Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/183

 from which the projection is made. What we do know, to our confusion, is that our elusive supply can disappear. At this juncture, our conservative gold-standardist joins hands with the warm-hearted radical who generously proposes to measure value in terms of consumption or demand, without any consideration of supply. However groomed, both conservative and radical are equally objectionable to the scientist.

For the sake of the unfortunate layman let us take another bearing on the problem of economic value. We know that all we are accustomed to think of as having value can only be made real by individual or joint effort and is only worth measuring in terms of its assurance or enhancement of human freedom. By effort we turn raw-material into multitudinous agents of freedom, thus giving it value and making much of it available for exchange. Some phases of freedom, or value, are inexchangeable, such as the good health arising from thorough mastication, or the enjoyment of a picture, as we can fortunately realize these for ourselves, without the intervention of any “entrepreneur” or labor-union: another phase of freedom, or value, namely that arising from good government, which we create jointly for joint-account, is also normally inexchangeable, though this is only because we have half-forgotten the conventions of brigands and emperors who realized the value of freedom and appraised it in terms of ransom and indemnity; and being “gold-standardists” and practical internationalists in good standing they demanded bullion as the measure of value, so that they might move away from a naturally unfriendly jurisdiction as quickly as possible.

The only reason these latter values do not appear to be “economic” in the ordinary sense, is that they are not directly exchangeable.

Economic value is logically due, therefore, to effective effort induced by the hope of freedom, within a zone of self-imposed order and, under democracy, can only be vitiated by undemocratic arbitraries. It is, however, equally important to realize that this value is definitely limited by measurable factors, since these provide the only conceivable means of scientific measure-