Social Credit

I'm vaguely aware of the political and social movement around Social Credit but what exactly does it mean in economic practice. Would it work? Is it desirable? I'm looking for a real layman's outline of SC as an economic system. I've looked it up before but all the 'basic guides' I've found are book length.

Social credit is an inane theory that was formulated by a reactionary charlatan named C. H. Douglas in the 1920s. Simply put, Douglas believed that capitalist economies are in a perpetual state of overproduction and therefore require a modest, albeit constant, redistribution of wealth in order to maintain enough aggregate demand to prevent crises. He proposed something akin to a universal basic income to accomplish the task.

Needless to say, the reality of class struggle is entirely absent in his analysis. Douglas' political philosophy was consequently idealist, which is why it continues to appeal to various fascistic sects to this day. Moreover, even if his remedy could somehow be implemented, it's not at all clear that it would succeed in eliminating economic crises. The Marxist theory of crisis (i.e., a secular fall in the rate of profit), in my opinion, provides a far more plausible explanation of why downturns develop.