Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/121

 Because volume, density and time are our only measurable factors they are just as vital to the economist as they are to the engineer, as far as value is concerned; but we have been thrown off the track since the time of communal government when land was free and there was no effective confined pressure, and hence no means of measuring it, and, later, by the self-interest of the autocrat as he realized his dominance of effort through the control of area. So nearly omnipotent was this dominance that it was crystallized into divine-right and this was zealously taught to be a sacred institution. The means of measuring economic value were, at that stage, carefully kept out of our control and we were not invited by the king to help him in his empirical methods. Secure in his carefully fabricated divine right and knowing nothing about engineering, he tapped the economic pressure system with the aid of the royal dentist and the nearest Hebrew. When toothless Hebrews went into temporary retirement he issued alloyed tokens of royal demand crowns, sovereigns, etc., which we call money—and in this way extracted more painlessly the surplus supply created by extra-effort. This was also crystallized into divine-right, as Del Mar points out when he emphasizes the significance upon coins of the phrase “Dei gratia”—by the grace of God. Del Mar further quotes Hallam as stating “The right of debasing the coin was also claimed by this prince (Philip the Fair) as a choice flower of the crown.” Finding this method reasonably successful, the king might have exercised it in moderation for a long time, but owing to the queen’s insatiable appetite for bread and honey, he tried it too often and the royal tokens were notoriously debased. At this the king became confused and irritable, realizing that he had some responsibility as well as power. He disposed peevishly, for a consideration, of the privilege of coining arbitrary tokens of demand with which to absorb surplus effort; and, little as we may realize it, that privilege is today almost as childishly and unintelligently exercised as it was then. Owing to our neglect of land-area, population and time as factors capable of measuring the cost of