Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/107

Rh In abolishing slavery, what we said in effect was that any individual might work as long and hard or as short and lightly as he pleased, as though a court-of-law were to grant to the owner of some mountain meadow full title to all the passing water he could use on his own land for all time.

Under absolutely efficient autocratic control, physical labor would obviously vary directly in proportion to population; that is, a definite number of slaves driven with maximum efficiency would yield a definite amount of work in one year, which could be as cleanly calculated as the amount of work to be obtained from twenty mules, one capable driver and a long whip. Mental effort, however, under autocracy could not be so calculated on or coerced, and that was one of the wasteful leaks in the inadequate pressure pipe of the autocratic system.

Under popular government the ratio of effort to population should be more direct than under autocracy, provided foolish political provisions are not made to dull the goad of necessity or impair the integrity of inducement. The goad of necessity covers all current needs, and adequate inducement will provide that extra-effort on which the community depends for a reserve and a guaranty of continuity. It is no longer the crack of the whip upon which we must depend for the creation of reserves, nor the autocratically supported edicts of Joseph, but the inducement of adequate and unimpairable reward. If, however, through pernicious legislative enactments, we undertake to make the community responsible for the welfare of the idle individual, we have permitted a deplorable reduction in motive force; and if we cut down reward, or make it spurious, we have added to our error at the other end of the flow, checking that spontaneous effort, whether physical or mental, upon which democracy must depend.

With necessity and inducement unimpaired, we can then count on a normal flow of effort directly proportional to population.