AN ECONOMIC SILENCE - WOMEN AND SOCIAL CREDIT

The growing interest in the possibility of a feminist economics has an tecedents originating in a blend of socialism with a strain of institu tionalism as developed by the American, Thorstein Veblen. The social c redit movement, popular throughout the English-speaking world in the i nter-war years, arose out of the alternative economics of Clifford Hug h Doulgas and Alfred Richard Orage. Published between 1919 and 1924, t he texts outlined theories and politics that could result in economic democracy based upon a universal right to an unearned income from a Na tional Dividend arising from the common cultural inheritance. Women we re particularly drawn to study and promote the ''new economics,'' whic h offered economic justice to all regardless of ''biographical colouri ng.'' In this paper, we introduce the background history of the social credit movement and the basic tenents of the Douglas/New Age texts. ( C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.