Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/174

 that the resulting flow of effective effort, or value, may be set in motion and measured. At the outset, therefore, we are brought face to face with the need of a definite conception of value; and, also with the necessity of basic precision in regard to its limits, if we are interested in scientific measurement.

A satisfactory definition of economic value, then, must first be put forward; and this can be arrived at, possibly without controversy, by an examination of what we now desire in the way of a “measure of value.” Our present economic confusion is due to the fact that we have no such measure; but the protests which arise from all sides against our so-called “gold” dollar offer a pregnant clew to a very sound and very generally-held subconscious notion of economic value.

All of us—Labor or Capital, Producer or Consumer—protest in turn against our present aimless “measure of value” because it does not command at different times equal effort to the effort exerted to obtain it. Very briefly, our “measure of value” does not dominate total value which is made up, not only of goods, but also of services, facilities and order. On the contrary, the cost of goods, the cost of services and the cost of order each at some unexpected crisis dominates our futile measure of value, and entirely upsets our calculations.

Now order, facilities, services and material goods may be safely said to constitute the full product of effort in the medium of matter. Economic value, therefore, may be regarded as effective effort within a definite area—the relation that potential effort bears to resistance—whether reflected by goods, services, facilities or order. The effectiveness of such effort is obviously the value of its contribution to our freedom, so that economic value may be defined, without qualification, as individual freedom. This definition, owing to changed political conditions, is no longer treasonable, and may be acceptable; but it must be emphasized that if it should be accepted, then such value cannot conceivably be measured in terms of one partial and less-important product of effort, such as goods.

The fatal flaw in our present measure of economic value is its failure to dominate that total value which is made up of order, facilities, services and goods; and this significant flaw