Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/190

 logically in chaos. There is an illuminating example in regard to compound value in the eighteenth edition of “The Civil Engineers’ Pocket Book” known popularly as “Trautwine,” compiled in 1872 by John C. Trautwine, revised by John C. Trautwine, Jr., and by John C. Trautwine, 3rd,—but they were all engineers, not economists.



“As a further illustration, regard a b n c as a raft drifting in the direction c a or n b. A man on the raft walks with uniform velocity from corner n to corner c while the raft drifts (with a uniform velocity a little greater than that of the man) through the distance n b. Therefore, when the man reaches corner c, that corner has moved to the point which, when he started, was occupied by a. The man’s resultant motion, relatively to the bed of the river or to a point on shore, has therefore been n a. His motion at right angles to n a, due to his walking, is i c, but that due to the drifting of the raft is o b. These two are equal and opposite. Hence his resultant motion at right angles to n a is nothing; he does not move from the line n a. His walking moves him through a distance equal to n i, in the direction n a; and the drifting through a distance equal to i a, and the sum of these two is n a.”

Our simple one-dimension economic measure is too outrageously simple from a scientific point of view. In adopting autocracy’s measure of value and preserving primitive sim-