Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T21:33:00.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Inflation and Inflationism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

D. A. MacGibbon*
Affiliation:
Winnipeg
Get access

Extract

Probably no idea has been more widely propagated during the last few years than that a way out of the depression in Canada could be easily won by a thoroughgoing dose of inflation. In parts of western Canada the pursuit of cheap money has become not merely a cult but, with many of the characteristics of mass hysteria, has all the intolerance of an evangelical movement; anyone who ventures to disagree with the devotees of social credit is regarded by them as being either stone blind to the master evil in our present economic situation or woefully recreant to the obligations of human society. There are, however, many people in Canada, not associated with the social credit groups, who believe that the way to recovery lies along the road of inflation. The precise form that inflation should take differs from person to person but the general idea is in the air and is worthy of examination and, if possible, of some clarification.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1935

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Edgeworth, F. Y., Papers relating to Political Economy (London, 1925), vol. III, p. 249.Google Scholar

2 Pigou, A. C., “Inflation” (Economic Journal, vol. XXVII, 1917, p. 491).Google Scholar

3 Rogers, J. H. and Chandler, L. V., “Inflation and Deflation” (Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, 1932, vol. VIII, p. 29).Google Scholar

4 Robertson, D. H., Money (London, 1922), p. 116.Google Scholar

5 Hawtrey, R. G., Trade Depression and the Way Out (London, 1931), p. 30.Google Scholar

6 Sprague, O. M. W., Recovery and Common Sense (London, 1934), p. 69.Google Scholar

7 Robertson, , Money, p. 111 Google Scholar; Helferich, K., Money (London, 1927), vol. II, p. 593 Google Scholar; Rist, C., Les finances de guerre de l'Allemagne (Paris, 1921), p. 150.Google Scholar

8 Monthly Review of Business Statistics (Ottawa), 03, 1935.Google Scholar

9 von Mises, L., The Theory of Money and Credit (London, 1934), p. 223.Google Scholar

10 Keynes, J. M., quoted in the Financial Post, 03 16, 1935, p. 3.Google Scholar

11 World Economic Survey, 1933-34 (League of Nations, Geneva).Google Scholar

12 The Labour Party: Labour and Social Credit: A Report on the Proposals of Major Douglas and the “New Age” (London, n.d.); Gaitskell, H. T. N. in What Everybody Wants to Know about Money, ed. by Cole, G. D. H. (London, 1933), p. 347 Google Scholar; Durbin, E. F. M., Purchasing Power and Trade Depression (London, 1933), p. 179 Google Scholar; Copland, D., Facts and Fallacies of Douglas Credit (Melbourne, 1932)Google Scholar; Belshaw, , The Douglas Fallacy (Auckland, 1933)Google Scholar; McQueen, R., six articles in the Winnipeg Free Press beginning 03 5, 1934 Google Scholar; Moulton, H. G., The Formation of Capital (Washington, 1935), p. 179.Google Scholar

13 Douglas, C. H., Credit-power and Democracy (London, 1921), p. 21.Google Scholar

14 The Douglas System of Social Credit: Evidence taken by the Agricultural Committee of the Alberta Legislature, 1934, p. 105.

15 New Age, April 6, 1933.

16 See particularly evidence of Douglas, Major in the Proceedings of the Select Standing Committee on Banking and Commerce (Ottawa, 1923), p. 475.Google Scholar

17 Douglas, C. H., Economic Democracy (London, 1934), p. 132.Google Scholar

18 Douglas, C. H., Credit-power and Democracy, p. 143.Google Scholar

19 Copland, , Facts and Fallacies of Douglas Credit, p. 10.Google Scholar

20 The Douglas System of Social Credit: Evidence taken by the Agricultural Committee of the Alberta Legislature, p. 11.

21 Ibid., p. 106.

22 Sorel, G., Reflections on Violence (New York, 1912), p. 23.Google Scholar

23 Report of Monetary Committee, 1934, New Zealand (Wellington, 1934).Google Scholar