View source for C. H. Douglas

{{Short description|British engineer and economic theorist (1879–1952)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox economist
| honorific_prefix = [[Major (rank)|Major]]
| honorific_suffix = [[Institution of Mechanical Engineers|MIMechE]], [[Institution of Electrical Engineers|MIEE]]
| name = C. H. Douglas
| school_tradition = [[Social Credit]] and [[distributism]]
| image = C H Douglas.jpg
| image_size = 225px
| caption = C. H. Douglas in [[Edmonton]], Alberta, Canada, 1934
|birth_name=Clifford Hugh Douglas
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1879|1|20|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Edgeley]] or [[Manchester]], [[England]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1952|09|29|1879|01|20}}
| death_place = {{Nowrap|[[Fearnan]], [[Scotland]], [[United Kingdom]]}}
| nationality = [[British people|British]]
| institution = [[Institution of Mechanical Engineers]], [[Institution of Electrical Engineers]]
| field = [[Civil engineering]], [[Economics]], [[Finances]], [[Political science]], [[History]], [[Accounting]], [[Physics]]
| alma_mater = [[Pembroke College, Cambridge]]
| influences = [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], [[Socrates]], [[Augustine]], [[Thomas Aquinas|Aquinas]], [[Dante Alighieri|Alighieri]], [[Michel De Montaigne|Montaigne]], [[Erasmus]], [[Thomas More|More]], [[John Fisher|Fisher]], [[John Milton|Milton]], [[Adam Smith|Smith]], [[David Hume|Hume]], [[Montesquieu]], [[Henry George|George]], [[Edmund Burke|Burke]], [[Joseph De Maistre|Maistre]], [[George MacDonald|MacDonald]], [[G.K. Chesterton|Chesterton]], [[Hilaire Belloc|Belloc]], [[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien]], [[C.S. Lewis|Lewis]], [[Robert Hugh Benson|Benson]], [[Thomas Carlyle|Carlyle]], [[Charles Maurras|Maurras]], [[John Henry Newman|Newman]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Thorstein Veblen|Veblen]], [[Silvio Gesell|Gesell]], [[Vilfredo Pareto|Pareto]], [[John Maynard Keynes|Keynes]],
| contributions = [[Cultural heritage]] as [[factors of production|factor of production]], Economic sabotage, [[Unearned increment]] of association, [[Money]] as means of distribution of production, A + B theorem, National dividend, Practical Christianity
| awards =
| signature = CH Douglas Signature.svg
| spouse= [[Edith Mary Douglas]]}}
[[Major (rank)|Major]] '''Clifford Hugh Douglas''', [[Institution of Mechanical Engineers|MIMechE]], [[Institution of Electrical Engineers|MIEE]] (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952),<ref>{{cite book |title=Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary |date=1995 |publisher=Merriam-Webster |isbn=9780877797432 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1681153373/BIC?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=2a0c359a |access-date=13 September 2022 |chapter=Clifford Hugh Douglas}}</ref> was a British [[engineer]], [[economist]] and pioneer of the [[social credit]] economic reform movement.

==Education and engineering career==
C.H. Douglas was born in either [[Edgeley]] or [[Manchester]],<ref name="Martin-Nielsen p. 97">Martin-Nielsen, "An Engineer's View of an Ideal Society", p. 97</ref> the son of Hugh Douglas and his wife Louisa (Hordern) Douglas. Few details are known about his early life and training; he probably served an [[engineering apprentice]]ship before beginning an engineering career that brought him to locations throughout the [[British Empire]] in the employ of electric companies, railways and other institutions.<ref name="Martin-Nielsen p. 97" />  He taught at [[Stockport Grammar School]]. After a period in industry, he went up to [[Pembroke College, Cambridge]] at the age of 31 but stayed only four terms and left without graduating.<ref name=DNB>{{ODNBweb|id=32872|title=Douglas, Clifford Hugh|last = Pottle | first = Mark}}</ref> 

He worked for the [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]] of America and claimed to have been the Reconstruction Engineer for the British Westinghouse Company in India (the company has no record of him ever working there<ref name=DNB/>), Deputy Chief Engineer of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Company, Railway Engineer of the [[London Post Office Railway|London Post Office (Tube) Railway]] and Assistant Superintendent of the [[Royal Aircraft Factory]] [[Farnborough Airfield|Farnborough]] during [[World War I]], with a temporary commission as captain in the [[Royal Flying Corps]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29448|supp=y|page=977|date=21 January 1916}}</ref> His second wife was [[Edith Mary Douglas]], President of the Women's Engineering Society.

==Social credit==
While he was reorganising the work of the [[Royal Aircraft Establishment]] during World War I, Douglas noticed that the weekly total costs of goods produced was greater than the sums paid to workers for [[wage]]s, [[Salary|salaries]] and [[dividend]]s. This seemed to contradict the theory of classic [[Ricardian economics]], saying that all costs are distributed simultaneously as [[purchasing power]].

Troubled by the seeming difference between the way money flowed and the objectives of industry ("delivery of goods and services", in his view), Douglas set out to apply engineering methods to the economic system.

Douglas collected data from more than 100 large British businesses and found that all except those becoming [[bankruptcy|bankrupt]], spent less in [[Salary|salaries]], [[wage]]s and [[dividend]]s than the value of goods and services produced each week: the workers were not paid enough to buy back what they had made.  He published his observations and conclusions in an article in the magazine ''English Review'' where he suggested: "That we are living under a system of [[accountancy]] which renders the delivery of the nation's goods and services to itself a technical impossibility."<ref>"The Delusion of Super-Production", C. H. Douglas, ''English Review'', December 1918</ref>  The reason, Douglas concluded, was that the economic system was organized to maximize [[Profit (economics)|profits]] for [[Plutocracy|those with economic power]] by creating unnecessary [[scarcity]].<ref>Martin-Nielsen, "An Engineer's View of an Ideal Society", pp. 97–99</ref>  Between 1916 and 1920, he developed his economic ideas, publishing two books in 1920, ''Economic Democracy'' and ''Credit-Power and Democracy'', followed in 1924 by ''Social Credit''.

The basis of Douglas's reform ideas was to free workers from this system by bringing [[purchasing power]] in line with production, which became known as [[social credit]]. His proposal had two main elements: a national dividend to distribute money (debt-free credit) equally to all citizens, over and above their earnings, to help bridge the gap between [[purchasing power]] and [[price]]s; also a price adjustment mechanism, called the "just price", to forestall [[inflation]]. The just price would effectively reduce retail prices by a percentage that reflected the physical efficiency of the production system. Douglas observed that the cost of production is [[Consumption (economics)|consumption]]; meaning the exact physical cost of production is the total resources consumed in the production process. As the physical efficiency of production increases, the just price mechanism will reduce the price of products for the consumer. The consumers can then buy as much of what the producers produce that they want and automatically control what continues to be produced by their consumption of it. Individual freedom, primary economic freedom, was the central goal of Douglas's reform.<ref>Martin-Nielsen, "An Engineer's View of an Ideal Society", pp. 99–100</ref>

At the end of [[World War I]], Douglas retired from engineering to promote his reform ideas full-time, which he would do for the rest of his life. His ideas inspired the [[Canadian social credit movement]] (which obtained control of Alberta's provincial government in 1935), the short-lived [[Douglas Credit Party]] in [[Australia]] and the longer-lasting [[Social Credit Political League]] in [[New Zealand]].  Douglas also lectured on social credit in the [[United States]], the [[United Kingdom]], [[Ireland]], [[Canada]], [[France]], [[Germany]], [[Italy]], [[Japan]], [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]] and [[Norway]].<ref>Martin-Nielsen, "An Engineer's View of an Ideal Society", p. 100</ref>

In 1923, he appeared as a witness before the Canadian Banking Inquiry, and in 1930 before the [[Macmillan Committee]].<ref>Stamp, J. C. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2223900 "The Report of the Macmillan Committee."] ''[[The Economic Journal]]'', Vol. 41, No. 163, September 1931, pp. 424-435. {{doi|10.2307/2223900}}.</ref> In 1929 he made a lecture tour of [[Japan]], where his ideas were enthusiastically received by industry and government. His 1933 edition of ''Social Credit'' made a reference to the ''[[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', which, while noting its dubious authenticity, wrote that what "is interesting about it, is the fidelity with which the methods by which such enslavement might be brought about can be seen reflected in the facts of everyday experience."<ref>[http://douglassocialcredit.com/resources/resources/social_credit_by_ch_douglas.pdf CHAPTER VI ''Taxation and Servitude''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100209091428/http://douglassocialcredit.com/resources/resources/social_credit_by_ch_douglas.pdf |date=9 February 2010 }}</ref>

== Death and legacy ==
Douglas died in his home in [[Fearnan]], [[Scotland]].  Douglas and his theories are referred to several times (unsympathetically) in [[Lewis Grassic Gibbon]]'s trilogy ''[[A Scots Quair]]''. He is also mentioned, together with [[Karl Marx]] and [[Silvio Gesell]], by [[John Maynard Keynes]] in ''The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money'' (1936, p.&nbsp;32). Douglas's theories permeate the poetry and economic writings of [[Ezra Pound]]. [[Robert Heinlein]]'s first novel ''[[For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs]]'' describes a near future United States operating according to the principles of social credit.

==Publications==
* ''[https://archive.org/details/economicdemocrac00doug Economic Democracy]'' (1920) ''new edition'':  December 1974; Bloomfield Books; {{ISBN|0-904656-06-3}}
* ''[https://archive.org/details/creditpowerdemoc00douguoft Credit-Power and Democracy]'' (1920) ''new edition'':  August 2011; BiblioLife; {{ISBN|978-1241274955}}
* ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924013686344 The Control and Distribution of Production]'' (1922)
* ''[https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20230526 Social Credit]'' (1924, Revised 1933) ''new edition'':  December 1979; Institute of Economic Democracy, Canada; {{ISBN|0-920392-26-1}}
* ''[[Warning Democracy]]'', C M Grieve, London; (1931)
* ''[[The Monopoly of Credit]]'' (1931) ''new edition'':  1979; Bloomfield Books; {{ISBN|0-904656-02-0}}
* ''[[The Use of Money]]'' (1935)
* ''[[The Alberta Experiment: An Interim Survey]]'' (1937)
* ''[[The Brief for the Prosecution]]'', Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Incorporated; (December 1986) {{ISBN|0-949667-80-3}}
* ''[[Whose Service is Perfect Freedom?]]'', Canada; Veritas Publishing Company; (June 1986) {{ISBN|0-949667-64-1}}
* ''The Big Idea'', Veritas Publishing Company, Canada; (June 1986) {{ISBN|0-88636-000-5}}
* ''[[The Grip of Death]]'', Jon Carpenter, UK; (May 1998) {{ISBN|1-897766-40-8}}

==See also==
{{Portal|United Kingdom|Biography|Economics}}
* [[Monetary reform]]
* [[Monetary reform in Britain]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
* Janet Martin-Nielsen, "[http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGenerations/article/viewFile/978/1106 An Engineer’s View of an Ideal Society: The Economic Reforms of C.H. Douglas, 1916-1920]", ''Spontaneous Generations'', Vol. 1, No. 1 (2007), pp.&nbsp;95–109
* [[George Orwell]], ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'', Chapter VI

==Further reading==
* ''Major Douglas and Alberta Social Credit'' by Bob Hesketh {{ISBN|0-8020-4148-5}}
* ''Clifford Hugh Douglas'' by Anthony Cooney {{ISBN|0-9535077-4-2}}
* ''Four monetary heretics'' by Hugh Gaitskell in What Everybody Wants To Know About Money Gollancz 1936

==External links==
*{{Internet Archive author |sname= Clifford Hugh Douglas }}
* {{FadedPage|id=Douglas, Clifford Hugh|name=Clifford Hugh Douglas|author=yes}}
* [http://www.douglassocialcredit.com Social Credit Secretariat]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20031204185910/http://www.alor.org/Library1.htm Australian League of Rights online library]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110707163228/http://www.arpejournal.com/ARPEvolume2number1/preparata.pdf Guido Giacomo Preparata – Major Douglas in the witness box]

{{Social Credit}}
{{Romanticism}}
{{Basic income}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, C.H.}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1952 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century British economists]]
[[Category:Antisemitism in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:British accountants]]
[[Category:British financiers]]
[[Category:British medievalists]]
[[Category:British social crediters]]
[[Category:Distributism]]
[[Category:Engineers from Greater Manchester]]
[[Category:English mechanical engineers]]
[[Category:Jacobitism]]
[[Category:People from Stockport]]
[[Category:Romanticist Science]]
[[Category:Royal Flying Corps officers]]
[[Category:Universal basic income in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Virtue ethicists]]