little proper formatting was followed in the past, so I had to rearrange some comments and add headlines. I tried my best to keep conversations together, for the sake of logic and coherence. It would help, in future, if people used headlines, signed their comments, etc. Thanks. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 17:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Similarities to Technocracy's Energy Credit

As I was browsing through this article, I noticed a striking similarity to the Energy Credit concept which grew out of the Technocracy movement. Would this be a valuable comparison to note here? At the very least, we could add Energy Credit to the "See Also" section. Thoughts? FusionKnight (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complete rewrite

As many will notice, this article has been almost completely rewritten. This effort reflects months of consultation with several noted authorities on the subject of Social Credit. While the original article was fairly accurate, it did not sufficiently outline the theory, history, and philosophy of Social Credit, as several parties have observed on this "Talk" page.

Further, the original article was poorly referenced as indicated by a formal request (template) for additional citation. This is understandable since many of the needed reference materials for Social Credit are no longer in print. However, such references do still exist, and citation of those references has been provided by the afore-mentioned experts.

Essential content from the original article has been retained as a summary in the first paragraph of the "Social Credit Economic Policy" section. The "Groups Influenced by Social Credit" section remains unchanged. The heading, "Later versions of Social Credit theory" was revised to "Literary figures in Social Credit", and this section was expanded somewhat to include other prominent names in this regard.

Moreover, the entire article has been greatly expanded to provide readers with a broadened view of Social Credit from economic, political, historical, and philosophical perspectives. New sections and sub-sections have been added in these regards.Chdouglas (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)