Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/117

 the same basic factors. The impairment of our token of value during war was roughly balanced by the fact that some of those who controlled land-area in the presence of population could temporarily obtain, through increased rents, more effort than they expended for their land, so that part of the community apparently gained what another part lost, if we disregard the shock to general confidence. There is, however, a third interest still to be heard from which has always bided its time—that is the holders of massed gold, our imperial “basis of value,” who cannot only terrify holders of currency and those involved in extended credit, but can, through the strength of our delusions, in times of so-called depression, drive even the owner off his land.

The whole economic structure has been shaken and shifted, in the same manner but to a greater degree than formerly, with the result that many are financially bruised and ill-tempered; and there has been a deplorable tendency to impeach democracy as an institution, or to modify it in exceedingly dangerous ways.

The social organization, at the moment, is like a heavy-duty engine which has leaned far over on its rotting economic foundation sills. Instead of getting the foundations down to bedrock, we are shoring them up with a number of legislative timbers very subject to decay, foolishly satisfied for the moment, if we can only steady it, to accept the dangerous lack of level, the enormous friction developed by new factors of thrust and pressure and the appalling wastage of available effort.

It is easy to imagine some critic saying that guaranties against debasement are not possible to make; but it is very difficult to imagine such a critic contesting the desirability of them. Now it may not be a simple matter to comprehend that, since the advent of democracy, there are unimpairable national economic factors; but that is no reason for ignoring the thing as we do. It is not viciousness, though it has many of the aspects of viciousness. It arises because of our whole hazy notion in regard to the relation of effort to remuneration, of remuneration to money, of money to value, of value to freedom, and of freedom to order.

Our formula for currency is a