Social Credit
From RationalWiki
Social Credit is an economic theory coined during the 1920s by one Major C.H. Douglas. The tenets of Social Credit are vague but basically have to do with the notion that consumer power is the key to bringing about social and economic change, if only consumers would be fully vested in their economic power. The purchasing power of consumers thereby would act as a "monetary vote", and sees the economy as producers guided by and acting in service to a "democracy of consumers".
If this sounds a lot like what current movements like socially responsible investing (SRI) and consumer boycotts practice, well, no, not really. Here is where it gets complicated. Bring these modern examples up with an advocate of Social Credit and they will engage in much ideological hairsplitting and argument that those things really aren't what Social Credit is, and will talk your ears off with complicated mathematical formulas purporting to compute the real cost of production, and such concepts as the "unearned increment of association" (money) collectively constituting the "cultural heritage". Huh?
[edit] Take off, eh?
Social Credit political parties were formed. Canada is the one country where the Social Credit Party became a major party, but only because of the Great Depression, which propelled the party into power in Alberta in 1935 during an era when all sorts of odd left-populist economic ideas were getting entirely too much attention from people desperate for economic relief. They became a major party in Canada's ever-shifting lineup of political parties and remained a force well into the 1970s, especially strong in Alberta, British Columbia, and (off and on given several splits between the French-speaking branch and the federal party) Quebec. However, the "SoCreds", as they were called, had long since abandoned any semblance of the Social Credit ideology, and had become for all intents and purposes a generic conservative political party, in some provinces being the main conservative oppositition to the Liberals at the provincial level, a role which the Progressive Conservative Party filled at the federal level, making the SoCreds increasingly unnecessary. In 1980, the SoCreds' viability as a nationwide party collapsed and they lost all their seats in Parliament. They remained a force in provincial politics in Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia for several more years, but at the federal level numerous marginal cranks (including religious right activists and worse) contested for the federal party leadership of an essentially defunct party with no representation in Parliament. In 1993 they made it official and were deregistered by Elections Canada.
