As I tried to show in my recent blog entry on “Social Credit and Usury”, the claim that usury, defined as the charging of interest on loans, is THE problem and that Social Credit means nothing more than “usury-free money” is a serious but all too common misrepresentation of the Social Credit diagnosis and remedial proposals.

Friday, 07 November 2014 14:44

Social Credit and Usury

One of the most common misunderstandings where Social Credit is concerned is the notion that the Social Credit diagnosis can be adequately summarized along the following lines: "The problem with the existing financial system is that the banks create money out of nothing in the form of bank credit and then proceed to charge interest on the money that they loan out. Unfortunately, they do not create the money to pay the interest and this leads to a continual build-up of unrepayable debts, etc., etc." This popularized interpretation of Social Credit is erroneous.

Latest Articles

  • The Accounting of Abundance: A Structural Critique of Inflationary Theory
    Mainstream economic thought treats inflation as a phenomenon of monetary volume—the "Too Much Money" paradigm. However, by applying the engineering logic of C.H. Douglas’s A+B Theorem, we can deduce that inflation is not primarily a result of consumer behaviour, but a mathematical consequence of debt-based cost accounting in an industrial society.
    Written on Saturday, 14 February 2026 12:56 Read more...
  • A Douglas Social Credit Critique of Gesell’s Monetary Analysis and Proposals
    Silvio Gesell believed that the two great economic evils were stagnation and inequality. He attributed stagnation to hoarding (the “retention” of money that slows circulation) and inequality to both hoarding and the payment of interest on money. His remedies were therefore twofold: demurrage (a carrying charge that makes money lose value if held, forcing it into rapid circulation) and interest-free credit. From a Douglas Social Credit standpoint, Gesell’s take on monetary reform rests on a fundamentally flawed diagnosis and thus the remedies he proscribes are inadequate, in addition to being coercive and counterproductive.
    Written on Tuesday, 10 February 2026 14:00 Read more...
  • THE THEOLOGY OF THE INHERITANCE: A Social Credit Synthesis of Patristic Thought and Economic Reality
    Social Credit stands alone in its pursuit of the Economics of Grace. It recognizes that the "price" of our life has been paid by the gifts of God and the genius of our ancestors. By replacing the bondage of the gold standard and the indignity of the Job Guarantee with the National Dividend and the Price Discount, we move from an "Economics of Toil" to an Economics of Leisure.
    Written on Tuesday, 10 February 2026 07:54 Read more...