Major Douglas in the Witness Box Sparse Reflections on the Heresies of Social Credit

Abstract

Major Douglas and his proposals of social credit belong to a family of phantasms that inhabit recondite library stacks. They owe oblivion to the verdict of history and to their own nature–often, an uncouth admixture of unerring hunches and fallacious patching; yet, because of the recrudescence of ills they sought to redress, such cranks and their bags of reforms have been capable, in the course of two generations, to resist an overwhelming tide of triumphant forecast on the part of capitalist apology, and haunt posterity in the midst of unsolved issues, such as that of money, and the just ways to effect its distribution in a cohesive community. The purpose of the present study is to canvass the monetary tenets of Social Credit, as they were formulated by Douglas and his following before WWII, with a view to inquiring anew into the nature of the medium of exchange, and the fashion in which it shapes economic life. 86 AMERICAN REVIEW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY