Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/123

 as best it may, with the hopeless problem of validating select portions of our interwoven credit in terms of a disintegrating unit of value based on imaginary ounces of gold.

Whatever certified value should be to set in motion advantageous effort these, at any rate, are things that it should not be.

The exertion of a useful effort in excess of present need is the first half of a transaction which can only be justly met by the return of an equally valuable service at some future time. Such a transaction should involve the transfer of a pledge of unimpairable economic value, otherwise it may well purchase much less under altered conditions, due to some sudden shift in the incidence of taxation, or to an incalculable increase in the number of tokens. Money should therefore be a pledge of effective measurable value, which is the full flow of effort, modified by the cost of order, and its redemption in value should not only be mathematically possible, but it should be unavoidable. This can only be provided for by basing it upon measurable factors which are fully comprehensive. The community has no control over gold, which we shamelessly boast is free, and no control of time and labor, which we also boast are free, nor of goods which ought to be free. It has proper political control of only one thing—land-area—which, because it is limited, can be rationally employed as the base of an unimpairable measure. Nothing but a lien on this, as modified by population and validated by the prepayment of taxes, is a scientific guaranty of deferred payment. It will be promptly recognized by the economic student that this most essential specification for the adequate remuneration of extra-effort brings us back to one of those delightful clearings in the economic jungle, where nearly all the economists have met and shaken hands in mutual congratulation. This is a specification of what money should be—a safe basis for deferred payment—but not, unfortunately, of what it is. What it is today nobody really knows. It appears to be an apologetic certification of a fraction of national value, governed positively by the amount of gold that international bullion-dealers find it convenient to leave within our boundaries, or advantageous to withdraw.