Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/119

 they could get one—and they had no fixed area factor, the amount of available land being more than they could use. Being conscious of no such thing as economic order, they naturally turned their minds to alchemy and astrology. A few of them went in for discreet schism to keep occupied. These founders of the Pessimist School of Economy had dark suspicions that the Magic-man’s formal factors of economic value—Labor and Luck—were prejudiced by the gratifying offerings at the altar. Nevertheless, it is obvious that one law of economics, of which we are apt to lose sight, was fully appreciated by our predecessors, namely, that the sum of total available negotiable goods is a perfectly satisfactory medium of exchange and measure of comparative value as long as time is ignored as an economic factor and there is no question of deferred payment. They all disregarded the factor of land in exactly the same way that we now disregard the factor of time.

As political boundaries were extended till they met and stood rigid, men became more and more conscious of land—overconscious of its fluctuating “value” and not sufficiently conscious of its unimpairable area; and it was only as these competing political boundaries drew breast to breast that this basic factor of area became available to the economist. At this point, extra-effort, being within fixed limits, could be measured and stored for future use, and the economic inducement to exercise foresight came cleanly into play, thus creating the necessity of a just basis for deferred payment, or, in other words, creating the necessity of devising a pledge of value which would be valid in time as well as area. But at this stage, when the factor of land-area might have been utilized, orderly freedom had not been dreamed of; and they were still hampered by the Magic-man’s pretended control of luck. During the confusion, the position of patriarch crystallized quietly into that of monarch, as the advantages of the control of this new and definite factor became very attractive both to the king and his family.

The king was in the counting house, Counting out his money,