NOTE: The body of economic theory known as 'social credit' was studied across the world in the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s, as ordinary men and women struggled to understand how it was that the world could afford the waste and horror of war. The Social Credit movement was supported by leading figures in the arts, sciences, the church, politics and social activism, all of whom presented the case for peace based upon social justice and environmental sustainability.
Women, Artists, the Small Farmer and the Unemployed
Social credit’s most powerful appeal was to the vast sections of society whose income insecurity precluded their active participation as mainstream actors in the political economy. Industrial capitalism and organised labour had clearly defined economic roles. Women, the unemployed, small farmers and ‘artists’ had essential supporting roles, but these roles were less easy to specify within the terms of the formal economy. The ‘artist’ could include all whose work springs from internal motivation, not only the fine artist but also the writer, the musician, the crafts-person, the inventor and the engineer, without whose work civilisation would not exist. These were the mainstay of support for the Social Credit movement.
The futility of securing political freedom without economic freedom is stressed throughout social credit literature. Recognition is also given to the significance of a National (Citizen's) Dividend, payable to the individual rather than to the family unit, as a means of securing women’s civil rights. The active role of women in the worldwide social credit movement has received scant attention in historical accounts, and remains a fruitful area for future research. To date the involvement of many thousands of women in the study and promulgation of social credit lies hidden by male command of public platforms, publications and historical analyses. Nevertheless, traces of women’s presence can be detected. A series of articles on women and social credit gave rise to a spirited debate in the correspondence pages of The New Age on the relevance of social credit ideas to women. R. Laugier argued that ‘Man has made a mess of managing the economy. Woman revolted once to become the equal of man; let her revolt again and be his superior’. Men’s responsibility for ‘the mess’ was not at issue. The debate centred on the extent to which men had usurped women’s role as providers and protectors. ‘Woman, when she does not imitate man, is a realist’, observed a reader of The New Age in 1934.. The question of the value of labour was presented in novel form, fully capable of amplification. In assessing the value of work, whether paid or unpaid, how is an hour’s work to be valued? What yardstick may be most appropriate to an evaluative comparison between the hourly value of the work undertaken by:
1. a professor at the LSE,
2. the Editor of The New Age,
3 the late Mrs Norman for her feat in bearing and rearing her son, our Montagu [the then Governor of the Bank of England]?
The rhetorical question encapsulates the vitality of the debate on social credit issues among women in the 1930s. The economics of work, and women’s role in the economy, have, like the broader political movement, repeatedly risen to prominence, only to give way to ‘more important’ mainstream considerations. The Social Credit movement of the 1930s provides a further example of a failed attempt by women to step ‘out of the margin’ and into the mainstream. For example, according to The New Age in June 1934, women of the Green Shirts Movement, led by Carol Dixon, national organiser of the Women’s Section, marched in uniform to present an official letter in support of ‘a Sane Economic System as propounded by Major C.H. Douglas’ to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. Similar reports of women activists in the Social Credit movement are commonplace in the social credit press. The quest of the 1990s women’s movement to free both women and men from the wage slavery of capitalism is echoed throughout the various Social Credit weeklies. For example:
Q. How will Social Credit affect the position of women in general?
A. By giving every woman a birthright income – i.e., the National (or Citizen's) Dividend based on the productive capacity of the community – it will ensure economic independence and freedom, for it will release her from being:
1 Tied to the home when she wishes to lead her own life.
2 Treated as a drudge, or as an inferior – i.e. the ‘chattel’ status.
3 Driven to marry for the sake of economic security.
4 Bound to some man who ill-treats her, or is in some other way unsuitable as a person to live with. 5 Driven into work-wage slavery in competition with men in order to keep alive.
Q. Will women get ‘equal pay for equal work’?
A. Yes, they will:
1 because a Social Credit Government will naturally stand for fair play for all citizens without distinction;
2 because employers will no longer need ‘cheap labour’;
3 because each individual woman will be able to say – ‘If I do this job as well as a man could do it, I shall want the same pay as a man.’ And if the employer says, ‘No,’ she will be able to say: ‘Very well, I refuse the job. After all, I can live on my National (Citizen's) Dividend.’ This places every woman in a very powerful position. (It will apply equally, of course, to badly paid male workers.)
Following from women’s growing interest in ‘the new economics’ of Douglas across Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand’, American women were encouraged to banish the notion that economics is a ‘man’s subject’. According to the American publication Independent Woman in 1934, man’s lust for power could be countered if women applied the simple test to all economic proposals: ‘Is it good social housekeeping?’ Women’s emancipation into ‘salaried slavery’, observed a writer in The New Age in 1934, had done nothing to ameliorate women’s status or conditions.
NOTE: The above is an extract from Frances Hutchinson and Brian Burkitt, The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism, Routledge, 1997, reprinted by John Carpenter, 2005 (p160-7). Available electronically on www.douglassocialcredit.com.
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