Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/157

 with our standards of value since one of the parties to any contract involving acreage would be ruined. But to the archaic international system of economic measurement we employ in democracy, we do not object. We permit private or alien interference with our “basis of value”; and to salve our consciences we give the victims of extended contracts our old clothes.

There are some very pretty problems involved in estimating the control-value of gold to the present owners. Shall we measure it by the havoc among the “bulls” or the “bears” (or both) caused by fluctuations in “value”—or shall we measure it by the alterations in the prices of bonds which are a title to dollars, or stocks which are a title to goods and services? The ritualist will again intervene at this point and say that these fluctuations have nothing to do with the gold-standard but are matters of over-production or under-production. Let us try to extend his horizon, for he is confusing cause and effect. General “over-production” is a classic myth: all it implies scientifically is maladjustment. We are witnessing the tragedy of frustrated economic flow, which, as history has repeatedly shown, is capable, if too long ignored, of transforming itself into exceedingly effective and uncontrollable physical motion: we call it revolt, and shudder. In mechanics we view it apprehensively as the heat arising from friction and hastily abate it by lubrication to prevent ruin. In the utilization of steam it is indicated on a gauge and eased before it blows the plant to pieces. In electricity it is light or heat or sudden death according to our previous experience. In that most subtle form of energy which we have so far attempted to measure—radio-activity—it is a benign fluorescence or that particularly nasty phase of disintegration which we call the “Becquerel burn.” If the ritualists would read either history or physics with perception, they would not worry about over-production, but they would worry a thousand times more about our habit of interposing an arbitrary barrier to exchange, and our zest for penalizing effort, thus frustrating effective demand.

What they call “over-production” is either due to our archaic system of taxing need and effort, thus cutting down the factor