The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism

by Burkitt,Brian

• ISBN13: 9780415147095
• ISBN10: 0415147093
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Focusing on the Douglas Social Credit movement, this work examines the origin of the key ideas, gives an overview of the main theories and discusses their subsequent history. Thoroughly researched, it provides original material relevant to the field of political economy. This early approach to non-equilibrium economics reveals the extent of the incompatibility between capitalist growth economics and social and environmental sustainability.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
INTRODUCTION	1	(6)
Part I	7	(76)
1 THE DOUGLAS/NEW AGE TEXTS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT	7	(23)
Biographical setting	7	(6)
General definition of guild socialism	13	(1)
Origins of guild socialism	14	(4)
Guild socialists	18	(6)
Monetary theories	24	(3)
Conclusion	27	(3)
2 DOUGLAS/NEW AGE ECONOMICS	30	(29)
The texts	30	(1)
Basic principles	31	(1)
Time and money: an explanatory note	32	(2)
Money and credit	34	(9)
The A + B theorem	43	(5)
Implications of the A + B theorem	48	(6)
National dividend	54	(3)
Conclusion	57	(2)
3 DOUGLAS/NEW AGE PHILOSOPHY	59	(24)
Cultural heritage	59	(2)
Centralisation of power	61	(1)
Sufficiency and economic growth	62	(3)
Work, leisure and the problem of `unempayment'	65	(4)
Exports and international trade	69	(3)
The Draft Mining Scheme	72	(5)
Conclusion	77	(6)
Part II	83	(48)
4 ORTHODOX/NEOCLASSICAL REACTIONS	83	(11)
Reactions in the 1920s	83	(2)
Reactions in the 1930s	85	(1)
Academic and official reactions in the 1930s	86	(6)
Conclusion	92	(2)
5 THE LABOUR PARTY AND SOCIAL CREDIT	94	(21)
Sidneywebbicalism versus social credit in the 1920s	94	(4)
Background to the Labour Party report	98	(3)
The Douglas/Orage critique of the report	101	(3)
Background to Socialism and `Social Credit' (1935)	104	(7)
Socialism and `Social Credit'	111	(3)
Conclusion	114	(1)
6 SOCIALISM, LABOURISM AND SOCIAL CREDIT	115	(16)
The Fabians and Labour policy	118	(1)
G.D.H. Cole	119	(5)
J.A. Hobson	124	(1)
Other radical reactions	125	(3)
Conclusion	128	(3)
Part III	131	(50)
7 THE SOCIAL CREDIT MOVEMENT TO 1930	131	(11)
The origins of social credit	131	(1)
The social credit movement	132	(4)
The social credit movement 1918-22	136	(6)
8 THE SOCIAL CREDIT MOVEMENT AFTER 1930	142	(30)
Social credit publications	143	(4)
Social credit themes in the 1930s	147	(8)
Douglas: world tours	155	(1)
Hargrave and the Green Shirts	156	(2)
Orage and the Chandos group	158	(2)
Women, artists, the unemployed and the small farmer	160	(9)
Social credit and the 1935 general election	169	(1)
Conclusion	170	(2)
9 THE ALBERTA EXPERIMENT	172	(9)
Alberta and William Aberbart	173	(1)
The background	173	(1)
The Social Credit Party	174	(1)
Douglas and the UFA government	174	(1)
The social credit movement	175	(2)
Douglas and the Alberta experiment	177	(1)
Dictatorship of finance	178	(2)
Conclusion	180	(1)
Conclusion	181	(3)
Bibliography	184	(8)
Index	192