C. H. Douglas

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Major C. H. (Clifford Hugh) Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, (January 20 1879 -September 29 1952) son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Hordern, was an engineer and pioneer of the Social credit concept. Born at Stockport, Greater Manchester, and taught at Stockport Grammar School, after a period in industry he went up to Cambridge University at the age of 31, but stayed only four terms and left without graduating.^[1] 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 ^[1]), deputy Chief Engineer of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Company, Railway Engineer of the London Post Office (Tube) Railway and Assistant Superintendent of the RAF Factory, Farnborough during World War I. He appeared as a witness before the Canadian Banking Enquiry in 1923 and before the Macmillan Committee in 1930. 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."^[2]

It was while he was reorganising the work of RAF Farnborough during World War I that Douglas noticed that the weekly total costs incurred were greater than the sums paid out for wages, salaries and dividends. This seemed to contradict the theory put forth by classic Ricardian economics, that all costs are distributed simultaneously as purchasing power.

Douglas collected data from over a hundred large British businesses and found that in every case except that of companies heading for bankruptcy, the sums paid out in salaries, wages and dividends were always less than the total costs incurred each week.

He published his observations and conclusions in an article in the 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." ^[3]

Social Credit is an economic theory and a social movement which started in the early 1920s, inspiring the Canadian social credit movement and New Zealand's Social Credit Political League. Douglas also travelled and lectured on Social Credit in Japan and Norway.

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.

1 References
2 Books
3 Further reading
4 External links

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Macpherson, C B (2004). “Bowler, William”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved on 2006-11-29.
^ Major Douglas rides again: The revival of currency crankism
^ "The Delusion of Super-Production", C. H. Douglas, English Review, December 1918

[edit] Books

Social Credit (1924, Revised 1933) new edition: December 1979; Institute of Economic Democracy, Canada; ISBN 0-920392-26-1
Economic Democracy (1920) new edition: December 1974; Bloomfield Books; ISBN 0-904656-06-3
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