Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/164

 What is now advocated, for the sake of national economic freedom, is to take from gold and the title to gold, the disastrous control of value, and award this control to the holders of national area whose power and responsibility can be measured without personal appraisement—first taking care, how ever, that every citizen may be encouraged and permitted to achieve title to land-area, this happy jointure of sovereignty and responsibility.

To avoid any imputation of prejudice, it is safe to state that as far as the simple-minded holder of 1913 “gold” dollars is concerned, the havoc-value of gold was at least that disclosed by the index-numbers to which reference has been made. Two hundred and forty-three such “gold” dollars, expressed in terms of commodities, have dwindled in six years to the equivalent of one hundred similar dollars. However, the most distressing aspect of the matter is that we did not slide down a long, smooth chute designed to prevent breakage: we tumbled downstairs and have been bumped and bounced at every step; so that the havoc was not only directly proportionate to the total fall, but was increased in proportion to the number of steps—which is only another way of stating that the frequency of a vibration is more important than its amplitude or path.

When all is said, it seems fairly obvious that we have taken over into democracy a unit of arbitrary power which we apologetically attempt to mitigate and make serviceable as a unit of value.

As a scientific unit of value, our gold dollar beggars description. It not only suffers from an annual decline but, quite unlike any other scientific unit of value, it has spasms.