ABSTRACT
The A + B theorem and its resolution in the just price and national dividend make little sense if divorced from the underlying themes of the Douglas/New Age economic philosophy. In the original texts monetary reform was seen as a means to a specific end, the decommodification of labour and the discontinuation of wage-slavery. Shorn of these guild socialist ideals, ‘Douglasism’ could be dismissed as a mistaken, if idealistic, attempt to find a way out of recurring cycles of depression. Indeed, for most of its history ‘Douglasism’ was widely regarded as seeking to solve the ‘problem’ of unemployment by securing full employment and an age of plenty. However, a careful reading of the original texts (as distinct from even the earliest attempts at interpretation by others) indicates that their underlying purpose was to end the exploitation and alienation of labour by creating a socially just, ecologically sustainable economics.
